(News Briefs May 11, 2006)
Jail Crimes…
Just when everyone started to think things could get no worse with the beleagured county jail project, already millions over budget and years behind schedule – with a recent state report pointing out gross mismanagement from the formerly GOP-controlled county legislature and a growing litany of calls for criminal investigations coming from various directions – it is now looking like there is no written record of a vote approving construction contracts. Why the worry? Consider the growing number of lawsuits already surrounding the project, from and against various contractors, among others, and the charges of malfeasance that will arise if the county cannot defend itself in any.
Legislature Clerk Ellen DiFalco and County Attorney Joshua Koplovitz are saying they have been unable to find meeting minutes or a purchase order to explain approval of a contract with construction manager Bovis Lend Lease, dated Oct. 25, 2000 even though contract was touted in a Nov. 2, 2000, release from the late Legislature Chairman Daniel Alfonso, R-Highland, as having been approved by the Construction Management Review Committee. Koplovitz says the origin of the committee is a mystery, including the authority that created it, whether it was subject to a county Legislature resolution, and what it was charged to do.
Under the contract, Bovis Lend Lease was designated construction manager and Crandall Associates as architect for the “Ulster County Law Enforcement Facility - A new 484 bed county jail and public safety complex to house 484 inmates (designed for 600) with a construction cost estimate of approximately $53,000,000.”
Former County Attorney Francis Murray confirmed comments from several surviving members of the county Construction Management Review Committee that no paper trail may exist showing a specific vote approving the contract.
The committee consisted of Alfonso, R-Highland, as chairman; then-Legislature Majority Leader Ward Todd, R-Shandaken; the late county Legislator Joan Feldmann, D-Saugerties; county Building and Grounds Commissioner Harvey Sleight, then-County Administrator William Darwak; then-county Purchasing Agent Arlene Kerans; former county Legislator John Naccarato, R-Kingston; and Ulster County Sheriff J. Richard Bockelmann, who announced this month that he will not seek re-election.
“Somewhere in the world, sometimes things do get lost or misplaced,” Sleight said. “What can I say?”
Murray said he was told the payment schedule for Bovis Lend Lease was acceptable after it was reviewed by Todd. Todd, who later became county Legislature chairman before stepping down in 2003 when appointed president of the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce, declined to answer questions about how the contract amounts were reached. He said a vote by lawmakers was not needed on the agreement because the Legislature customarily had not voted on such contracts.
“The Legislature, if you go back into the records, didn’t vote on those contracts,” he said. “They were done by county departments.”
Meanwhile, the current Democrat-controlled legislature is asking the state comptroller’s office to go deeper with its investigation into the handling of the 6-year-old $86.16 million Law Enforcement Center project still not completed since leaders in the previous administration never admitted having watchdog procedures available but never used until 2004, when the troubles had already compounded.
The state report, which acknowledges finding $12.9 million in “unnecessary costs as a result of deficiencies,” was issued April 7 and had a May 8 deadline for a county response.
Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the Ulster County lawmaker reported to have received $39.59 worth of cigars from a consultant to the county Law Enforcement Center project was in fact Todd, who also approved reimbursal of such expenses. Todd reportedly went to the county treasurer’s office in recent weeks to hand over $40 in cash to cover the expense, saying he had no recollection of receiving the gift.
Meanwhile, local legislator Robert Parete is threatening to go to court to force release of the county’s currently-quieted Hill report on the debacle, while others are saying that, reports to the contrary, there is a legal paper trail for all jail decisions.
Stay tuned…

Dream Bike!
Scholastic Book Clubs recently announced the winners of its SeeSaw Book Club’s “Dream Bike Drawing Contest 2006,” including one Olive resident. Students in grades K-1 were asked to draw themselves on the bike of their dreams with “Freddy” from the “Ready, Freddy!” book series in order to win their dream bike.
Olive resident Cody Davis was one of the contest’s twenty-five winners, selected from nearly 1,000 participants, and will receive $200 towards the purchase of a bike of his choice. The winning artists depicted themselves on bicycles ranging from the fantastical to the practical.

