President Barack Obama during a meeting in the Oval Office. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Let me say again that I think the trifecta of scandals hovering around the White House warrant serious investigation and a credible probe of the facts.  And it remains unclear where that path will lead.

But as the summer fug settles over Washington DC, I think it’s increasingly clear that — barring new revelations — the political fall-out from the mess will be far less damaging than Republicans and conservatives hope.  Here are six reasons why.

1.  So far, it’s just not playing outside the I Hate Obama community.  Yes, these accusations are serious.  But most Americans don’t seem to be buying the conservative narrative that the jury is in and guilt has already been fixed.  Remember that we’ve been down this road before.  In the 1990s, Republicans thought they had a convincing scandal narrative that would permanently alienate voters from Bill Clinton.  From Whitewater to Lewinsky, they painted a portrait that, in the Rush-Limbaugh-sphere was utterly damning.  Americans didn’t buy it and Clinton had a successful second term.

2.  The Republican narrative is muddled.  There are two completely contradictory stories being told.  The first is that Mr. Obama is a quota candidate, a lazy guy elected for his blackness who has no real qualifications.  He is a bungler, who plays too much golf.   The second narrative is that he is a kind of Machiavellian “Chicago” style manipulator, a tyrannical figure who is using the engines of power to strip Americans of their freedom.  I sometimes hear conservatives make both claims in a single paragraph.  One charge might stick.  Both won’t.

3.  Republicans are letting the crazy show.  Remember back in 2012 when Mitt Romney was being creamed by that horrible video tape that showed him talking down the “47 percent”?  Barack Obama’s team went silent.  They let the story play out, knowing that when the torpedoes are in the water the best thing to do is stay out of the way and hope for a big explosion.  The GOP doesn’t have that kind of discipline.  There’s wild talk of impeachment.  On Fox News people are being compared to Adolph Hitler and Richard Nixon.  Local conservative activist Bob Schulz, from Queensbury, described the IRS as “the largest, most feared terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere,” in an interview with the Glens Falls Post Star.  That kind of stuff makes average Americans think this is just more culture war noise.

4.  Liberals got no place to go.  One reason these last couple of weeks have looked so bad for the White House — and this gets overlooked in a lot of the analysis — is that liberals are furious, too.  The MSNBC and Huffingtonpost chattering class has been frustrated with Obama for years and these scandals, especially the Justice Department’s AP probe, have opened the floodgates.  Which means that people who would normally be defending the president are slapping him around.  But barring ugly new disclosures, that won’t last.

5.  Obama is a tenth-round fighter.  People forget this over and over.  And over.  I hear from my liberal and my conservative friends the same idea, that this president flops or he concedes too early or he won’t get angry or he doesn’t know how to throw a punch.  Yes, this White House is cautious.  Clearly.  But it also has a record of beating down opponents slowly and steadily.  Ask Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Mitt Romney or the opponents of Obamacare or people who didn’t want gays in the military or the people who thought the Solyndra or the Fast and Furious accusations would stick.

6.  The economy is doing pretty well.  This is the biggy.  This is the firewall.  Republicans worked feverishly over the last half decade to convince Americans that this president couldn’t fix the economy and that he would bankrupt us along the way.  America is the next Greece!  But unemployment is down and the stock market is up, and that’s a big contrast with the situation in European countries that embraced austerity.  Meanwhile, the Federal budget deficit is plummeting — shrinking from 10% of GDP at the height of the recession to roughly 2% of GDP by 2015, according to a new Congressional study.  If those numbers keep up, it will be hard for the Republicans to get people excited about Benghazi or about the idea that Obama is a failed president.

So with Obama’s approval rating holding steady at 49%, here’s my prediction.

By mid-summer, barring another big shoe dropping, this round of scandal will be added to the massive pile of resentments that have built up among conservatives.

The right will see this as another “smoking gun” moment that the rest of America — all the “low information” voters — failed to grasp.

But as their 401ks and their home values and their job prospects perk upwards, the rest of the country will have moved on to barbecues and holidays and summer blockbuster movies.

300m below ground in a Timmins, Ontario mine. Photo: eskimo-jo, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Samples of old water from a mine in northern Ontario, generated news reports around the world this past week.

“Deep Canadian mine yields ancient water” says the BBC. “2.7-billion-year-old water may hold clues to life on Earth and Mars” says Zee news from India.

The age thing is apparently hard to nail down. Estimates range from 1 billion to the rounded-up higher number cited by the India report. The India headline also summarizes why scientists are excited.

Earth science is not my thing. Indeed, my response to some of the excitement is befuddlement: there’s a big difference between 1 billion and 2.6 billion. If scientists can’t tell which is what, what do they really know? Doesn’t water just cycle around and around? If so, what’s “new” water and what’s “old” water? Aren’t they really talking about water that was sealed away for a billion years? Wouldn’t the excitement be better called “isolated water”?

But that’s just me, being snippy. (Or finding fault with sloppy reporting?) Because this appears to be a big deal, full of exciting new possibilities.

And, actually, if you read the summary article in the journal Nature, it does call the samples being studied isolated water. Nature reports that geochemist Chris Ballentine as saying the mine samples were carefully captured without exposure to air.

The findings are “doubly interesting”, Ballentine says, because the fluid carries the ingredients necessary to support life. The isolated water supply, he says, provides “secluded biomes, ecosystems, in which life, you can speculate, might have even originated”. His colleagues are now working to establish whether the water does harbour life.

The findings may also have implications for life on Mars, Ballentine says, though he acknowledges that the idea is speculative. The surface of Mars once held water and its rocks are chemically no different from those on Earth, he says. “There is no reason to think the same interconnected fluids systems do not exist there.”

The technical article (from Nature) goes by this title: “Deep fracture fluids isolated in the crust since the Precambrian era“.

According to this Canadian report by Postmedia News science reporter Margaret Munro:

Miners drilling deep underground in northern Ontario have long known about the sparkling salty water.

It’s been bubbling out of the rocks beneath their feet since the 1880s, but no one really appreciated the significance — until now.

