FROM THE MANHATTAN PROJECT TO THE MADHATTER'S BALL & THE MATRIX

By Louis Ricciuti

We've become a trashcan of the national and neighborhood psyche so to speak – in a humorous, over-the-top, landfill capping, Love Canal to "Black Creek Village" precedent setting kind of way. It’s funny in a Kafkaesque, Alice in Wonderland, Madhatter's Tea, Twilight Zone fashion. The Niagara region has become a national "sacrifice zone" ** for waste disposal and human misery. From the atomic furnaces of research and creation, and the remains of Tom Brokaw's anthrax laden desk, right to your backyard garden, Niagara has been abused as a national wastebasket. From perchlorates to peaches, TNT to tomatoes, rockets to radishes, Niagara's legacy is growing all around us in more ways than one.

Nov 19, 2003, 23:59

Read the entire article at http://niagarabuzz.com/article_416.shtml.

How long are we to continue dying quietly?

By Chuck Richardson

At the beginning of À la recherche du temps perdu … Proust escapes from his present existence, drifting back to childhood while tasting a small sponge cake (called a madeleine) dipped in tea. My madeleine moment occurs each time I drive into Niagara Falls. The one thing that hasn’t changed in 40 years is the smell. The place still stinks. The next memory I have, in connection to the stench is Page’s Whistle Pig. I remember riding the rides, eating a foul tasting hot dog, smelling the chemicals and crying a lot from a bad headache. I had asthma pretty bad, too. And back in those days everybody smoked and the cars were real hogs. We were all gasping for breath, and thankful for it.

Read the entire column at http://niagarabuzz.com/article_420.shtml.