Facing Bonacic
Susan Zimet, Ulster County Legislator from New Paltz, announced her candidacy to represent the 42nd District in the New York State Senate on Wednesday, May 3, at an Orange County Democratic Annual Dinner, chosen to start her run in the backyard of incumbent Republican John Bonacic. Senate Democratic Leader David A. Paterson introduced Susan Zimet. The 42nd Senate District includes all of Sullivan and Delaware, most of Ulster and part of Orange counties.
Zimet is a two term Ulster County Legislator representing the 10th District and the former Supervisor of the Town of New Paltz, the first woman to hold that office. Running on a theme of One New York In Partnership For Reform, Susan Zimet will be part of the Democratic effort to gain the majority in the NY State Senate. She is a fiscally conservative, socially conscientious Democrat acknowledged for her work on open government, budget and taxation reform, clean elections, protecting women’s and veterans’ health, school safety, alternative energy, sustainable economic development and the creative economy.
Bonacic, while strong with local initiative projects involving Belleayre Mt. Ski Area, has come under fire for partisan involvement in a number of key development issues facing the Catskills, as well as his convoluted involvement in the passage of controversial Large Parcel legislation.

FEMA Memories
With all the talk about shutting down FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has taken the blame for the poor response to last summer’s Hurricane Katrina tragedy, some in the region have been remembering a day when the embattled agency was not only considered the federal government’s most efficient and responsive face, but also a key to bringing a splintered mid-1990s Catskills together.
On the same day that the agency announced it was closing its New Orleans offices, and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff announced that all federal agencies were fully prepared for the hurricane season ahead, the former town supervisor of Margaretville, now executive director of the Catskill Watershed Corporation, recalled a time ten years ago when FEMA came to the region’s rescue like the proverbial cavalry.
“Back when we got hit with the severe floods of January, 1996, they had an absolutely excellent response,” Rosa recalled this week. “Within a day of the floods they had set up offices in the local American Legion Hall, clearing away the mud and operating without electricity. Within three days, the FEMA Director, James Lee Witt, was visiting local towns with Governor Pataki and local congressmen.”
Witt had been brought in from his previous position handling Arkansas emergencies by President Bill Clinton soon after the former Arkansas governor’s 1993 inauguration. Working with an agency rep as bad as today’s (a 1992 Congressional report noted that “FEMA is widely viewed as a political dumping ground, a turkey farm, if you will, where large numbers of positions exist that can be conveniently and quietly filled by political appointment,” similar to last month’s Senate call for the agency’s break-up), Witt was raised to Cabinet level and used his emergency-management experience to “instill in the agency a spirit of preparedness, of service to the customer, of willingness to listen to ideas of local and state officials to make the system work better,” according to statements from the time.
By the time he left office in early 2000, moving on to set up a private firm that’s been hired by the State of Louisiana to help its own recovery work in light of the federal government’s failures, Witt has worked with 348 Presidentially-declared disaster areas in more than 6,500 counties, in all 50 states and territories.
Rosa, remembering his time with the Cabinet member fondly, called the agency “a morale booster for the region” that helped heal rifts that had arisen the previous year when a number of local property rights groups, spurred on by the watershed regulation fights with New York City, had broken an attempt to have the Catskills named one of 50-some UN Biosphere regions in North America, along with federal funding for a number of Heritage Tourism projects in the region.
“His visits, and FEMA’s aid to everyone, came at a critical time when we were negotiating with New York City towards what would eventually become the Memorandum of Agreement, under which this organization now operates,” said Rosa of the massive funding package that brought the CWC into existence. “They were there from the start helping coordinate rebuilding efforts.”
Within weeks of the 1996 floods, then U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan had addressed Congress about the region’s residents’ grace in the face of nature’s fury. Rebuilding efforts were well underway. People were praising the federal government’s role in helping local folks out, and cheering on the state-brokered MOA between Upstate towns and New York City.
A new prosperity, subtle but viable, was set in motion.
“FEMA was a true asset, a beacon really,” surmised Rosa, before resisting further comment about the current state of the agency.
For that, he said, he’d hold comment… for now.

