Serendipity

Downtown Le Roy, NY In this small town in upstate New York, there are still no answers to what caused the mysterious tics to hit the teenage girls, but there are plenty of possible theories...none of which are yet proven or dis-proven. I have been following this story since it broke, and since my last blog post, there has only been one decent article that I found in the New York Times. Here, the reporter did her research, but it left me with more questions than answers as she has brought up some unknown issues that haven't been mentioned previously. Some history: Located on the eastern border of Genesee County, LeRoy is one of the most picturesque communities in upstate New York. Firstsettled in 1797, the community is nestled along the beautiful Oatka Creek.  The tree-lined streets are lined with stately Victorian homes which provide numerous bed and breakfast retreats in a quiet setting, only half an hour from Rochester and...

55 gallon drum Since my last post ( Still no definitive answer to Leroy students illnesses ), testing has been done and is now completed on  235  (rotting)  barrels that contained soil from wells drilled on the Lehigh Railroad Derailment Superfund site . (I am assuming here that this was when the clean-up after the railroad spill had commenced and they were making sure that the soil--then--was decontaminated .)  According to WKBW , in 32 of those barrels of soil and rock, "   some detectable concentrations of contaminants were found.  However, in all cases the levels of these contaminants were low and are below health-based levels."  In any case, these barrels were moved to a landfill that accepts hazardous waste in Belleville, Michigan. “I am pleased the EPA is removing the barrels from this Superfund site,” said Senator Gillibrand, a member of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee.  “The EPA must now continue tes...

Every week we are bombarded in the media with articles about teachers going too far in one way or another. For some time though, they have been mostly about teachers that have done the unthinkable: gotten into some kind of romantic and/or sexual affair with a student.  This morning though, I came across an article about a teacher who is also a coach, that went too far in a different way: making "insensitive and vulgar comments in front of students and players", as well as picking on the students that have come down with the mystery illness at Le Roy school in upstate NY. It seems that his insensativity led him to make up a chant while his basketball team (York) was playing against Le Roy's that went:    “One, Two, three, Tourette’s!” And supposedly this was said in the locker room and not on the basketball court. Falk reportedly qualified his ‘joke,’ telling his players, “I’m just kidding.” Well, his kidding cost him...he was removed from the coach pos...