As Munro reports:

“This is the oldest (water) anybody has been able to pull out, and quite frankly, it changes the playing field,” says geologist Barbara Sherwood Lollar, at the University of Toronto, who co-led the team.

So, there you go. Really, really old/isolated water (from unassuming Timmins!) that could change how science understands early life on earth and (perhaps) on other planets.

This CBC summary article says team co-leader Lollar (which should perhaps be Sherwood Lollar?) will guest on CBC Radio One’s science program Quirks and Quarks Saturday, May 18th at noon.

US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. File Photo: Mark Kurtz

Ailsa Chang’s NPR profile of New York Senator — and former North Country congresswoman — Kirsten Gillibrand is getting panned on-line and apparently edited by NPR’s on-line crew.

Chang’s report cast Sen. Gillibrand as a soft-voiced woman, whose strength was demonstrated most poignantly by her courage during pregnancy.

Chang also notes that Gillibrand was once described as one of the “hottest” lawmakers in Washington.

All of this at a time when Sen. Gillibrand is taking the lead in opposing sexual assault and bias in the US military.

The coverage has drawn fierce criticism on-line.  Here’s a sample:

Wow, this story really takes me back to the 1970s … and not in a good way. I find the sexist language highly offensive: “girlie voice,” “petite, blond and perky,” “hottest member of the Senate,” indeed!

And another jab:

I am extremely shocked that this article even made it to this section of the website. This article is full of sexist garbage that really just minimizes Senator Gillibrand’s work. You would never hear about a male senator being described this way.

According to Jezebel.com, NPR significantly edited the piece after it was placed on-line, pointing out that “in the edited version of the piece, those descriptors [of Gillibrand] have been tapered down.”

The story still includes questions like this one, taken from Chang’s script:

Gillibrand essentially operates as a single mom during the work week because her husband’s job keeps him in New York City during the weekdays. Friends marvel at her multitasking skills — she manages to get home early nearly every night to cook her two sons dinner, get them bathed, read them books and put them to bed.  But is this woman the stuff presidential candidates are made of?

So what do you think?  Reasonable questions about a rising politician who happens to be a woman?  Or questions asked of a woman — and adjectives applied to a woman — that would never be applied to a male politician?

Photo: D Services

So I’m about to go on vacation for two weeks, during which time my In Box shoes will be capably filled by other NCPR newsies. Lots today from our newsroom, including: David Sommerstein puzzles out why low water levels on Lake Ontario mean high water levels on the St. Lawrence; people who live in and around Ogdensburg express major concerns about unemployment if the New York State Office of Mental Health closes the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center there; and an Adirondack company is looking into the possibility of developing a big resort on Loon Lake in Franklin County. And so much more!

Other excitement this morning came out of Canada, as an earthquake that started north of the border was felt by many in our region, including a couple people here in our office in Canton. The Watertown Daily Times reports that the earthquake reached a magnitude of 5.0 after originating northwest of Ottawa (others are saying the magnitude was 5.1 or 5.2.) An aftershock seems to have been felt at least as far down as Syracuse.

WWNY-TV is reporting that the St. Lawrence County jail is overcrowded. NCPR actually reported back in August of last year that the jail, which is just three years old, was already full. Things haven’t improved since then, with 29 inmates having to be housed in jails in Washington and Essex Counties, and some being double-celled. County Sheriff Kevin Wells told WWNY that the conditions are due to several factors, including more drug-related arrests and a backlog of probation department investigations of inmates. The jail’s official capacity is 164 inmates, but the state allows it to house 186 (as it’s currently doing) before it has to move some out.

A planned English school in Ogdensburg for international students is on hold, the Watertown Daily Times is reporting, because owner James Ma hasn’t yet been authorized to do everything he needs to do to get visas for his students. He told the paper there’s not a new opening date yet for the school.

And in the Lewis County village of Lyons Falls, the Valley Brook Drive-In theatre will be open for another season. At the risk of editorializing, I love drive-ins and I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. As the Watertown Daily Times reports today, Valley Brook owner Michael Dekin had been very concerned about whether his theatre would survive the transition to all-digital film distribution that’s been scheduled to take place in September.

This has been a worry for many small theatre owners in the North Country. But Valley Brook and other theatres that haven’t made the (very expensive) transition yet are being given a temporary reprieve, Dekin told the Times, apparently until at least the end of the calendar year. And, Dekin says, the price on the new equipment he’ll have to buy has come down, from about $100,000 to between $51,000 and $64,000.

Assemblyman Vito Lopez, speaking on a bill on the floor of the Assembly. Photo: New York Assembly

Big political news coming down the pike at the moment, as disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez is resigning (soon) and may well be expelled from the legislature. YNN’s Capital Tonight blog reports Lopez says he’ll resign in a month’s time, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver says (as do several others) that that’s not enough, and that a resolution to expel him will move forward. Lopez is accused of sexually harassing four legislative aides — the details were made public earlier this week in a report from the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

Political cartoonist Marquil’s comment on the Lopez scandal. More of Marquil’s work

However, just FYI, Lopez hasn’t said he’s resigning because of the icky allegations against him, which have been called “alarming” but seemingly don’t rise to the level of criminal. Rather, it’s because, as he’s already said, he’s running for New York’s City Council, which requires him to resign from the state Assembly. This from the Albany Times-Union, quoting a statement Lopez released just before noon today:

Because the citizens of my district voted me back into office last November by an overwhelming majority, I feel obligated to serve out this session of the Assembly. I therefore announce that as of June 20, 2013, the last day of the session, I resign my position…I expect to run a vigorous campaign on the issues facing the citizens of my community and hope to continue to serve them as a member of the City Council. I believe that the voters of the community should decide who should represent them.

Gov. Cuomo said earlier this week that Lopez should either quit or be expelled, and said that the Assembly’s handling of the situation has been “poor…and terribl[e]” (Silver’s office struck a confidential settlement with two other alleged Lopez staffers for more than $100,000 in taxpayer funds, a deal that some say allowed Lopez to continue his abuse of others.)

Can places like Mt. Baker help draw business and prosperity to villages like Saranac Lake? Photo: Brian Mann

I was talking yesterday with Saranac Lake Mayor Clyde Rabideau, who was unveiling his village’s new “6er” program, designed to convince people to come check out the cool little mountains that ring his community.

