CPD Blunders Alleged Smollett Crime

What actor Jussie Smollett allegedly did, if true, is one of the most notorious acts of racism in recent memory. He staged his own hate crime and framed it against Trump supporting white people.

Agree or disagree with the actions and motives of Trump’s supporters, painting all of them in this false light was a terrible blow to race relations in the country and a federal crime. Given the severity of his alleged deceit, I could sympathize with the visceral anger felt by not just the Chicago Police Department but victims of real hate crimes all over the world.

That said, even if Smollett did exactly what the Chicago Police Department accused him of doing, he still deserves due process under the U.S. Constitution. He never pleaded guilty to any crime. Nor had Mr. Smollett been given a fair hearing before a jury of his peers.

Since when is it the duty of the Chicago Police Department to try and convict Jussie Smollett? They are not the body of criminal justice that determines guilt or innocence. And what do the personal feelings of the Chicago Police Chief have to do with an ongoing investigation? The CNN press conference staged to announce Smollett’s arrest became a venue for individuals to vent their own personal feelings in front of a national audience. It was complete overstep by law enforcement, and it was likely unconstitutional.

Watching the press conference I knew right then that everything they accomplished by uncovering the scheme through good old fashioned detective work, was going to be negated in the courts by their poisoning the well of public opinion against Mr. Smollett. It was bad form, to say the least

Fast forward a month and sure enough, the recent announcement that all charges have been dropped against Mr. Smollett confirms my hunch. As I suspected, the prosecution team realized they had a hung jury or mistrial waiting to happen. Despite the CPD’s solid police work, the misfortunate decision to overstep its proper role in the criminal justice system made a fair trial impossible.

Mueller’s Report Does Not reflect Trump’s Real Obstructions of justice

My apologies for multiple submissions. This one felt timely and worth passing along.GeorgeTrump’s Real Obstructions of Justice Not Found in Mueller’s Report

As soon as the president stepped off Air Force One to bask in the afterglow of being vindicated by Robert Mueller’s report, he exclaimed, “after a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side, where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of bad things happened for our country, it was just announced there was no collusion with Russia, the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

Putting first thing’s first, if Mueller’s investigation was really just one monumental witch hunt, which Trump himself has claimed at least 170 times on record, then the findings of the report are irrelevant. If it was truly a witch hunt, then the results of this report are nothing more than a compilation of crazy theories and false conclusions. The prosecution’s motives were tainted from the start and the president was right all along.

 In other words, if it was a genuine witch hunt, why should Trump care what Mueller said? Wasn’t the president exonerated, to begin with? Why does he need Mueller’s sanction? If the president truly believed that he did nothing improper-before the campaign and after he was elected- why was he so nervous that the report was going to be a bombshell? If there was nothing to hide in the first place, what is so significant about Mueller’s work in the end?

Regarding whether Trump obstructed justice, what are we actually talking about when we use this term? Do you want to know if Trump obstructed justice?

Ask Muslims who were temporarily banned from traveling back to their home country, job, or university, just because they practiced a certain religious faith.

Ask the 12-year-old Guatemalan girl who was taken from her mother and detained in a warehouse for months just because she wanted to escape being raped and forced into a gang. Do you think she believes obstruction of justice occurred under Trump’s watch?

What about the families of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, do you think they believed justice had been obstructed when the POTUS defamed and berated dead soldiers? Do you think Mr. Khan believed that justice was obstructed when Trump questioned his son’s loyalty to the United States?

Do you think the family of Otto Warmbier would argue that justice has been obstructed by a president who is unwilling to say that the North Korean dictator was responsible for their son’s murder? 
How about the countless victims of Putin’s regime? Do you think those journalists who were poisoned on Putin’s orders were killed by someone who upholds international standards of justice? 

Ask a transgender soldier or police officer if they feel justice has been obstructed when they are treated as second class citizens. Did they not put their lives on the line to defend Americans each and every day?

Or how about the women who Trump paid to sleep with him? How about all of those sexual encounters that led Trump to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to silence them? Was justice obstructed when those women had their careers and even lives threatened by Trump’s personal fixer Michael Cohen?

