A testament to the mighty power of blog: Greene County chronicler Dick May appears to have scored a point for open government with a post he wrote a couple of weeks ago.

Last month, May wrote in his Seeing Greene blog that Catskill village police were refusing public access to police reports. He quoted Catskill police chief Dave Darling:

“I have no way of giving you free access to our ‘blotter’. Our incident and action reports are now done on-line; no more ring binders full of paper. Internet access to the on-line reports is restricted to authorized personnel. And I’m not going to let just anybody come into a secured area at police headquarters, and sit down for an hour or more in front of one of our computer screens reading a day’s or a week’s reports.”

When he isn't running for public office, Justin Holmes, who became locally famous (or notorious) for battling his alma mater SUNY New Paltz a couple of years ago, is saving the world from behind the counter of a new New Paltz coffeeshop. Called /root (pronounced “slashroot”), the venture opened in January at 60 Main as equal parts coffeeshop, community space and computer tech support pit crew. Along with co-founder Amanda Catherine Stauble, Holmes hopes that by teaching the community how to use open-source software, he will do his bit to “slash the roots of proprietary software and plant the seeds of freedom.” Or at least give you a hand with building your website.

WP: Mind if I type this interview on my laptop?

JH: Sure. You're running Windows on that?

WP: Well, er, yes. I installed Ubuntu, but I couldn't get it to work with my wireless card.

JH: I can help you with that.

Since last summer, an outbreak of mumps has been spreading in New York and New Jersey, mostly among Orthodox Jews. The AP has the story:

The 7-month-old outbreak began last summer at a boys camp in the Catskills. The campers were from Orthodox Jewish families, and cases multiplied when they returned to their close-knit communities in and around New York City.

The story is based on a CDC report that says the communities in which the virus is spreading vaccinate at about the same rate as the general population. Cultural factors may be aiding the spread of the mumps:

The Census Bureau recently announced that they would start identifying census blocks that contain prisons. It's a move hailed by advocacy group Prisoners of the Census, which calls it a first step toward ending "prison gerrymandering."

Where prisoners get counted is a particularly pressing issue in New York State, where most of the prison population hails from the greater NYC metropolitan area, and most of the prisons are in rural upstate regions. The Census counts prisoners in the regions where they're incarcerated--numbers that are used for drawing political districts, despite the fact that prisoners can't vote. The Census numbers are also used for determining the allocation of federal and state aid.

A bill in the New York State legislature is seeking to reform prisoner counting ahead of the 2010 Census:

The Gov. tells Don Imus this morning:

I'm black, I'm blind, and I'm still alive.

Rumors about a damning New York Times story about the Governor are flying in Albany, but the actual story has yet to materialize--prompting one Newsday columnist to quip about "news derivatives."

At this point, if the story ever comes out, it had better be able to sing and dance and get rid of ring around the collar. It's hard to imagine anything the Times prints could top the fables currently being spawned in the Albany fever swamps.