“I talk to people on the trail, which I often do and I ask them if they know about Saranac Lake and most of them don’t.  So this is a way to introduce Saranac Lake and our beautiful mountains to that community.”

That community is the small army of hikers and outdoorspeople — many of them affluent and willing to spend a few bucks while visiting the mountains — that flow out of Boston, Montreal, New York City and other population hubs each weekend.

The interesting thing here is that more and more local leaders seem to be embracing the idea mountains and hiking trails and paddling spots can be a draw and an economic lifeline.

When I first came to the Park a dozen or so years ago, I would often hear elected officials grousing about outdoorspeople.

The general assumption was that they didn’t spend much money or stop at local businesses.

These days, I hear a different sort of thinking:

The idea now is that the marketing needs to appeal to potential visitors and local businesses have to offer products and services that this kind of traveler wants to pay for.

Hikers and paddlers may not spend money in the same way as fishermen and snowmobilers, but they’re still good potential customers.

But getting that formula right, translating more trailheads and boat launches into local prosperity, clearly isn’t easy.

The modern Adirondacks is reaching the half-century mark and a lot of communities are still taking baby steps to try to integrate their marketing, and their business opportunities, with the wild lands and recreation opportunities that surround them.

So here’s my question:  Wherever you are in the Adirondacks, do you see the hiking, paddling, climbing and camping opportunities around you as an economic engine?

Are the public lands and open space that surround your community doing good things for local merchants and workers?  If not, why not?

And what about you folks who visit the Park?  Do you spend a few dollars when you pass through on your way to the trailhead?  Are you finding the services that you’re willing to crack your wallet for?

Comments, as always, welcome below.

Photo: Drake Goodman, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Hello hello hello! A lot from our newsroom this morning. Julie Grant reports on the ongoing questions about the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in Ogdensburg: At a forum yesterday at the center, Acting Director of the New York State Office of Mental Health Kristin Woodlock said the state’s moving away from inpatient care. It seems likely that at least some of New York’s 24 psychiatric hospitals will close; Woodlock says the state won’t be making announcements about which ones until early next week.

In Essex County, FEMA is granting about $3.5 million to buy out people whose homes were substantially damaged by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. A New York prosecutor says Assemblyman Vito Lopez’ alleged sexual harassment of several female staff members, while “alarming”, wasn’t a crime.

And if you love flea markets (I know I do!), you’ll be pleased to know that a third opened yesterday in the Canton-Potsdam area. This one’s in the old Jubilee Plaza off Main Street in Canton. Our own cub reporter-slash-intern Josh Cameron was there and filed a lovely Heard Up North.

In other news today, the co-chairs of the North Country Regional Economic Development Council were in Albany yesterday for the beginning of the next round of competition for economic development funding from the state. As North Country Now reports, our region’s done well in the first two rounds of REDC giving, with almost $200 million going to the region for various economic development projects.

And in the world of leisure, in preparation for this summer’s Bassmaster Elite Series Evan Williams Bourbon Showdown August 8-11 in Waddington (and breathe…), the St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce is holding a couple informational sessions:

On June 4, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. at the community room at Potsdam town Hall, people interested in going to the tournament, sponsoring, vending, advertising, or volunteering can find out more about that (RSVP at (315) 274-9000). On June 12 at the community room in the Village of Potsdam, a marketing specialist will lead a three-hour session (starting at 1 p.m.) called “The Business of Bassmaster,” for business owners who’ll be dealing with visiting anglers. That class is limited to 25 people, and it’s free. Register at (315) 386-4000.

President Barack Obama faces the first serious scandals of his presidency.  Are they the right scandals? Image: Video still from whitehouse.gov

I’ve been as captivated as anyone by the sudden burgeoning of scandal in Washington.

Until this month, the Obama administration seemed to skate almost effortlessly above the morass that eventually sucks up most White Houses, from Richard Nixon’s Watergate to Ronald Reagan’s Iran Contra to Bill Clinton’s Whitewater-Lewinski mess.

Those accusations that did get lobbed at Mr. Obama — from Solyndra to death panels to the Fast and Furious probe — were often more politics than substance.  They just didn’t seem to resonate outside the AM talk radio culture on the right.

But now we have a little bit of blood in the water for everyone to target.

Liberals are furious about the Justice Department’s probe of Associated Press reporters — a probe that included tapping phone records and monitoring contacts with sources.

Conservatives are furious about Benghazi, which involved a deadly security lapse in Libya that left four US officials dead.  The White House’s handling of the attack was, at the very least, muddled and unfocused.

When a fuming Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein is demanding answers from a Democratic president, you know it’s not pretty.

Finally, there’s the scandal that everybody wants a piece of — the IRS’s probe of conservative (and apparently, also, liberal) groups to determine whether their political activity violated their tax status.

Mr. Obama has acknowledged that the behavior was outrageous and has forced out a top official, but this one is likely to percolate through the summer.

So as we wade into the pool of muck that Washington DC loves to create for itself, I thought it would be good to highlight five other scandals that probably should be getting talked about — around the watercooler, if not in congressional hearings.

1.  The epidemic of rape and sexual abuse in the US armed forces.  This is making headlines and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is making noises about re-educating service members.  But some lawmakers, including New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, think we need a more major overhaul of the military’s justice system.  In the House, the response has been more ho-hum.  “The House Armed Services Committee hearing into the scandal was sparsely attended and top military officials left before victims’ testimony,” reported NPR’s Here & Now.

2.  US drone attacks on civilians around the world.  Yes, unmanned drones have killed top Al Quaeda leaders and are a potent weapon.  But they’re also killing a lot of civilians (roughly a thousand by conservative estimates, including as many as 200 children) and four US citizens have been killed by drone strike without a trial or any kind of legal process.  “Farmers are on their way to tend their crops when a missile slams into their midst, thrusting shrapnel in all directions,” reported CNN.  “A CIA drone, flying so high that the farmers can’t see it, has killed most of them.”  If a foreign military or spy plane were operating over our air space, blowing up our farmers, I think we would at the very least want a big public discussion about it.

