I have talked to at least ten faculty and staff members here at CCNY about the never-ending construction/renovation "projects" that are part of the landscape on campus. They all believe that it is caused by corruption in Albany. Most believe that there are kickbacks involved, and the senior faculty members seem to feel responsible for protecting my innocence and they say, "You don't even want to know..." I like to play devil's advocate (my native habitat is the unearthly realm where extreme cynicism becomes optimism). I say, "Well, these good guys need jobs. You wouldn't want to put these good guys out of work." Indeed, the workers seem to be doing good work. But then I hear about budget cuts coming from Albany, and this does have an effect on CCNY. There is apparently no money for my coworker to get paid this summer. He is a sincere, hard-working guy and not part of the corrupt construction scam, but he is going to get hurt by it. Maybe he forgot to send kickback to Albany from his last paycheck.