A Visit from Hell

Hell Comes to New York
Since many in Woodstock have such a close connection with New York City, which is after all just two bus-hours away, almost everyone has a story to tell about the visit from hell. I was writing poetry around 9 am on the 11th when my daughter called from Massachusetts and urged me to turn on the television.
It was just at the time when the second plane evil'd into the second tower, an Armageddonish event that turned a viewer to steel and anguish at the same time. It must have been then, like a flash from the Jungian oversoul, that millions of Americans said, almost together, that "America is under attack." That's exactly what I said when I went into the other room to tell Miriam.
I went down to Cumberland Farms to fill our gas tank. It wasn't clear what was happening. If there was a nuclear explosion I wanted to be able to get north and west by back roads as far as we could, loading up our parakeets, guinea pig, and survival stuff, in order to get the hell away from the hello of hell. There were others also filling up. One owner of a downtown business who was there remarked it might be our last gas tank.
The check-out woman at Cumberland, as I paid for the gas, said, "Say a prayer for America."
I purchased The New York Times and scanned the cover, noting on the front page a story called "Nuclear Booty: More Smugglers Use Asia Route," which traced the great difficulty that the US and other nations are having preventing countries and groups that extol suicide bombing from acquiring bomb-grade uranium and plutonium.
While the horror unfolded on our television, and we sat transfixed for most of the day and night, I studied the issue of Suicide Bombing and Stolen Nukes. The Era of Suicide Bombing might become the worst set of years since Hitler shook hands with Mussolini. (See my editorial) The same day as The NY Times story on theft of bombgrade material, the Wall Street Journal had a tiny little piece on its front page, as if it were nothing more than a business item: "A suicide bomber in Turkey killed two policemen and injured 21 people, including 17 other officers. The explosion went off near a police post in Istanbul's historic Taksim Square, a popular tourist area."
If something drastic isn't done, then it's only a matter of time before a suicide spore from hell detonates a nuke somewhere: Rome, Berlin, Dallas, Florence, Tokyo, LA, Calcutta, London, the Eiffel Tower.
This is one of the most serious situations in the history of civilization.
Bin Ladin
There's an interesting recent book by James Bamford called Body of Secrets tracing the history of the National Security Agency. According to Body of Secrets (page 410) the NSA "regularly listens to unencrypted calls from suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden, in hiding in Afghanistan. Bin Laden used a portable INMARSAT phone that transmits and received calls over spacecraft owned by the International Maritime Satellite Organization. This is the same system used by most ships and some people who travel to remote locations, such as oil explorers. According to intelligence officials, Bin Laden is aware that the United States can eavesdrop on his international communications, but he does not seem to care. To impressed cleared visitors, NSA analysts occasionally play audiotapes of Bin Laden talking to his mother over an INMARSAT connection."
As I note in my editorial in this issue, those promulgating suicide bombings may be using brainwashing techniques used by religious cults to promote blind obedience. The ability to get people to do things "against their will" or without recalling events was developed, to a high degree, during the Cold War.
Apparently there are training camps in several countries where Suicide Bombers are given instructions. US Satellites apparently are capable of identifying pot plants from orbit, so they should be able to identify training camps for suicide bombers. It's time for a Total World Wide Ban on the promotion of suicide bombing and the training, by any means, of suicide bombers.

CVS Stalls Till the Last-Minute to
Offer Acceptable Deal to Hurley Ridge Market
Bill Epstein, who owns the Hurley Ridge Market with his wife Barbara, didn't think he could attend the September 6 Planning Board meeting, at which representatives of CVS were to continue their pitch to convert the old Grand Union Building into a CVS which also would contain some sort of food market. As it turned out, Mr. Epstein finished his appointments that day in time to arrive at the Planning Board meeting at which he was going to announce, basically, that CVS had stonewalled Hurley Ridge and that there was no deal at all. CVS, I was told, was insisting that the Epsteins pay for the needed expansion of the building, and were only offering, up to the time of the meeting, a lease on the approximately 3,500 feet of space which CVS was offering the Epsteins in the old Grand Union Building. They were expected to apply for a loan themselves to build the additional 3,500 or so square feet needed, a loan which no bank or loan source would offer to the Epsteins, whose only equity was a sub-lease on part of the building.
As Bill Epstein entered the Planning Board meeting he was pulled aside by CVS reps and told they'd build the addition and would offer them a lease contract for the expanded space.
But, as of this writing, the whole deal is somewhat up in the air. Nothing has been apparently yet been offered in writing. Hurley Ridge has submitted to CVS, from the architecture team that designed the Hurley Ridge building, a design to show the size and shape of what Hurley Ridge needs in order to operate at the former Woodstock Grand Union Site.
For the Epstein's store in Woodstock, CVS has stipulated that no lotto will be allowed, and no beer, no cigarettes, and no paper products. No paper products? Hopefully, that doesn't mean that we wouldn't be able to purchase toilet paper, diapers and paper towels at the Epsteins' Woodstock store. The food store will, if it ever opens, have its own entrance, and will share no common space with CVS. To judge the size of the possible Hurley Ridge operation at the Woodstock Grand Union, if you stand in the Hurley Ridge market now and picture it with the pharmacy area and the adjacent aisle removed, that's the approximate size of the possible Woodstock market.
But there's no actual contract or signable deal on paper yet, as I understand it, that has been offered to the Epsteins.
So, it's possible that CVS will try to shove ahead and open its store without settling the issue of the market. And if then the boycott works, we may yet see a Denny's or Burger King or an empty building for many years. Woodstock town government has historically been very hesitant to take actual steps to own or participate in money-making commercial enterprises, such as actually building some affordable housing, or owning a building where small businesses and artisans could rent very affordable space. The town, as the reader will recall, faded away very quickly from its early resolve to begin eminent domain actions to acquire ownership of either the long-term lease or actual ownership of the building.
So, if CVS and its attorney Mr. Riseley, toss a 120 mph curve ball at the town, and demands to open up its operation without a food store, don't expect the town to do much about it.