3.  The Great African American Depression.   The overall unemployment rate in the US is on the mend, dropping to 7.5%.  But the truth is that for whites joblessness is a comfortable 6.1%, while for blacks it’s a community-ravaging 13.2%.  That’s just about exactly the same unemployment rate as in 1937, during the Great Depression.  Blacks are most likely to be stuck in long-term unemployment.  One liberal group found that the unemployment rate for young black men who don’t finish high school tops 50%.  “This is an emergency, this is a catastrophe [but Washington is] not rating it as a catastrophe,” said the report’s editor, Craig Gurian, in an interview with conservative news site The Daily Caller.  Seems like someone should be grilling the White House about this.

4.  Guantanamo Bay.  The US is holding roughly 166 people in our detention center in Cuba.  No one is suggesting that high profile terror suspects be released.  But by some estimates as many as half of the detainees have been cleared for release by US intelligence and military agencies.  To be clear, none of these inmates have received any kind of independent judicial process.  Yet even the national security personnel in charge of their fates have determined that they should be let go.  Yet the Obama administration, which promised to fix this mess, continues to hold them, without trial or due process or much explanation.  Imagine how we would feel if a foreign country decided to hold more than a hundred of our citizens indefinitely, even after their own officials had determined that there was no valid reason to do so?

So there’s my back-of-the-napkin list of other things I’d like to see the White House press corps shouting about next time they gather with administration spokesman Jay Carney.

Yes, let’s get some answers on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP phone taps.

But let’s also talk about some of these other issues that raise equally troubling questions about foreign policy judgment, civil liberties and economic fairness.

How about you?  When you think “scandal in Washington” what are the issues that you think should be at the top of the list?  Climate change?  Gun control?  Abortion?  Chime in below.

New York State Office of Mental Health Acting Commissioner Kristin Woodlock and her team listening to speakers from the North Country at today’s meeting at the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in Ogdensburg. Photo: Julie Grant

Reporter Julie Grant was in Ogdensburg today at a meeting at St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center about its future. Julie’s working on a story for tomorrow morning’s 8 O’clock Hour, but she took a moment out to give me some information about what went on (here’s the Watertown Daily Times’ coverage of today’s meeting, FYI.)

The meeting was “a packed house” — Julie was told at the door that 302 people had registered to attend, and more had shown up. At the meeting, Kristin Woodlock, acting commissioner of the New York State Office of Mental Health, talked about how New York’s health care system is moving toward a “managed care” model, and behavioral health has to move along with it.

She said right now New York has 24 psychiatric hospitals, which is many more than average (for comparison’s sake, Texas has eight, California has five, and New Jersey has four.) She said our state has to move toward that model with less inpatient and more community-based care (questions about quality of care were raised here.)

OMH has said (and Woodlock repeated) that it’s working at creating what are called “Regional Centers of Excellence”, which “emphasiz[e] outpatient care over more costly inpatient treatment [and] could result in some psychiatric hospital closures.”

North Country leaders including State Sen. Patty Ritchie and Assemblywoman Addie Russell were at the meeting, making arguments that the center should stay open not only because it provides more than 500 jobs, but because people who need treatment can’t always travel, say, to Syracuse, for mental health care, and in an inpatient situation it’s tough for family and friends to visit them.

The state expects to decide as soon as next week which mental health hospitals it’s going to close. Again, Julie will have more in the morning on this story, and we’ll be following it as it moves forward.

Hartwells Lock #10, Rideau Canal. Photo: D. Gordon E. Robertson, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

As boaters get back in the water, here’s an update on proposed changes for the use of historic canal systems in Ontario, including the regionally-significant Rideau Canal.

According to statements from Environment Minister Peter Kent and this Parks Canada press release, there will be no fee hikes for at least three years, but lock services will be reduced.

Here’s more from a Canadian Press report, carried by the CBC.

“In order to support the government in its deficit reducing efforts, the hours of operation throughout the navigation season will be reduced, offering between seven and nine hours of service per day, aligned with demand,” Parks Canada said in response to a media inquiry Tuesday.

The government will now provide “upon arrival services” at locks, meaning a reduced canal staff will drive from lock to lock in an effort to keep up with boating traffic moving through the system.

Leeds-Grenville MP Gord Brown was one of the area politicians who worked to avert fee hikes. According to the Eastern Ontario Network, Brown had this to say in a press release dated 5/15:

“I and my colleagues have been working long and hard on this issue and I am happy to announce that our request for consultation on the future of the canal has been answered,” he says.

“This will give us all time to take a long look at what we can do to improve the canal.”

The problem, as usual, is money.

Parks Canada is charged with operating the historic canal systems, but that agency says they only recovers about 10% of actual costs from user fees.

One parliamentary proposal reportedly under consideration is to removed canal operation from Parks Canada into some new, independent agency.

Photo: Linnea Nordström, from the Arctic Council’s Kiruna, Sweden meeting press kit

Canada and the U.S. are among the small number of nations that directly border the Arctic region. It’s a short list of just eight that includes Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.

World-wide interest over the transportation and resource potential of the Arctic is growing by leaps and bounds. The stakes are high – especially for the area’s ecological health and actual inhabitants of that cross-border region.

So here’s a round-up of news related to something called the Arctic Council, the body that tries to set and regulate policy for the Arctic.

This week, leaders from many nations will gather in Kiruna, Sweden for an  important session of the Arctic Council. The council’s rotating leadership will pass from Sweden to Canada.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend. The New York Times published two op-ed this week about why the subject matters. The first “Northern Beacon” was penned by Sweden’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, who says:

…when the Arctic Council meets in Kiruna in northern Sweden in the next few days, it is a rare example of a framework set up to deal with events well before they really start to happen, thus making it possible to shape events rather than reacting to things that have already gone wrong.

The second op-ed “Hands Across the Melting Ice” was written by a trio of Arctic experts who caution that Wednesday’s “ministerial meeting of the council in Sweden will face urgent issues dealing with the environment, shipping and governance.”

Science Daily says a main concern is the fragile region’s vulnerability to spills or other ecological upsets.

