On the beaten path

By GERIANNE WRIGHT
Staff Writer

Okay, so I’m driving down Cornelia Street in Plattsburgh the other day by Burger King and Dunkin Donuts when someone pulls a Good Sam maneuver.

You know what I mean: They think they’re helping someone out by waiving them into traffic from the Dunkin Donuts parking lot.

But the person was making a left turn out of the place. Instead of waiting for traffic to clear or making a right turn and turning around down the line, the Donut Eater impatiently inches the car in that “let me out; let me out” way some drivers employ.

The Good Sam wasn’t giving up his place in line. He had a red light up ahead anyway. He was letting the Donut Eater cut in front of two lanes in order to pull out into west-bound traffic. Good Sam may have had a clear view of his lane of traffic – he stopped it for Donut Eater. But he didn’t know I was coming along beside him in the left lane.

Donut Eater pulls out, and I almost T-bone him. I hit the brakes; I hit the horn. And Donut Eater gives me the finger. I’m the bad guy because I’m tooling along with the right of way.

Good Sam high-tailed it out of there. He wasn’t going to get tagged for doing someone a favor. And now I have to sit there while Donut Eater, he of the middle-finger gesture, blocks my lane of traffic because not only does he not know how to make left turns onto Cornelia Street, he also doesn’t know how to use the middle turn lane once he’s out in oncoming traffic.

He sat his Honda in front of my car, waiting for the west-bound traffic to clear instead of pulling into the turn lane so the rest of us right-of-wayer’s could keep going the right way. Once he had the chance to pull in front of yet another oncoming car, this time going west, he flipped me the bird one more time — take that, you — and went along his misguided way.

Good Sam, you do no one a favor by waving people through. Let them wait. A few minutes isn’t going to matter in the scheme of things, and you might actually be doing more people the favor of saving their lives by avoiding a crash.

And Donut Eater, you’re not going to be waiting there forever. Just sit and wait your turn. If someone tries to wave you out, give them the “thanks but no thanks” wave and wait your turn. If it really looks like you’re not going to get a break in traffic to cut across or to at least cut across and sit in the turn lane, then make the right turn and turn around down the line. You’re in the wrong. Good Sam is in the wrong.

And those two wrongs shouldn’t make a left.

Posted by Lois Clermont at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By ANNA JOLLY
Assistant News Editor

After rushing back to the newsroom Friday, our crime reporter Andrea VanValkenburg appropriately summed up the Lawrence Crouthers case by saying that the verdict would have been shocking either way.

After days of deliberations, a Clinton County jury found Crouthers, 73, not guilty of criminally negligent homicide for shooting and killing 21-year-old Andrew Leroux.

The shooting actually happened in 2002 on one of my first days working full time for the Press-Republican.

I went with another young reporter, and we walked up and down peaceful William Street talking with neighbors about what they heard and saw that morning.

A shooting of any type was totally out-of-character for the area, to say the very least. The shock was beginning to set in.

More disturbing was that the shooter, Lawrence Crouthers, who was 68 then, was a nice man fearful that someone was trying to enter his house with his family inside. As details of the shooting emerged, people developed strong opinions either supporting Crouthers’s right to defend his home or against the man who — regardless of his intentions — shot a young man who was drunk and confused.

District Attorney Richard Cantwell investigated and decided to present a charge of second-degree murder to a grand jury. It was one of Cantwell’s first big cases and one that would haunt the rest of his term.

Not really familiar with the legal system, I fully expected an indictment of some sort. The grand jury could understandably not see how the tragedy was actual murder. Cantwell was later told by Clinton County Judge Kevin Ryan that he needed to present lesser charges, including criminally negligent homicide.

A long legal battle resulted, with Cantwell being backed by the state appeals court. Therefore, no new charges were ever brought forth.

Leroux’s family in Fort Covington held out hope that some charges would eventually result. However, the whole matter seemed to fade with time.

In part due to this case, Cantwell was not re-elected. His successor, Andrew Wylie, vowed to see the matter through, and we know the rest.

I still feel conflicted about what should have happened. I’m sure the jury and almost everyone else who had some personal knowledge of the events feels the same.

At least the facts surrounding this shooting were brought to trial, as they should have been years ago.

That avoidance of Leroux’s violent death did no one any good.

Posted by Lois Clermont at 9:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By STEPHEN BARTLETT
Staff Writer

PLATTSBURGH — Often through my education reporting I hear property owners complain about taxes, school boards about unfunded mandates and teachers about one-size-fits-all tests that do exactly what President Bush says he is trying not to do — leave children behind.

I consistently recommend that they call and write their lawmakers, protest, do anything to gets their voices heard, because too often what they perceive as problems persist and frustrations continue due to failure to make their voices heard on a large scale or even at all.

Well, that is exactly what Plattsburgh’s Common Council recently did when they passed a resolution saying the U.S. shouldn’t go to war with Iran, only to be scolded by a local television news outlet for not sticking to city business. The news outlet said, “It must be something in the water.” Well, if you ask me, that media outlet must be bathing in the water they’re so afraid of, because before this editorial, they chastised Vermont politicians for voting to impeach Bush over the war in Iraq.

I think sounding off to the government, especially when local men and women are serving and dying in wars built around lies and deceptions, is the business of everyone, everywhere, especially elected officials on the local, statewide or nationwide level.

The lawmakers from Vermont and Plattsburgh were making their voices heard, as is their responsibility as citizens and elected officials, especially in the wake of the way in which the American government has been conducting business.

And isn’t there a case for impeachment. President Clinton’s wrist was slapped for lying about sex, yet the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction and a country’s supposed threat to us, and the outcome has been more than 3,000 dead American soldiers and countless wounded and hundreds of thousands murdered, innocent Iraqi men, women and children.

The only way our government is going to know that we are fed up with the lies and corporate alliances — as it seems companies like Haliburton are the only ones profiting from this war — is if City Councils and local and statewide elected officials across the nation band together and say enough is enough.
Thomas Jefferson said dissidence is the highest form of patriotism. If you don’t agree with them when they take such steps, then get off your buts and head to the polls next election like.

Vermont’s lawmakers and Plattsburgh’s Common Council should be able to make their voices heard without a media outlet condemning them for acting democratically. Kind of makes you question that news outlet’s objectivity, especially when it reverts to intellectual intimidation to eliminate dissent.

You see, bullies, especially calculating ones, are motivated by self-serving interests.

Don’t let them scare you into silence.

E-mail Stephen Bartlett at:
sbartlett@pressrepublican.com

Posted by Lois Clermont at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)