 I don’t think we need Mueller’s Special Counsel report to know that locking children up in cages is hardly an act of justice, or that the president has routinely acted outside of the acceptable bounds of a responsible national leader.

Ask Charlottesville victim Heather Hyer if justice was obstructed when the president gave cover to white supremacist hate groups.
Ask those victims of the Christ Church massacre if white nationalism is on the rise. To say that it is not is an act of obstructing justice. 

No, we do not need Mueller to tell us that Trump has obstructed justice. Trump himself is an obstruction of justice. Everything that he stands for and is making America fall for is an obstruction of justice.

George Cassidy Payne is a writer, social worker, and SUNY adjunct humanities instructor. He lives and works in Rochester.

A Measure of the Disorder

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

Lake Pleasant, Washington State

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park

Spectacle Lake, Southern Adirondacks

I.M. Pei’s Wilson Commons Building at the University of Rochester

Red Tailed Hawk in Mt. Hope Cemetery

Saratoga National Battlefield

East Main Street, Rochester, NY

The State Capital in Albany, New York

Highland Park, Rochester, NY

The Lyric Theater, Rochester, NY

Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, Rochester, NY

Elmira Correctional Facility

John Burrough’s Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury, NY

Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester, NY

Corn Hill Neighborhood, Rochester, NY

Two men walking together next to The Metropolitan, Rochester, NY

Genesee Valley Park, Rochester, NY

Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester, NY

Louis Kahn First Unitarian Church, Rochester, NY

Rose in the Maplewood Rose Garden, Rochester, NY

All About Owls

All About Owls

This is a poem, as promised, all about owls.

Hamlet wrote to Ophelia, appealing to the same stars as owls do when they strip away the tall grass, looking for the present finality of vermin.

This is a poem about owls. 

Neither theoretical or astronomical. It is about 1,000 million years ago, when the ancestors of the owls flew without a compass or North Pole-

A time when the blue lights arose from beneath the snowfields, like polar auroras turning the dusky red clouds against the tides.

This is a poem about owls.

How nearly circular in shape their eyes are. And how they shine by their own fierce light, like heat seeking missiles striking the earth in halves.

For the owl is the twin sister of Gemini,  more incomplete than wrong. 

Photo by George Cassidy Payne

Where the Lake Turns Aside: Irondequoit Bay at Dusk

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

Because parks have closing hours and even the most dedicated fishermen must go home to their own beds, there are certain times when Irondequoit Bay is rarely seen by the lens of a camera. These hours are lonely and forbidding. The puddles along the trails feel deep and fresh, as if the woods are occupied by lurking mammoths. And in the cold breeze the shadowy presence of ghosts can be felt hovering above the water.

The sign at the bottom of the hill, the one near the Kayak shop, says, “From Irondequoit Bay, Indian trails led southward to Seneca villages and on to the Ohio country. “

At dusk, when the air thins and the sky turns a dark lavender, those footsteps no longer feel so historic after all; they are no longer cultural artifacts left over like molds from the 17th century. They are here. They breath. They move through the Hawthorne trees. They are as absent and as real as the empty bench on the bank of the marsh.

“During the past million years there were four glacial ages that covered the Rochester area with ice and impacted the geography of the area. The most recent glacier that left evidence here was about 100,000 years ago and it caused compression of the earth by as much as 2,500 feet (760 m).^[4] About 12,000 years ago, the area underwent massive changes, which included the rerouting of the Genesee River and other water bodies. Since the earth rebounded from the melting glaciers more rapidly in Canada than in New York, water from Lake Ontario was spilled over New York due to its lower elevation. During this time, the original outlet of the Genesee River was flooded out, creating Irondequoit Bay.”^[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irondequoit_Bay

“In the spring of 1687 at his headquarters in Montreal, the Marquis Denonville and his staff poured over maps, even as Dwight Eiesenhower and his staff did in 1944. The Marquis jabbed a forefinger at a place on the map. “there,” he said, “is O-nyui-da-on-da-gwat, the bay of the Senecas, the gateway to their empire. ”