This Toronto Star article “Canada to take helm of Arctic Council beginning Wednesday” discusses the internal and external implications of Canada returning to a 2-year revolving post last held back in 1998. According to the Star:

Leona Aglukkaq, Harper’s minister in charge of northern economic development, did not respond to an interview request. But she told The Canadian Press that Ottawa’s focus on development — including the creation of an arctic business forum — won’t distract from other priorities.

British Columbia based Tyee had more on this topic “Business to have role in Arctic debates, says Aglukkaq”

Aglukkaq — an Inuk from Gjoa Haven, Nunavut — said it’s time the council addressed the immediate concerns of northerners.

“We can do science and research but if we’re going to make fully informed decisions we have to ask industry how are we doing? I feel we have to close that gap.”

The resource rush is already changing many Arctic communities.

Writing about “Arctic Council heads to Kiruna next week” the Norway-based Barents Observer says the northern Swedish town of Kiruna exemplifies some of these forces of change: resource extraction, toursim and the needs of traditional people.

Today, the underground mine in Kiruna—the largest of its kind in the world—produces about 76,000 tons of ore every day, according to the LKAB website. Or, enough to fill up a 12-story building.

But Kiruna is becoming increasingly well known for more than what it digs out of the ground. It neighbours the Esrange Space Centre, a rocket range and research centre. It has a healthy tourism industry and well known hotels. It’s driving distance to several protected areas, including Abisko national park. And of course, the area it occupies is part of the traditional home of the Sami people, who have raised major concerns about the impact of increased activity—iron mining in particular—on the grazing range of the reindeer they depend on.

According to the UK’s Guardian a key question being discussed is “…whether to allow 14 countries including China and India as well as the European Union a say in deciding the future of the region by granting them observer status in the Arctic Council”.

 The article describe the debate thusly:

Nordic countries would like to internationalise the Arctic; Russia and Canada, which control more territory in the region, are opposed. Obama, it turns out, may still be on the fence.

Looking for what I’ll call local views on the Council’s summit this week, I found this from Nunatsiaq on line:

[MLAs = Members of the Legislative Assembly]

Nunavut MLAs say they don’t want the Arctic Council to admit the European Union into their international forum as an observer and they want Canada to “firmly, publicly and vigorously oppose the European Union’s application for permanent observer status at the Arctic Council.”

The EU’s ban on things like seal pelts is unpopular in Canadian native and northern communities. Here’s more on that:

The EU ban on seal products, which came into effect Aug. 20, 2010, offers an exemption to furs hunted traditionally by Inuit from Canada and Greenland, but bars them from large-scale commerce in skins, oils or meat in its member nations. It’s still not clear how this exemption would work and if any producers in Canada or Greenland will ever use it.

Hudson Bay MLA Alan Rumbolt said that because of the seal products ban, people in Sanikiluaq are having trouble providing for their families, and he commended his colleagues for standing up and supporting the May 9 motion asking for the EU to be denied observer status at the Arctic Council.

Major changes have already come to the Arctic with more on the way. The shape of future change will largely be decided through decisions made by the Arctic Council.

By the way, if you are deeply interested in this week’s sessions in Kiruna, some of them will be streamed on line, including the main May 15th session.

Photo: Eric Parker, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

This morning on our news page, Brian Mann asks a really important question in a story that’s part of our Prison Time Media Project: Since prisons are one of our biggest industries in the North Country, why aren’t they a bigger part of our conversation about economic development?

In Albany, legislators say the parade of scandal that’s been going on isn’t overshadowing their lawmaking activities – they say they’re still working on farmworker rights, electricity in Long Island, the Dream Act, and making changes to New York City’s controversial Stop and Frisk law.

What are the potential health impacts of the expansion of casino gambling Gov. Cuomo’s been talking so much about? Interesting stuff.

And many in the North Country are breathing a sigh of relief that the United States government isn’t moving forward with a border crossing fee from Canada they’d been considering.

Elsewhere in the news world, in advance of the New York State Office of Mental Health’s forum on its plans for the state’s inpatient psychiatric centers in Ogdensburg tomorrow morning, The Ogdensburg City Council passed a resolution last night supporting the continued operation of the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center there (here’s the full story, from the Watertown Daily Times.) NCPR’s Julie Grant will be at that meeting, so we’ll have more on that.

The City Council’s resolution argues that the loss of the center (which employs 520 people) will represent an economic hardship for the area, and a hardship for people needing treatment who’d have to travel outside the area to get it. The next closest Psychiatric Centers are in Syracuse and Utica.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office has announced the recipients of $26,000  $260,000 in awards to FreshConnect farmers markets, the goal of which is to bring food from New York farmers to communities across the state that don’t have access to good fresh food (read the full release here.) Several of our regional organizations will benefit: GardenShare, Inc., in Canton, will get a total of $14,972 for two projects; the Greater Watertown-North Country Chamber of Commerce will get $10,000; and Lewis County General Hospital Farmers Market will get $10,000.

And in the world of things that are adorable, the Watertown Daily Times is reporting that Fort Drum’s 8th Military Working Dog Detachment has been named the best military dog unit in the Army. This is the first time this award’s been presented. Woof!

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testify at at a Senate hearing on Benghazi in February 2013. Photo: Office of the Secretary of Defense, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Let me outline what we know so far about the attacks on US embassy staff last September that led to the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

First, it’s a big deal. There are strong indications — and the US State Department’s own internal review concludes as much — that security for US personnel in Libya was lax and requests for additional protection were bungled.

“Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department (the “Department”)resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” that report concluded.

We also know conclusively that in the hours and days after the attack, the Obama administration worked aggressively to contain political fall-out from the attack, which occurred in the final months of the 2012 presidential campaign.

A former State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, sent an email arguing for changes to official talking points, arguing that the original language would “be abused by members of Congress to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why would we want to seed the Hill.”

It also appears that probes of the Benghazi attacks carried out so far left some significant questions unanswered. There is a strong and reasonable argument to be made for further investigation, despite protestations from some on the left.

We absolutely need to know who was responsible for that lax security and, if the military response following the attacks was less robust and aggressive than it might have been, why that happened.

