Editor's Note

A November Miscellany

by Brian K. Mahoney, October 28, 2009

In late October, President Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a “national emergency” as thousands of concerned people were lining up across the country to receive scarce flu vaccine for H1N1. While the national emergency designation is merely a tool that allows hospitals and municipalities to establish offsite clinics should existing medical resources become taxed by flu patients, there has been mounting fear about a possible pandemic, and the vast majority of the information released by the government and reported on by news organizations has focused on how, when, and where, to get vaccinated—not why it’s necessary. Dr. Joseph Mercola, a leading national health practitioner, has long questioned the rationale for flu vaccination and warned of its side effects. Health and Wellness editor Lorrie Klosterman has excerpted material from Dr. Mercola’s voluminous articles and commentary on the subject, laying out a case against immunization and suggesting ways to keep our immune systems in top-notch form so as to avoid the flu altogether this coming winter.

Bethany Saltman has been writing a column for us for a year now, ostensibly on parenting, tracking the joys and challenges of raising her daughter Azalea with her husband, T. Bethany happens to be a Buddhist, which informs her experience of parenting, writing her column, and, I imagine,  just about everything else in her life. For years, Bethany lived at the Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, where she studied with ZMM’s founder John Daido Loori, one of the most influential Zen teachers in the West. Loori died on October 9. Bethany offers a remembrance of her teacher this month.

Father Major Jealous Divine was the head of the Peace Mission Movement, a Christian religious group that built 31 small communities in Ulster County in the early part of the 20th century. Divine, a charismatic black preacher, brought blacks and whites together in his communities, a rarity at the time, and promoted a doctrine of racial equality and nonviolent social change. While little trace is left of the Divine communities, Pulitzer-Prize winning local historian Carleton Mabee has documented the impact of Divine’s influence on the area in his recent book Promised Land: Father Divine’s Interracial Communities in Ulster County. Jay Blotcher talks with Mabee, who turns 95 this December, about the Divine legacy.

In our ongoing profiles of local cities and towns, we’ve noticed a recurring theme: the tension between economic development and the preservation of open space. The communities we feature this month are no different, though dissimilar from each other in many ways. Wappingers Falls and Fishkill, in southern Dutchess County, are often thought of solely (and soullessly) as towns shot through by Route 9 and Interstate 84. Off the main drags, pedestrian-friendly downtown areas are at the heart of efforts to re-create sustainable village life away from the traffic and congestion. The Marbletown hamlets of Stone Ridge and High Falls face the problems at the other end of the economic development spectrum: How do you maintain open space while fostering economic opportunity and retaining young people with good jobs? Anne Pyburn and Atticus Lanigan report back from opposite ends of the Hudson Valley.

For years, Chronogram has wrestled with an issue that is both a blessing and a curse. We distribute 20,000 copies each month across the Mid-Hudson Valley and into the Catskills and the Berkshires. For free. And within the first week of the month, the magazines are almost always all picked up. This is a testament to the fierce loyalty of our readers and, we believe, the quality of our product. The consistent problem for readers has been: Where can I find a copy of the magazine if I missed it that first week? In an attempt to solve this dilemma, we began offering the magazine for sale at selected locations last month for $4. This came as a shock to some, conditioned as they were to just picking up the magazine for free. And you still can! But when you’re needing a copy and you can’t find it, look no further than the following locations:

Garrison  Garrison Market, 1135 Route 9D
New Paltz  Trailways Bus Station Shop, 139 Main Street
Red Hook  J&J’s Gourmet, 1 East Market Street
Rhinebeck  Upstate Films, 6415 Montgomery Street
Tivoli  Country Grocer, 76 Broadway
Warwick  Atkins Pharmacy 33 Main Street

Chronogram is and will remain a free distribution publication. Pick it up every month at your same trusted locations. And there’s always, of course, the subscription option. For only $36/year, you can get the magazine delivered to your mailbox each month so you’ll never miss an issue again—or at least not until your subscription runs out. E-mail info@chronogram.com for details.