County Accounts
Longstanding Ulster County Treasurer Lewis C. Kirschner recently announced that the 2005 Annual Financial Report for the County of Ulster has been completed and filed with the State Comptroller, with an overall Unreserved/Unappropriated General Fund Balance of $11.9 million, an increase of $10.7 million compared with 2004. Major contributors to this increase were due to one shot transactions such as an accounting change that eliminated the Medicaid Lag Accrual which resulted in a $5 million increase in the Fund Balance and the settlement of tax delinquent properties resulted in another positive increase to the fund balance of $6.4 million. In addition the sale of serial bonds resulted in a revenue of $3.5 million. Kirschner added, however, that county debt payments increased by $2.7 million over the prior year, retirement costs continued to escalate, amounting to $2.3 million over last year, and hospital and medical premiums cost the County an addition $1.4 million compared with 2004. These costs, expected to continue to increase in the coming years, are fast eroding any one-time savings. Furthermore, the treasurer pointed out that the state recommends that municipalities should maintain an unreserved/unappropriated fund balance of between 5% and 10% of their total general fund budget, which presently would amount to a minimum of $12.5 million… below what is there now. The Ulster County Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee has meanwhile endorsed $1.33 million in proposed budget cuts while recommending against imposing new mortgage taxes and additional vehicle registration fees to increase revenues this year. Their proposed spending cuts appear to offset a projected deficit exceeding $1 million. Among the cuts are $44,754 in benefits to lawmakers, including $3,300 for travel reimbursements; $13,780 for health insurance contributions; $9,324 for health insurance buyouts; and $18,550 for the Flex insurance plan. Other proposed reductions in county department budgets include a drop in spending of $107,815 for Mental Health, $45,444 for Public health, $3,798 for Probation, $1,892 for the Medical examiner, $16,926 in Personnel costs, $103,300 for the Buildings and Grounds department, $87,650 for Information Services, $29,664 for the Board of Elections, $12,847 in District Attorney expenses, $19,206 for the Public Defender, $6,306 for the Medical Examiner, $36,000 for the County Treasurer, $21,213 for County Purchasing, $11,193 for the Office of Real Property Tax Services, $95,442 in County Clerk costs, and $10,280 for County Attorney.

Denning Plans!
The Town of Denning is starting on a new comprehensive plan this Thursday, May 11th, with a 7:30 pm Community Visioning Session designed to provide residents, business owners and other interested persons the opportunity to describe what is special about their town, what are its defining features, as well as threats and challenges to the future growth and development of the community. The meeting will be led by Helen Budrock, Assistant Director at the Catskill Center, who led similar efforts in Shandaken and other Catskills communities. The Catskill Center awarded the town $15,000 for upgrading its long-range community plan.
A ‘comprehensive plan’ is the long-range strategy for the Town’s physical growth and economic development. It includes assessments of existing resources and issues, projections of future conditions and needs, and it considers future land use goals. As a policy guide, a comprehensive plan provides a framework for the development of the municipality. It is integrated with other planning initiatives, for example, capital planning and zoning upgrades.
David Gilmour, the Town’s planning consultant, noted that “While only around 500 people in size, Denning has the second largest area of any community in Ulster County. The Town of Denning is faced with some unique challenges and others that mirror those of its neighbors. On the one hand, Town government is responsible for maintaining fiscal balance and an extensive public road network through hilly terrain. On the other hand, the population is aging and the housing market has experienced price inflation”.

Plant A Row
With the start of the growing and planting season the Master Gardener program run by Cornell Cooperative is looking for gardeners to help them feed the hungry in Ulster County by joining their Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) campaign. The only thing vegetable gardeners need to do is grow a little extra or take their excess produce and bring it to Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County, 10 Westbrook lane, Kingston. There, their nutrition program educators, whose hands-on programs work with low-income children, families and seniors, will use and distribute the food when they go out to teach. Donated produce will also be given to food pantries in Kingston and New Paltz. Home gardeners participating in the program will even be able to receive special growing and pest management advice from Master Gardeners via special weekly emails.
The Hunger Action Network of New York State estimated in 2003 that one in 10 families in New York was at risk of hunger, and that families in such predicaments often resort to lower-quality diets or emergency food sources to get by. During that same time they estimate that 8.3% of Ulster County’s population experienced food insecurity. This means that in 2003 approximately 13, 781 of our friends, neighbors and children had worry, fear, and anxiety about or the actual inability to put an adequate amount of food on their tables.
For further information on the program call 845- 340-3478 (DIRT). Or visit http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/ulster.