Elevation : 250 feet
Area: 1,660 acres
Shoreline Length: 17.7 miles
Max Depth: 73 feet
Town: Irondequoit, Penfield, and Webster

“At Sea Breeze, where Culver Road ends, is a historical marker. It tells the site of Fort Des Sables, “fort of the sands,” that the French built in 1718. In Ellison Park, just off Landing Road and on a hill over-looking Irondequiot Creek is a log “trading post” erected by the Boy Scouts. It is on the site of Fort Schuyler, built by the English in 1721 to offset the menace of the French fortress. It commanded all the trails and the waterway. Ten soldiers under Capt. Peter Schuyler Jr. of Albany manned it for a year. Then it was abandoned.”  (http://www.irondequoitbay.com/history/history.htm

“On a French map of the area from 1688 titled “Le Lac Ontario”^[6] Irondequoit Bay was referred to as the “swamp of the Senecas“.^[7] Prior to the 1840s, the bay was known as “Teoronto Bay.” ^[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irondequoit_Bay

“This area was part of the Phelps-Gorham purchase.  These two men, veterans of the Revolution, had purchased approximately all of western New York.  Irondequoit, then part of Brighton, was section 34.  Settlement was slow but intrepid pioneers, like Alexander Hooker, Sylvester Woodman, the Rogers Family, and the Costichs ignored the struggles of the marshy land teeming with wolves, bears, and rattlesnakes.  They drained the swamps, cleared the land and planted their crops. Still in 1839, when the town was founded three quarters of the land was still untouched. However, by the end of the century, this step-child of Brighton was known as the garden spot of western New York, famed for its peaches, superb melons, and vineyards on the slopes of Irondequoit Bay, truck farms that produced celery, tomatoes, cucumbers, asparagus and numerous other vegetables.  The Rudman family were known as the peach kings of western New York. Produce stands, such as Wambach’s and Aman’s, still satisfy customers today. ” (http://www.irondequoit.org/about/history-of-irondequoit

How Could Such a Small River Cut This Huge Bay?
1| The Danville River once flowed through here before glaciers advanced across the area. It was this large river that cut the bay. 
2| Danville River dammed by glacial deposits. 
3| Flow diverted to Genesee River channel. 
4| Rising post-glacial lake floods the ancient valley. 
5| Irondequoit Creek drains into remnant valley. 

Arrivals
1788- American Oliver Phelps acquires title to the bay. 
1741- English buy the bay from the Senecas. 
1721- English build Fort Schuyler. 
1717- Fort de Sables built by French as a trading post. 
1687- Denonville’s attack. 
1679- Las Salle’s third visit. Father Hennepin builds chapel. 
1678- La Salle’s second visit. 
1669- La Salle explores the bay the first time. 
1612- Bay appears on Champlain’s map. 
1610- Etienne Brule first European to see the bay.

  https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=108625

What is lurking in the history books of our nation?

I kinda like the blurriness of this one. It lends the photo an ethereal feeling. The tree is being pulled by two worlds.

The Granite Building

“The Granite Building was designed by J. Foster Warner in 1893 and, at 12 stories with 23 acres (9.3 ha) of floor space, was the city’s first skeletal steel skyscraper. Its facade is a mix of Second Renaissance Revival style and Beaux-Arts style classical details. It is characterized by recessed, monumental, four story granite columns supporting recessed arches.”

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 11, 1984.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_Building

Photo by George Cassidy Payne

Reflection

“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.” 
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

Photo by George Cassidy Payne

Leonard Urso’s Prophets at Legacy Tower

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

While waiting for the elevator inside the Legacy Tower (formerly the Bausch and Lomb Building), I took a few moments to admire Leonard Urso’s magnificent sculpture piece entitled Prophets.

For me, Prophets evokes fertility goddesses from an ancient civilization. The tall, aerodynamic figures (all women) appear to be either conferring, supervising, or bearing witness to some event. What that event could be is, of course, a matter left to the viewer to decide. Could it be the birth of a child? Standing erect with arms behind their waists, I wonder if their prophecy has come true at last.

