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The Altamont Enterprise - Thursday, October 7,2004 I Editorial Three cheers for female firsts Why did we run two front-page stories last week on \female trailblazers\? Wasn't that demeaning, we were asked, to imply their accomplish- ments were important merely because they were women? Our answer, in a word: No. Abasic axiom in j ournalism is: If a dog bites a man, that's not news; it happens all the time. If a man bites a dog, that's news. Ever since there has been an Albany County Firefighter of the Year, he has been a man. This year, she is a woman. A first is news. Bravo for Leslye Stone! The plaque she is pictured holding so proudly is magnificent. Of course, it features the face of a man; the name of the organization is, after all, the Albany County Volunteer Firemen's Association. It takes a while for even well-meaning organizations to catch up with women's roles. And the letter that nominated Stone, from an ardent supporter, stated, \Although Leslye is a female, this has never deterred her from any aspect of being a 'top notch' volunteer firefighter.\ Stone is top-notch. She doesn't just keep the department running smoothly, she operates the fire equipment and pumps, drives the fire truck, and faces flames head-on. We've been a gender-biased society for so long, for so many generations, for so many centuries,, that it is hard to let go of the \although.\ Someone's sex is not a handicap. But in our society, it can still be seen that way. Our lead story was on Barbara Riggs, a Guilderland native who, in September, was named second in command of the Secret Service and is now the highest-ranking woman in law enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security. Bravo for Barbara Riggs! \Early on, it was a n adjustment for the agency,\ Riggs told u s of women working in the Secret Service. \You just persevere. I was confident in my abilities to do the job. I just did the job and worked through the barriers.\ Her attitude carried her through, she said. That attitude was: \There wasn't anything on this job I couldn't do.\ For both Stone and Riggs, family support was important. Stone's grandfather, father, brother, and husband are or were all volunteer firefighters. Our story on Riggs focused on her relationship with her mother, Sally Riggs. A teacher, she provided a role model as a working woman in an era when many mothers stayed home to raise their children; her husband, a lawyer, was supportive of her career. \My parents put us in a lot of situations where you had to stand on your own feet and make your own decisions. In an organization like this with a lot of barriers for women,\ Riggs said of the Secret Service, \you had to have a lot of confidence in your own ability to succeed.\ Riggs and Stone and other women like them are paving the way so that future generations won't face the same barriers. But as long as the barriers are there, we'll still write the news about the women who conquer them. This week, at a small college in the Finger Lakes area of New York, women are waging a battle to maintain a place of their own. Wells College was founded in 1868, back when education for women was still considered a radical experiment. It has remained a women's college all these years. Saturday, the trustees announced the school will start accepting men, a move they said was necessary for financial reasons. About half of the school's 400 students are protesting by camping out in the administration building. They have explained they are not man-haters, but they value their college as it is — a place where women always come first. We went to Wellesley College in an era when most Ivy League schools didn't admit women; that women's college has produced leaders like Hillary Rodham Clinton, our state's first female senator, and Madeleine Korbel Albright, our country's first female secretary of state. It has continued successfully with its mission even after elite men's schools started accepting women. Fewer than 3 percent of females with bachelor's degrees in the United States today earned them at women's coll oges, but graduates of those colleges make up over 30 percent of a Business Week list of women to watch in corporate America and they make up more than 20 percent of the women in Congress. A popular T-shirt slogan back when many elite schools didn't admit women and when most middle-class American women were homemakers was: \A Woman's Place is in the House — and in the Senate.\ In a perfect world, we might not need women's colleges and we might not have front-page stories on female trailblazers — but we're not there yet. This week, we have another story on a female first — Tuesday, Susan Tangorre (who, incidentally, graduated from a women's college) was named personnel director of the Guilderland School District, a top administrative post formerly held by men. Bravo for Susan Tangorre! Our first interview with Tangorre about her new job was different than the interviews we've had with men in that post — all of whom' were good at their j obs. Tangorre spoke of leaving Altamont Elemen- tary School, where she was principal for eight years, as being similar to leaving family: The staff is ready to go on without her, though, in the same way her grown children have been raised to be independent and successful on their own, she said. Asked about goals in her new job, Tangorre spoke of being supportive of her colleagues and of building \a collaborative commu- nity.\ These nurturing aspirations are those we may typically think of as \female.\ Won't it be interesting to see how they play out in a j ob that is often seen as requiring hard-line toughness? Of course, we'd be making a mistake if we were to ascribe traits stereotypically to gender. Courage is not \male\ any more than nurturing is \female.\ Women can battle blazes and protect the President; men can teach children and nurse the ailing. People of both sexes need to be able to embrace attributes typically ascribed to the other if we are to move forward as a society. Such freedom will enrich u s all. The Enterprise opinion pages aire an operi forum for pur community We enciouragereadejrs tp express'their thoughts about issues that appear in this newpaper or affect the community. Letters should be brief, and must include the writer's address, signature, and phone number for verification: The editors may reject letters that have been printed elsewhere. Letters concerning elections will be cut off. one issue before the election. No unsigned letters. Deadline for letters is Tuesday at noon. llttftl Village should lift water moratorium for camp Wildwood To the Editor: I am writing to thank you for your extensive coverage of Camp Wildwood's serious water problem in Melissa Hale- Spencer's Aug. 12 story', \Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.