Local Honorees
The Greater Margaretville Chamber of Commerce will honor five local business people at its Annual Dinner on Wednesday, May 24 at 6 p.m. at the Hanah Country Resort, Margaretville, with a good half associated with Shandaken-based Belleayre Mountain Ski Center. Receiving special recognition at the dinner will be Tony Lanza, superintendent of Belleayre Mountain; Joe Kelly, chairman of the board of directors of the Belleayre Conservatory; Carol and Peter Molnar, proprietors of Margaretville Lodging; and Dave Riordan, executive director of the Delaware & Ulster Railroad in Arkville. The honorees were chosen by the chamber because of their “diverse contributions to the local business community.” In addition to the presentation of awards, the Annual Dinner will include an evening of socializing and dancing. Tickets for the Annual Dinner are $45 each in advance and are available by contacting the chamber office at 845 586-3300. Tickets at the door will be $55.

Presidentially…
It’s looking like New York may be fielding not one or even two presidential candidates for 2008, but three. In addition to Hillary, former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and retiring Governor George Pataki are showing strong intersst in running for the Republican Party nomination… but also facing growing concerns about their ability to win over the GOP’s increasingly conservative heart.
Party pollsters and pundits contend that Giuliani and Pataki, supporters of abortion and gay rights as well as tough gun control laws, are too liberal for the conservative Republicans who tend to dominate the presidential primaries.
Both have started visiting primary states, giving speeches and attending lunches and dinner events, while also carefully crafting their story lines: Giuliani as the resolute leader in the face of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; Pataki as the Republican who won three terms in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. But omitted from both biographies is any mention of their longtime policies.
“When was the last time Republicans nominated a pro-abortion, pro-gay rights Northeasterner with an iffy record on taxes and spending?” asked Nelson Warfield, an aide to Bob Dole’s failed 1996 Republican presidential campaign. “That’s the hurdle both Giuliani and Pataki face.”
Independent pollster Lee Miringoff said if Giuliani and Pataki decide to seek national office, they eventually will have to deal with the “litmus issues.”
“It’s a question of whether they can effectively make counter arguments. I assume they will talk about their values and what their vision of the Republican Party is,” said Miringoff, head of Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “I don’t think they’re in a position to say, ‘That’s not really what I meant.”’
Giuliani courting the right, recently spoke to a Global Pastors Network conference of evangelicals in Florida and is set to headline a fundraiser in Atlanta for Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition leader now running for lieutenant governor in Georgia… even though the Rev. Jerry Falwell recently said he could not support Giuliani for president because of “irreconcilable differences on life and family and that kind of thing.”
Despite the criticism, Giuliani is riding high in national polls that show him and Sen. John McCain of Arizona leading the pack of potential 2008 GOP presidential contenders. Those polls have Pataki as a statistical afterthought.

Farm Day!
On Sunday, May 21 what remains of the local farming community of the Catskills, plus all would-be farmers in the area, are invited to celebrate the unique contributions that the Catskills farming community has made in watershed protection and land conservation. To name just a few important milestones, there are now over 80,000 farm acres under pollution-preventing Whole Farm Plans; nearly 100,000 acres under forest management; over 1,500 acres in stream buffers; and over 8,000 of agricultural acres under conservation easement – set aside permanently for food production and water quality stewardship.
Watershed Agricultural Council Chair, Fred Huneke, comments “We know it’s a busy time for farmers, but we’re almost two decades into the Watershed Agricultural Program and we want to kick off this yearly tribute to the fine level of conservation the farmers have achieved and maintained since 1990.”
The event, called “Down Off the Farm Day,” will take place from 1-4:00 p.m. at the Delaware County Fairgrounds’ Livestock Pavilion in Walton… a good distance, but a pretty drive. There’ll be plenty of entertainment for all ages, from country band The Mustangs and bluegrass performers Aurora North to an Air Castle for the kids. The Delaware County Dairy Princess will serve milk punch for all. A purebred Holstein calf has been donated by JJ Farber Farm in Jewett to highlight a seasonal raffle for the day, which will also feature a gas-powered power washer, picnic table, chainsaw; and pedal tractor for kids. All proceeds of the day will benefit the Watershed Agricultural Council Conservation Easement Stewardship Fund.
Advanced reservations are essential to insure that there’s enough food for everyone! The $5 ticket includes barbeque chicken by Niles Wilson with potato salad, baked beans, rolls, beverages, a home-grown Pure Catskills green salad and homemade pies from local farmers Barb Hanselman, Nancy and Nanette LaTourette and Carolyn Post. Children 5 and under enter free, and families can purchase a $20 ticket. To RSVP, please call Becky O’Dell at 607-865-7017.