At the same time, we very much need congressional leaders — who are serving a vital oversight role — to place enormous daylight between themselves and the crazy anti-Obama fringe that exists on the right. So far that hasn’t occurred.

Senior Republican officials and lawmakers have compared what happened in the days following Benghazi to Watergate and to the Iran-Contra Scandal, and suggested that it might be grounds for impeachment of Barack Obama.

They’ve begun fundraising on the issue, launched political advertisements and dialed Fox News’ 24/7 agitprop machine up to 11.

This isn’t just AM talk radio nonsense.

It’s a dangerous distraction from Congress’s constitutional duty to provide a check on and a degree of transparency into the workings of the executive branch.

It may well be that the Obama administration deserves some significant level of condemnation for what happened in Libya. But if this devolves into another Whitewater-style-stained-blue-dress political witch hunt, it will be disastrous.

Fortunately, there are indications that House Speaker John Boehner is taking a personal leadership role in this matter. That’s a good thing.

He should make it clear that this isn’t a fundraising opportunity, or a chance to give Mr. Obama a black eye. It’s not an opening to establish solidarity with far-right tea-partiers, as Politico suggested.

It’s certainly not a way to distract the public’s attention from the GOP’s own struggles and shortcomings.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party entered this moment in history with a major credibility problem. There have been too many crazy conspiracy theories and end-times exaggerations.

Conservatives have shouted fire in our national movie theater so many times since Mr. Obama came to office — and been factually wrong so many times — that they have a serious task ahead establishing their own gravitas.

If the nation hopes to reach any kind of meaningful outcome, the rhetoric needs to be dialed down and a great deal more objective, factual evidence is needed.

Republicans like to claim that where foreign policy is concerned, they’re the grownups in the room. This is an opportunity for them to prove it by providing a clear-eyed, sober assessment of what happened and why.

Photo: Everjean, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Happy Monday! Sure, it’s cold and grey (at least here in Canton), but perhaps a lovely glass of North Country wine would help? David Sommerstein reports today on the growing industry (hearty grapes, people!), centered in Clinton County.

We went to John Brown day this weekend and asked people there what freedom means to them.

And in the Adirondack Park, the APA has voted to host a series of public meetings on what to do with the former Finch, Pruyn, and Co. timberlands the state’s acquired. That could range from mostly wilderness (no motorized vehicles) to wild forest, which is more accessible for people and recreation.

Up in Massena, the Watertown Daily Times is reporting that Alcoa is planning on storing 109,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment at a landfill on the Alcoa West plant site. That’s the sediment it’s dredging from the banks of the Grasse River as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved plan to clean up the Grasse River Superfund Site.

Some, in particular residents of the very nearby Akwesasne Mohawk Nation Territory, have expressed concerns that storing the contaminated sediment so close by could compromise the effectiveness of the cleanup — the paper reported they raised the former GM site (also a Superfund site) as an example of what can happen when contaminated materials are disposed of “carelessly” in an area that’s already suffered from PCB exposure as have both of those. But tribal environmental division Director Ken Jock said this facility is much safer, and is “basically the state-of-the-art, best way of dealing with PCBs at the moment.” He said there’s a big difference between the two sites. So we’ll see what happens there.

And on a less sediment-y note, the WDT is also reporting today that Jefferson and Lewis Counties will get a combined $1.1 million to cover costs associated with emergency call centers (that’s 911 to you and me.) Jefferson County’s getting $295,523; Lewis, $808,615. The grants, which come through the state Division of Homeland Security (huh!), is part of a plan to improve the state’s emergency communication network, and help local governments work together on said communications.

The Canadian lobster boat “Benevolence” and a stack of traps at low tide. Lobster prices are also ebbing. Photo: Karen Morris, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

According to press reports out of Atlantic Canada, this has been a bumper season for lobster.

One reason may be a robust grey seal population, as discussed in this Chronicle Herald business write-up out of Nova Scotia:

And the glut of lobster may be due to the fact the lobsters’ predators — cod, pollock and cusk — have been nearly devastated by hungry grey seals.

Groundfish eat lobster larvae and were big factors in keeping the lobster population in check, said Marc Surette, executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association.

With fewer lobster larvae loving fish, more lobster survived infancy, resulting in catches this year that saw some boats steaming into port with lobster piled on their decks because the crew had run out of crates.

This is one of those good news/bad news cycles. While one might think a bumper lobster harvest is good (healthy stocks) it’s been bad for lobster fishermen & women.

In a separate Herald news report, the price for lobster has fallen so low that a mass protest was held on Thursday, the largest such protest  in recent memory.

In total, about 1,000 Nova Scotia boats from along the Northumberland Strait, Gulf of St. Lawrence coast and Eastern Shore refused to leave the wharf in order to protest prices that have dropped to $3.75 per pound for canners (small lobster) and $4.25 per pound for market lobsters.

In Prince Edward Island, where prices have dropped further to nearly $3 a pound, the spring lobster fleet, composed of about 1,000 boats, also stayed tied up to the wharf.

About 250 fishermen from along the Northumberland Strait gathered at the wharf in Caribou, Pictou County, for an open-air meeting.

Some boat operators say they’ll be holding out for $5 a pound and will try sell directly to consumers to net the higher price. But those options may be limited. CTV news has more on the same story, including a video report and interview with PEI Fisherman’s Associatin president Mike McGeoghegan.

I’m not fond of lobster and have no idea if the better harvest has shown up in the form of lower prices for consumers outside of Atlantic Canada. Have you seen price changes?

Meanwhile, from what I read, Maine produces 80% of lobsters consumed in the US market, so how is the Maine lobster situation looking this year?

According to this CBC report, there are concerns that warm ocean temperatures will produce an early harvest which could also glut the market. The article (written from the Canadian perspective) goes on to say:

Fishermen don’t want to see a recurrence of last year, when the strong early catch caused prices to plummet and tensions to boil over when Canadian lobstermen, angered by the low prices, blocked truckloads of Maine’s catch from being delivered to processing plants in Canada.

Phew! It sounds pretty challenging.

