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When 36 Main opened I was very excited. It wasn't just a classy wine bar and place to eat, after all . . . it was a classy place that was using its address as its name. With 36 joining 60 Main, I envisioned a numbered New Paltz, with every business forgoing the clumsiness of names in favor of using its own address for a dual role.
We'd eat our pizza at 68 Main, maybe, or get it delivered from 4 NPP (New Paltz Plaza isn't quite as cool-sounding with numbers, but it's my dream, so I'm going to be consistent). That new deli/restaurant/caterer/food thing at 175 Main would continue to get interesting letters about it in the paper, and as a community we would decide the fate of old 196 Main and its kids. 25 Plattekill and 1 Veterans would form the hub of municipal activity, at least as long as the community continued gamble that two governments are better than one.
But my dream is shaken, and shaken hard. 60 Main is going to be changing its name soon, as Justin Holmes (best known for his legal battles against SUNY, which led to his frustration with the local judiciary and a run for town justice) is, with partner Amanda Stauble, turning into slash /root grassroots technology collective. Stauble describes the venture as a place where "you get a cup of coffee and sit to meet with a consultant. You can pay them by the half hour or the hour to sit with you and help you figure out what is wrong with your computer, or how to use a new program you're not familiar with, or work with them on designing a website for your business- what ever you need. Their only incentive is to make you like their work and effort and hope you come back next time you have a question or need services."
This is all well and good, but it shatters my dream of a new New Paltz order.
Friends, won't you sign this petition demanding a better New Paltz?
3 comments:
I wish Justin well in the new venture. He seems to have bounced back from being made an enemy of the state by SUNY. My gut still wrenches when I think about that case. When the diversity mongers were actually faced with someone who brought something different (and admittedly difficult) to the discussion, they lost their bowels over it. But then they never meant anything by "diversity" but ideological conformity in the first place. Still, it consolidated the East German atmospherics of the place and laid down a marker in the long fall from any pretense otherwise.
GET A LIFE
Even when you are handcuffed and arrested by state police in your office in the early morning hours because of your politics, Anonymous, I'll take it seriously and call it what it is.
Just as I would if your protected political speech was used to convict you of a crime.
You see, I am going to be using those same basic rights, all the time. So I need them. They are very important to me. And when I see them being stripped away from someone else, that could just as easily be me. I won't stand for it.
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