Guzzle This!
Nine states, including ours, have sued the administration of President George W. Bush for lenient automotive fuel economy standards that they say worsen an energy crunch and contribute to air pollution and climate change. The lawsuit says that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has failed to meet federal laws requiring government to determine the impact of regulation on fuel conservation and the environment.
“At a time when consumers are struggling to pay surging gas prices and the challenge of global climate change has become even more clear, it is unconscionable that the Bush Administration is not requiring greater mileage efficiency for light trucks,” said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in a press release.
In March, the Bush administration approved a 1.9 mile-per-gallon increase in the standards for sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickups — all in the light truck class that includes big gas guzzlers — to 24.1 mpg between 2008 and 2011. It also rewrote the rules for calculating how far light trucks must go on a gallon of gasoline.
But the lawsuit, joined by the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont, says the move included language that could “create incentives to build larger, less fuel-efficient models” and attempts to pre-empt a California law requiring a reduction of greenhouse gas tailpipe emissions. The attorney general of the District of Columbia and the corporate counsel for New York City have also joined.

Uninsured
The percentage of working-age Americans with moderate to middle incomes who lacked health insurance for at least part of the year rose to 41 percent in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 28 percent in 2001 without coverage. Moreover, more than half of the uninsured adults said they were having problems paying their medical bills or had incurred debt to cover their expenses, according to a report by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based private, health care policy foundation. The study of 4,350 adults also found that people without insurance were more likely to forgo recommended health screenings such as mammograms than those with coverage, and were less likely to have a regular doctor than their insured counterparts.
About 45.8 million Americans did not have health insurance in 2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The percentage of individuals earning less than $20,000 a year without insurance rose to 53 percent, up from 49 percent in 2001. Overall, the percentage of people without insurance rose to 28 percent in 2005 from 24 percent in 2001. The study also found that 59 percent of uninsured with chronic conditions such as asthma or diabetes either skipped a dose of their medicine or went without it because it was too expensive. One-third of them those in that group visited an emergency room or stayed in a hospital overnight or did both, compared to 15 percent of their insured counterparts. That study found that cost prevented 41.1 percent of uninsured adults from seeing a doctor, compared to 9.2 percent of individuals with coverage. Meanwhile, 51 percent of women without health insurance haven’t had a mammogram in two years, compared to 22.8 percent of women with insurance. And 76.3 percent of uninsured men between the ages of 40 to 64 haven’t had the PSA test, which detects prostate cancer, in two years. That compares to 52.2 percent of their insured counterparts.

Broken Laws
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ‘’whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ‘’to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ‘’execute” a law he believes is unconstitutional.
Former administration officials contend that just because Bush reserves the right to disobey a law does not mean he is not enforcing it: In many cases, he is simply asserting his belief that a certain requirement encroaches on presidential power.
But with the disclosure of Bush’s domestic spying program, in which he ignored a law requiring warrants to tap the phones of Americans, many legal specialists say Bush is hardly reluctant to bypass laws he believes he has the constitutional authority to override. Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush’s theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

No More Soda
The nation’s largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all soda sales to public schools, according to a deal announced by the William J. Clinton Foundation. Under the agreement, the companies have agreed to sell only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milks to elementary and middle schools, said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Bill Clinton. Diet sodas would be sold only to high schools. Cadbury Schweppes PLC, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and the American Beverage Association have all signed onto the deal, Carson said, adding that the companies serve “the vast majority of schools.” The American Beverage Association represents the majority of school vending bottlers.
The deal follows a wave of regulation by school districts and state legislatures to cut back on student consumption of soda amid reports of rising childhood obesity rates. Soda has been a particular target of those fighting obesity because of its caloric content and popularity among children. Nearly 35 million students nationwide will be affected by the deal, The Alliance for a Healthier Generation said in a news release. The group, a collaboration between Clinton’s foundation and the American Heart Association, helped broker the deal.
“This is really the beginning of a major effort to modify childhood obesity at the level of the school systems,” said Robert H. Eckel, president of the American Heart Association. Under the agreement, high schools will still be able to purchase drinks such as diet and unsweetened teas, diet sodas, sports drinks, flavored water, seltzer and low-calorie sports drinks from distributors.
The agreement applies to beverages sold for use on school grounds during the regular and extended school day, Carson said. Sales during after-school activities such as clubs, yearbook, band and choir practice will be affected by the new regulations. But sales at events such as school plays, band concerts and sporting events, where adults make up a significant portion of the audience, won’t be affected, he said. How quickly the changes take hold will depend in part on individual school districts’ willingness to alter existing contracts, the alliance said. The companies will work to implement the changes at 75 percent of the nation’s public schools by the 2008-2009 school year, and at all public schools a year later.
Many school districts around the country, such as Onteora, have already begun to replace soda and candy in vending machines with healthier items, and dozens of states have considered legislation on school nutrition this year.