\ My child lives with the challenges of autism. He iiow attends Wildwood School Young Adult Program. Between the age of 6 to 18, he attended Camp Wildwood, on Leesome Lane in Altamont, every summer for his summer education program. Due to his love of swimming and the great outdoors, h e blossomed at Camp Wildwood. Unfortunately, as described in the Aug. 12 story, there is not a permanent source of water at the camp. Despite extensive well-drilling and other efforts, no potable water has been located. As a result, Wildwood Pro- grams has been forced to truck over 2,000 gallons of water to the camp every two days, at a significant expense, for basic necessities like hand-washing, and drinking. I understand that there is a moratorium on access to public water from the Village of Alta- mont, for those who are outside of the village boundaries. Camp Wildwood is only a few miles outside the village and i t only needs about 150,000 gallons of water per year to operate its summer education program. Permitting Camp Wildwood to purchase public water from the village of Altamont is the only feasible long-term solution to guarantee continuation of the Camp's summer education pro- gram. Without Camp Wildwood, hundreds of students who attend camp wiilseriously regress. I truly hope the village of Altamont will lift the morator- ium in this extreme case, to allow Camp Wildwood to purchase water for the operation of its summer education program. Maria P. Mannarino Guilderland Soares was a fox in DA's henhouse The the Editor: Paul Clyne's reported lack of grace in the aftermath of his primary election defeat is ex- ceeded only by those who continue to criticize him for it. This is the same thing as piling- on after a football play has ended, a penalty in the game. The game of politics seems to be played with no such sense of fair play. David Soares and his sup- porters have shown an incredi- ble lack of gratitude to someone who, for four years, acted in good faith to mentor him. News reports have indicated that the only employment David Soares has had, since completing law school, is as an assistant district attorney appointed by a.nd working for Paul Clyne. The only criticism Paul Clyne deserves is for his questionable judgment in letting this \fox\ into the Albany County District Attorney's \hen house.\ The irony of this should not be ignored by Albany County voters on Election Day. Crime is now flourishing in the city of Albany with police officers being routinely assaulted, and a t times fatally, by the criminals. This is as much due to the failure of those serving as assistant district attorney's as it is to the misjudgment of those, in authority, who appointed them. Crime, in the city of Albany, is . now grossly underreported be- cause crime victims and other law-abiding citizens are now either afraid or no longer inter- ested in reporting crime. This is, in large part, due to the lack of an effective response by law enforcement within both the Albany Police Department and the Albany County District Attorney's office, under Paul Clyne. It leaves one with the impres- sion that, perhaps, some assist- ant district attorneys are operat- ing with their own political agendas, and have been ig- noring some kinds of crime and those victimized by it. Their opposition to enforce- ment of the Rockefeller drug laws, with the intention to repeal them, has been clearly docu- mented. Have they done this, also, to create a dangerous climate for \change\ so that they can move u p to replace those for whom they work, have given them their current employment and salaries with which they are dissatisfied? Are they reluctant to prosecute because they believe some crimes, like drug-dealing, sex crime and other kinds of criminality.should be legalized? Who do they truly seek to serve? The law-abiding taxpaying citi- zens or the criminals? In the case of David Soares, promised \change\ should not be seen a s \improvement.\ 'Change'does not always bring 'improvement.' Since 1992, when the extreme left-wing Democratic insur- gency, funded by Citizen's Action, was first welcomed into the Albany County Democratic Party leadership, in the name of \unity there has been discord, and all at the expense of the public in terms of higher taxes and violent street crime. Until now the city of Albany has had to bear the brunt of this devastation. Married middle- class homeowners with school- aged children were the first to be driven out by the loss of neigh- borhood schools, increased street crime, noisier neighborhoods, and higher school and property taxes since then. This has created a vacuum, which con- tinues to grow and be filled with criminals (and terrorists) who are aided and abetted ,by the absentee landlords from whom they rent. This, in turn, has resulted i n other middle-class homeowners leaving because of being placed under the similar duress of rapidly increasing taxes, violent street crime and other forms of anti-social behavior threatening them and their children. This is now especially true for seniors in the City of Albany who were looking forward to retirement in their homes for which they had finally paid but can no longer remain because of the health and life-threatening disruptions to their daily lives. These disruptions take the form of violent street crime and having their sleep interrupted several times a night by noisy neighbors who are often the criminals. If they do leave and must sell their homes to do so, it will be, often, to the absentee landlords owning the problem properties near them. This usually .results in a sub- stantial loss of what they have invested in their homes with the windfall going to the absentee landlord who buys their homes after providing safe habitat to the criminals who drove them out- How long will it take before those who have fled to the suburbs and their new neighbors are forced to leave all of Albany County because crime is no longer being effectively prose- cuted there? Drug laws not en- forced and crimes not prose- cuted can make life unlivable in the suburbs as it now is in the city of Albany. Albany County residents do have an alternative to the now grossly dysfunctional and \late great\ Albany County Demo- cratic Party and what it has been giving them in the way of candi- dates for both city and county offices. Republican Roger Cusick would be the most likely \choice\ for district attorney. Before making their \choice\ in this November's election, Albany County voters should be mindful of two things: — First: history reveals what experience fails to teach to those who will not learn; and — Second: \change\ does not always bring \improvement.\ The truth of both can be easily seen, as the history of the city of Albany has so sadly revealed, since 1993, when the late Mayor Thomas M. Whalen, III ended his successful 10 years in office. Edward J . Bradley Sr. Guilderland Editor's note: See related coverage.