Like to drive five screens from your Macbook? Canada is looking for a few interactive media developers. Software engineers?–not so much. Photo: Julien Meddah, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Need work? Got skills? Willing to try life in Canada?

Well, Canada’s federal government has opened a skilled labor program for  “…to 24 eligible occupations, in addition to applicants with a qualifying job offer or those applying under the PhD stream“.

According to this government website Federal Skilled Workers

are chosen as permanent residents based on their ability to settle in Canada and take part in our economy. We assess them on their:

* English and/or French skills,

* education,

* work experience, and

* other factors that have been shown to help them prosper in Canada.

Categories of skills sought include: many types of engineers, land surveyors, various medical specialists and industrial technicians or mechanics. Computer engineers, programmers and “interactive media developers” are wanted, but not software engineers or designers. For all that it’s a long long list, it’s still not one that includes most unemployed workers.

There is some debate within Canada as to whether a skilled labor shortage exists or not. The headline of this  April 11 Canadian Press story called evidence for such a gap “skimpy and selective”. The article quoted critics who wondered if such programs might suppress wages for Canadians who already have the targeted skills, or would be happy to acquire them.

The question of labor shortages come amidst headlines back in early April over a program that replaced employed Canadians with imported temporary foreign workers at Canada’s largest bank. (Rules for foreign temporary workers are reportedly being tightened in response to that incident, which left some bank officials and even the Prime Minister clarifying their positions in the wake of negative public reaction.)

Meanwhile, this May 7th article from Canada.com titled “How Canada is winning the race in recruiting skilled immigrants while the U.S. lags behind” describes one instance of an Atlanta-area mechanic, Paul Thomas, who liked what he heard and saw:

The recruiter sent Thomas an e-mail loaded with video links describing the company, the owner’s charity projects and the city of Prince George, dubbed the “Northern Capital” of British Columbia. “My wife and I were excited,” Thomas, 45, said. “Auto mechanics don’t get approached by recruiters, so it was sort of nice being catered to.”

The dealership, specializing in heavy-duty trucks, paid for him to visit the area. He was hired last March under a skilled worker program and in a month had a work permit. With a contract paying up to $100,000 a year and government-provided health care, a job in Canada was like “I scratched a lottery ticket,” he said.

According to this 2010 New York Times article on Canada’s selective hunt for new citizens:

…there is no such thing in Canada as an anti-immigrant politician. Few nations take more immigrants per capita, and perhaps none with less fuss.

In the case of this particular program, if you have the skills, the interest and are willing to relocate, it would be prudent to proceed quickly. The program is capped at just 5,000 applicants between now and April 30 2014, and will only take 300 in each priority occupation.

And now a question for both Canadians and Americans: do you think attracting immigrants with specific skills a good strategy for employers and national economies? Or is it better (preferable?) to train existing citizens and fill sector gaps by hiring from within?

Paul Schaefer shaped the Adirondack landscape. Should a chunk of it be named after him? (Photo by Paul Grondahl, courtesy of Adirondack Wild)

UPDATE:  No environmental activist has suggested that a wilderness or Adirondack land parcel be named after themselves personally.  The text below has been corrected to clarify this point.

This week, a group called Adirondack Wild unveiled a proposal to name a big chunk of the former Finch Pruyn timberlands after celebrated environmentalist Paul Schaefer.

“There is no one so closely associated with protection of the wild Upper Hudson River, and the Park’s wild river system as Paul Schaefer,” said Dan Plumley, co-founder of the group.

“With these magnificent new acquisitions watered and bordered by wild, free flowing rivers, the time has come to name a substantial wilderness in Paul’s honor.”

Schaefer was a ground-breaking environmental activist, who fought against plans to construct a major complex of dams that would have reshaped the Adirondacks, taming some of its wildest rivers and likely displacing some communities.

He passed away in 1996.

This idea of honoring a Park environmentalist with a chunk of wilderness named after him isn’t new.

The Adirondack Council and others have proposed naming a big swath of the western and northern Adirondacks after Bob Marshall.

Marshall was a seasonal resident of the Park who helped to popularize the idea of the 46 High Peaks and he co-founded the Wilderness Society.  He passed away in 1939.

The group has even taken to calling the area The Bob Marshall Wild Lands Complex and issued a map that gathers towns, villages, chunks of public and private land under the moniker that they decided unilaterally that it should bear.

“Now is the opportunity to honor the legacy of Bob Marshall by preserving this wilderness jewel as a gift from our generation to posterity,” the group argued.

I think it’s fair to say that no one can question the impact of these two men, or of a number of other prominent environmentalists who have devoted their lives to protecting land and ecosystems inside the blue line.

But I wonder about the optics of green groups trying to protect these chunks of land, lobbying for the most restrictive land-use classification (in opposition to the views of many locals) and then lobbying to hang  the names of their mentors and inspirations above the door.

In this case, members of Adirondack Wild are proposing to name a wilderness area after an individual with whom they have had longstanding personal and professional ties.

“[Schaefer] was my early mentor in all things Adirondack. In 1987 I was fortunate to have been selected executive director of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, the organization Paul served as a Vice-President,” Adirondack Wild co-founder Dave Gibson wrote in the Adirondack Almanack in 2010.

Is there just a slight whiff of Mount Rushmorism here?

The simple truth is that the goals and ideals of these men have often run contrary to the values of local residents and community leaders who live in the areas most directly affected by these proposed wilderness designations.

It’s one thing to lose a bitter political fight over how the land in your back yard should be managed.  But then to have “your” area named after one of the leaders of the opposing faction?  That’s tough medicine.

I also wonder if there aren’t other folks, including elected officials, who might be in line before Schaefer and Marshall — men who had an arguably much larger and more lasting impact on the Park and its history.

Teddy Roosevelt?  Nelson Rockefeller?  George Pataki?  All three are former state governors who either learned from or reshaped the Adirondacks in profound ways, while leaving an unquestionably important environmental legacy.

Or how about naming an Adirondack wild lands parcel after William Wheeler, the famously honest Malone attorney and congressman who later served as Franklin County prosecutor and then as vice president of the United States?