One thing is for sure, there is no mistaking its capacity to move viewers into a state of higher contemplation.

Legacy Tower (formerly the Bausch & Lomb Building) is at 1 Bausch & Lomb Place .
It is the second tallest building in Rochester, standing at 401 feet with 20 floors. In the building’s balcony is a magnificent sculpture by Leonard Urso called Prophets.

Len Urso

“Leonard Urso was born in 1953 and grew up in Rome, New York. His pursuit of art began when he was a young man and eventually led him to study at the State University of New Paltz. After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts Degree, Leonard began his professional career as a designer and silversmith for Oneida Ltd. Silversmiths. Currently Leonard holds an endowed chair as the Ann Mowris Mulligan Distinguished Professor in the School for American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology.


The Leonard Urso art studio is located in Rochester, New York where Leonard is actively involved in creating large and small scale sculptures, paintings. Leonard’s art is exhibited nationally and internationally. His art works are represented in several museums and both corporate and private collections. Several of these include Gyeongnam Art Museum of South Korea, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Memorial Art Gallery of Rochester, Shanghai University of China, Kanazawa University of Japan, The New York Times, Bucknell University, The Times Mirror Company, Humana Inc., Bausch & Lomb World Headquarters, Colgate University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Garth Fagen Dance, Sybron Corporation, and The Washington Post. “

Information taken from: http://artoncampus.rit.edu/artist/261/

“Landmarks link us to our past—and they inspire us to do good work that will last well into the future.”
—Richard Margolis in Rochester Landmarks

In the lobby is a suspended armillery, a Renaissance-era tool used to determine planetary orbits. 

“Acknowledging the full history of human existence has helped to shape my vision as a contemporary person. My role as an artist is to capture human activity as it takes place in the moment, intimately revealing humanity’s most intrinsic qualities. This artwork of mine should bear witness to the stories of our lives and at the same time reflect the depth of our past. Though personal, these stories are not about me, they are shared experiences that reflect our collective self.” -Leonard Urso

Quaker Springs

The Broken Spear Vision

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

Take almost any back route in upstate New York and you will run into a historical marker. That either means Americans have an obsession with marking history or there is a lot of history to mark. After-all, who gets to decide what is historically significant? Who and what gets marked for commemoration is often an arbitrary and subjective decision.

That said, I don’t know if Quaker Springs is a place of sacred healing or not- whoever put a marker there seems to think so-but I am not sure it matters. Quaker Springs, like everywhere else, is a another place that belongs to a sacred world. Historically speaking, it is as old as anywhere else on the planet.

What I do know, is that the beauty of freshly fallen snow beneath the pinkish turquoise skyline and rising moon, felt transcendent enough for me.

Quaker Springs is…

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Quaker Springs

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

I don’t know if Quaker Springs is a place of sacred healing or not. Whoever put a historical marker there seems to think so. But I’m not so sure it matters. Ultimately speaking, Quaker Springs- like everywhere else- is just another place that belongs to a sacred world. On an extraordinary planet, there are no ordinary sites; and truth be told, every place is as old as anywhere else.

Quaker Springs is between NY-32 Route 4. 

There would be no religion without water. It’s why Mars is absent temples and prayers. It’s why deep space has no God.

Saratoga County’s name was derived from the Native American word “sah-rah-ka”, or “Sarach-togue”, meaning “the hill beside the river”, referring to the Hudson River bordering the county on its eastern flank and the Mohawk River delineating its southern border. ”

Taken from Wikipedia

 “Saratoga is blessed with naturally carbonated mineral springs that originate in bedrock layers 100 to 1000 feet below the earth’s surface. Carbon dioxide gas in the water forces it to flow out through openings at or near the surface of the earth, creating both free-flowing and spouting springs. ”

An anti-slavery society was based in Quaker Springs and several possible participants in the Underground Railroad were in Quaker Springs.

God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man. Arthur Young

Photo taken at the Rochester Museum and Science Center

Photo taken at the Rochester Museum and Science Center

Photo taken at the Rochester Museum and Science Center

Photo taken at the Rochester Museum and Science Center