National IDs…
Reacting to the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress passed the Real ID law last year, intending to make it tougher for terrorists to obtain driver’s licenses and for people without proper identification to board planes or enter federal buildings. But with the deadline for setting up the law two years away, states are frustrated, saying the law — which requires states to use sources like birth certificates and national immigration databases to verify that people applying for or renewing driver’s licenses are American citizens or legal residents — will be too expensive and difficult to put in place by the May 2008 deadline. Another issue is the privacy impact of the requirement that states share, through databases, the personal information needed for a driver’s license.
Concerns are so great that last week, the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators issued a report saying that the states have not been given the time or money to comply with the law and that they need at least another eight years. And two states, including ours, have considered resolutions calling for the law to be repealed, the New York City Council passed a resolution opposing it and New Hampshire is considering opting out entirely.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration, facing complaints from border-state lawmakers, is considering scaling back strict passport security requirements for people who infrequently travel between the United States and Canada. The concession may not be enough for lawmakers who want to delay rules requiring passports or other tamper-resistant ID cards for all who enter the United States beginning Jan. 1, 2008.
The ID rules were part of a 2004 intelligence overhaul law, overwhelmingly approved by Congress, to tighten U.S. borders against terrorists. They have since pitted lawmakers from border states against those from the heartland, strained relations with Canada, and forced Homeland Security to roll out technology and training under a deadline that may prove too aggressive to meet.

Failed States
Despite large-scale U.S. support, Iraq and Afghanistan rank among the world’s 10 most vulnerable states. In its second annual “failed states” index, Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace concluded that Sudan is the country under the most severe stress because of violent internal conflict. Eleven of the 20 most vulnerable countries of the 148 examined in the survey are in Africa. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ivory Coast, both chronically volatile in recent years, ranked second and third. Each country was given a score based on data from numerous available sources. A “failing state” was described as one in which the government does not have effective control of its territory, is not perceived as legitimate by a significant portion of its population, does not provide domestic security or basic public services to its citizens and lacks a monopoly on the use of force.
According to the review, the situation in Iraq (No. 4) and Afghanistan (No. 10) deteriorated since 2005, the first year the survey was taken. “For Iraq, the index category that worsened most was human flight,” the report said. “The exodus of Iraq’s professional class has accelerated, leaving the country without the trained citizens it needs to staff important posts.”
Iraq’s instability was underscored in a State Department report last week that said fully 30 percent of all terrorist attacks worldwide last year occurred in Iraq.

Where’s That?
Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn’t find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.
Among the findings: One-third of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48 percent were unable to locate Mississippi. Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill. Two-thirds didn’t know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan. Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia. While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East. Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language. Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

City Asthma…
The number of New Yorkers suffering from asthma symptoms in the past week has more than doubled, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said recently. Hospital emergency room visits for asthma symptoms increased from 250 a day during the first three weeks of April to an average of 500 a day over a recent week, the agency said. In addition, sales of over-the-counter allergy medications increased more than twofold over the past two weeks, a pattern observed every year that marks the beginning of the spring allergy season, it said.
“New Yorkers with asthma should talk to their doctor about avoiding asthma triggers, developing and following an asthma action plan, and taking asthma control medications as prescribed,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden. “Proper asthma management can prevent severe asthma episodes, emergency department visits and hospitalizations.”
The agency said sufferers should contact their doctor if they have more than two asthma attacks per week or nighttime symptoms more than two nights per month.