Highway Garage
Tuesday's day of hell caused the Town Board to cancel its meeting, at which Supervisor Wilber had said he was going to introduce a resolution that the Town Board "undertake a highway facility project adjacent to the current Woodstock Wastwater Treatment facility on NYS Route 212" and that the Town Board be the lead agency of a full Environmental Review. I called Jeremy and he said that he still intended to present the resolution at the Tuesday, September 18 Town Board meeting.
The money has not been figured out. First there will be an environmental study, then "we have to propose a site plan to the Planning Board," after figuring out what sort of facility the Town wants. Then the Town will compute, with help from engineers, what it will cost. Then there would be a bonding resolution, and the expenditure would be subject to a permissive referendum.
I asked if that meant that the Woodstock winter sand/salt pile will be placed again in Bearsville this winter. "I'm afraid so. There's no way the salt shed will be built before this winter. But I'm sure hoping the community will look at this whole thing in a helpful way. Because, what we're really trying to do is to make sure that NEXT winter that salt pile isn't there."
Right on.

Elle Magazine Reports that
the Karmapa Will visit Woodstock This Winter
Word buzzed around the telephone wires of Woodstock during the last few days that the Woodstock Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley, will leave India and come to Woodstock within the next few months. There is an article in the current issue of Elle magazine, by Trish Deitch Rohrer, which alleges: "This winter the Karmapa.....is expected to fly to America, beginning what many hope will be a long, bicontinental life. That is, he would spend much of the year in none other than Woodstock, New York, presiding over a monastery-on-a-hill left to him by the last Karmapa, who died in 1981. If it's true the Dalai Lama is grooming the young man to take over his role as the spiritual head of Tibet– and overall purveyor of compassion, peace, and love– as his holiness has implied, then maybe Joni Mitchell's dream for the Woodstock generation will come true, and we'll soon be seeing Œbombers.... turning into butterflies above our nation.'"
One of the peculiarities of Tibetan Buddhism is that its practitioners seem particularly eager to approach, say, a Karmapa, to bow and receive good wishes. Accordingly, many residents of the Overlook Mountain/MacDaniel Road area are shuddering at the thought of thousands upon thousands of devotees of the Karmapa bringing an army of buses and SUVs to clog the mountain.
We have a friend who sleuths the net looking for evidence of the Karmapa's plans, and he provided us with an article from Asia-Pacific News which stated that early this year that India had formally recognized Urgyen Trinley as a "registered Tibetan refugee." India's decision apparently was taken during "former Chinese Premier, Mr. Li Peng's visit" to India in January.
It's not clear at this time whether, in order to visit the US, that Mr. Trinley will require an exit visa from the government of India. He apparently has not been allowed to travel to the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim. It may be a National Security issue for India, for instance. In an article of last February 7, in Asia-Pacific News, it was written that "In case the Karmapa, who may have tacit Chinese support, reaches Rumtek, it could have several negative security implications for India. The monastery is highly influential and its rulings can greatly influence public opinion in Sikkim. It also houses the black hat, symbol of ultimate authority in the sect. the monastery has tremendous wealth and resources and houses the treasures brought by the 16th Karmapa, who escaped with the Dalai Lama in 1959. India has granted Ugyen Trinley refugee status, but has not given him permission to visit Rumtek."
If he can't visit Rumtek, can he visit Woodstock?

A Railroad from China to Llasa
AsiaWeek.com had an interesting article, dated August 2 of this year, titled "Why Tibetans May Go the Way of Native Americans," in which writer Julian Gearing speculates whether the 685 mile long railroad currently under construction from Golmud in Qinghai stretching to Lhasa, capital of what they call the Tibetan Autonomous Region, will have the same effect as the building of US railroads to the west beginning in the 1840s. Just as the railroad sped up the vast development of the American West, driving Native Americans into various relatively small reservations, so too, Geary observes, the new railroad might "bring the capital of Tibet closer to Beijing.... For hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Chinese citizens seeking work and a route out of poverty in the overcrowded eastern half of the Middle Kingdom, the territory of Tibet could well prove a land of opportunity."
What does that have to do with Woodstock? Well, according to Asia-Pacific News, the Kagyu lineage has about 5 million followers around the world. If Tibetan Buddhism loses its footing ultimately in Tibet, and if the relatively small top of Overlook is its American home, what is the destiny of Overlook Mountain, to be gradually overtaken by building upon building upon building, growing like Potala (one of the largest structures in the world)?
Partisans of the unseemly expansion on Overlook can pshaw! all they want. It's not just water quality and quantity, and unGodly traffic, but the future of the mountain itself, which is at risk.
The Woodstock Journal tried on four occasions to find out whether the Karmapa actually was going to come to Woodstock this winter, but KTD and its anti-environmentalist pr person refused to return our calls. Woodstock has a right to know how many guests it might be requested to welcome during the 2001-2002 winter. Doesn't it?


More Articles by Edward Sanders