What about naming a chunk of land after a powerfully influential local leader?  A Ron Stafford Wild Forest?  A George Canon Intensive Use Area?

Finally, what about the guys whose names are already identified with a big chunk of this property?  Jeremiah and Daniel Finch and Samuel Pruyn had a particularly long and historical impact on the Park lands that they owned and stewarded.

They created some of the most interesting works of architecture in the North Country, bankrolled landmark institutions that endure today, and set an early standard for environmentally sound forestry.

I’m not suggesting that no wild lands in the Park should ever be named after a green activist.  And my comments here don’t reflect my personal views about these men or their contributions.

(Having grown up in Alaska, and trekked in the Brooks Range, a well-worn copy of Marshall’s “Exploring the Central Brooks Range” has a place of pride on my book shelf.)

But names and the process of naming are important things.

It seems like before people start hanging their banners or putting names on maps, maybe a conversation is in order between environmental groups, state officials, and the folks who live in these areas.

Photo: Government Press Office, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Happy Friday! As we’re fond of saying here at NCPR, it’s the best day of the workweek. Today for your delectation from the newsroom we have some great stories. Julie Grant has reported extensively on the troubles EJ Noble hospital’s had over the last year or so, and this week she’s had two stories updating the situation now that the hospital has reopened and reorganized. In the first she reported on the hospital’s efforts to get patients to return; and today she’s reporting on how people in the tiny Adirondack village of Harrisville are dealing with the hospital’s closure of one of the its rural clinics there.

David Sommerstein has a very springlike Heard Up North today on a “Gentleman’s Runabout” in the Thousand Islands; and Brian Mann and Todd Moe worked together on a really fascinating treatment of an oratorio celebrating an als0-really-fascinating chapter in Adirondack history: the Timbuctoo colony of freed slaves near Lake Placid.

So what else is going on? Well, North Country Now is reporting that North Country Assemblywoman Addie Russell has voted to establish task force to combat human trafficking (here’s David Sommerstein’s recent piece on human trafficking in New York state.)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that he wants to build three new casinos upstate, but that announcement comes with a caveat for Native casinos, including the just-expanded Akwesasne Mohawk Casino in Hogansburg (more from Your News Now on the expansion.) WWNY-TV reports the governor’s saying if the state’s Native casinos don’t reach agreements with the state in coming months, they could be facing competition from non-Native casinos. Apparently if the tribes’ agreements with the state are “in good standing”, new casino rules won’t look to put new casinos near them; but if that’s not the case they may try to site new casinos near Native casinos. The issues at hand are things like revenue sharing with the state.

And if you’re a farmers market vendor, GardenShare and Cornell Cooperative Extension have some information for you. They’ll be hosting a free training webinar next Wednesday at the Potsdam Public Library computer center for vendors in St. Lawrence County who want to be able to accept WIC checks this season at the market. Executive Director Aviva Gold said in a statement quoted in North Country Now that given the number of women who receive WIC services in the county, “this is a substantial income opportunity for our local farmers.” You can reserve a spot by emailing office@gardenshare.org.

Photo: Sakshi Sharma, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Just after Essex County legislators passed an earlier closing time for bars there 15-1, Warren County has rejected a similar measure in a close vote by a county Board of Supervisors committee, the Glens Falls Post-Star reports. This topic has been debated for some time in the county legislature, as a response to a crime problem in Glens Falls that many felt would be ameliorated by earlier closing times.

As in Essex County, Warren County’s bars are open until 4 a.m.; an earlier proposal would have had them close at 2 a.m., but the one the committee rejected Wednesday would have had them closing at 3 a.m.

Instead of an earlier closing time, supervisors who voted against the proposal said they’d like to see the county offer Glens Falls a beefed up police presence (on the other hand, some said such a presence could be a negative for business and summer tourism.)

Others said making changes that affect all the bars in the county isn’t the answer to a crime problem that’s mostly in the South Street area of Glens Falls, and that earlier closing times could, again, hurt tourism.

County Sheriff Bud York told the paper that his office can provide help if it’s asked, but that someone’s going to have to pay for the overtime such help would entail.

Party on!

Photo: Garry Knight, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Lots going on today. Some of what we’ve been covering in the newsroom:

Vermont has just become the sixth state to grant driver’s licenses to migrant workers — Sarah Harris has a great story today on how some local farmers, and migrant workers, are feeling about the new law.

In the ongoing corruption scandal that’s rocking New York state these days (in a slow but horrifying kind of way), nine more senators have been named as potentially involved in various kinds of graft. Interestingly, this information has come via a wire that convicted ex-senator Shirley Huntley (also corruption) wore at the request of prosecutors back in 2012.

Unnerved by all this? Well, try not to run over a deer. The Thruway Authority and state police Troop T have issued their semi-annual “antler alert” to remind people that deer are quite active in May and June, and may be showing up suddenly right in front of you as you’re driving, unsuspecting, down the road. Suspect the deer. SUSPECT THEM.

And Essex County’s new bar closure rules are raising some questions about, interestingly, the separation of church and state.

Elsewhere in our region, the St. Lawrence County District Attorney’s office is losing to assistant prosecutors, WWNY-TV reports. Amanda Nissen, who just finished prosecuting three Ogdensburg men for murder, will leave for a job with the state Police Counsel’s office. Jonathan Becker will be moving to Otsego County to work as an attorney. The DA’s office is expecting to replace both, although a county hiring freeze means they’ll have to get approval.

And a controversial halfway house in downtown Potsdam isn’t being built quite yet: New Hope Transformation Ministries, which plans to build the house, is still looking for funding to build on a Market Street lot (story from the Watertown Daily Times.) The house, the paper reports,

would provide a temporary home for women recovering from drug addiction. Those who have completed a rehab program would be eligible to spend six to 12 months at the home, learning job skills while cooking and cleaning for themselves. The home is to have beds for 12 women.

If the state’s Homeless Housing Assistance Program grants the organization the money it’s looking for, the house could open in 2014. The idea of a halfway house in this location has come under fire from people who live near the property (it’s been vacant since 1992) and are worried about an increase in crime. The Planning Board approved the project in October.