FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE But What’s Her Name? By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I’m at ease on my front porch on a beautiful afternoon, admiring the perspective up tree-lined Delaware Avenue. As the long last block heads toward Chestnut Street, curbs and sidewalks seem to draw together, trees conspire more closely over the street, and the two rows of handsome house fronts, bedecked with flags and hanging planters, draw closer till the last ones opposite each other almost block…
Online home of The Freeman's Journal and Hometown Oneonta
Advertisement
Columns - Page 138
VIEW FROM ALBANY A Little Here, A Little There. Suddenly, It's Many Millions By State Sen. JIM SEWARD • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Death by a thousand cuts. Nickel and dime. If those adages come to mind when you think of New York State government, you are not alone. Now the latest example: the governor’s push to require millions of drivers to buy new license plates, needed or not. Recently, the governor’s office launched a statewide survey to select a new…
COLUMN Some Indicators Suggest Recession Not Looming By TOM MORGAN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Are we staring at a recession? You have surely seen or heard reports, opinion and speculation to that effect. Gloom has been a mini-rage lately. A few questions are in order. Are economists able to accurately predict recessions? No. If their accuracy percentages were batting averages you would bench them. Why is the subject of recessions in the air so much lately? The Left salivates at…
COLUMN Questions Are Neutral. Answers, Not So Much By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Socrates with his mouth open: Asking a question, no doubt. Asking questions: It’s a method of teaching that goes back to earlier than 399 B.C. and Socrates, the seminal thinker who laid the foundation for much subsequent Western thought. Hence, the Socratic Method. The idea is that a question, in itself, is neutral; at worst – or best? – a provocation to think. It’s the…
COLUMN VIEW FROM FLY CREEK On Flying The Flag By ADRIAN KUZMINSKI • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com A balloon drifts past the flagpole at Main and Pioneer, Cooperstown, during the Clinton Regatta in May. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com) The other day I was chatting with a long-time local business man in Cooperstown who occasionally reads this column. He brought up the recent decision of the Village of Cooperstown to officially fly the Gay Pride flag on Village property. He expressed discomfort with at…
COLUMN ALBANY ON THE MARCH With Domestic Terrorism Act, New York State Leads Nation Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Governor Cuomo’s Thursday, Aug. 14, speech to the New York City Bar Association, where he proposed the nation’s first Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act. Governor Andrew Cuomo We must begin by recognizing the crisis for what it is because you will never solve a problem in life you are unwilling to admit, and today New York State acknowledges the…
Salute To Service As $9.1M Project Begins, Village Thanks Ted Peters Hospital research regimen to serve and chair, for years, the Village of Cooperstown water and sewer boards, are, from left, his daughter Melissa Barry, state Sen. Jim Seward, and Village Trustees Richard Sternberg and Cindy Falk. (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com) Editor’s Note: The guest of honor at the Friday, Aug. 16, groundbreaking on the Village of Cooperstown’s $9.1 million water treatment plant project was Ted Peters, retired Bassett Hospital researcher and…
COLUMN THE VIEW FROM ALBANY Democrats Bottle Up Bill To Discourage Attacks On Officers By State Sen. JIM SEWARD • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Police, firefighters, and emergency first responders are vital to public safety. The brave men and women who work in these fields put the lives of others first and often risk their own well-being. I am appalled by recent incidents in New York City of individuals hurling buckets of water at on-duty police officers. Video of these abuses…
COLUMN THE FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE The Newspaper Roundabout By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Columnist Lidie Mackie passed the mantle to Jim Atwell in the 1990s. I’m at a loss to find a good simile for my Cooperstown newspaper career. It’s been a bit like a ping-pong game, but played like a flow of molasses. OK, forget figures of speech: Way back in the early ’90s, when I first moved north from Maryland, the redoubtable Lidie Mackie retired from…
COLUMN Home Rule In Constitution, But Limited By ADRIAN KUZMINSKI • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I’ve been commenting in recent columns on the first two Principles of Sustainable Otsego: Sustainable Living and Economic Independence. In this column, I want to take up the third and last principle: Home Rule. “Home” is where we live with family, friends, and neighbors. Its scale is small enough to sustain in-depth relationships with people and places. Home has the capacity to inspire love, not least…
