COLUMN Steinem: Surrogate Bill Would Put Poor Women At Mercy Of Rich Ones Editor’s Note: Another one of many troubling ideas out of Albany this session – the creation of a surrogate-mother industry – led Gloria Steinem to ally herself in opposition with the state’s Catholic bishops. She wrote this letter June 11. The state Senate passed the bill, but as this edition went to press, it was stalled in the Assembly. Happily, the legislative session ends today, June 19.…
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Columns - Page 150
OTSEGO CHAMBER POSITION PAPER Renewables, Yes, But Decompressor As Well Editor’s Note: The Otsego County Chamber of Commerce released this Energy & Infrastructure Policy Thursday, June 13. Otsego County has a diverse economy. Manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and tourism have been part of the economy for hundreds of years. Having a large part of the economy linked to these sectors, the Otsego County Chamber of Commerce affirms that Otsego County requires a variety of energy sources to allow it to be…
A FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE New View, From Delaware Street It’s a pleasure to be writing again for The Freeman’s Journal (as well as, for the first time, Hometown Oneonta). I’ve been here before, though it was about two decades ago. More about that in a future column. For this new stint of columns, of course I need a new name. “From Fly Creek” just won’t do. Though all I learned and came to love while writing from that hamlet still lives…
COLUMN Local Police Exempt From Mug-Shot Ban, State’s Expert Avers Editor’s Note: This is reprinted from the June edition of NewsBeat, a publication of the New York Press Association. One provision of the recently passed state budget has been interpreted by many as a “ban” on police agencies releasing booking photographs. But state officials have since clarified it’s not an outright ban, and local police retain a great deal of discretion in how they handle mugshots. The measure in question,…
The View From Fly Creek If Facts Can’t Defuse Deniers, What Can? ‘What is Truth?” Pontius Pilate famously asked. Lately, it seems a bigger question than ever. If, like me, you surf between conservative and liberal websites, Fox News and CNN/MSNBC, talk radio and PBS, Sean Hannity and Alan Chartock, you know that you’re getting radically different, irreconcilable versions of the truth on virtually any subject. It’s scary. The other day, driving down Fly Creek valley, it was Glenn Beck…
COLUMN ATTENTION PARENTS! Vaping Is Threatening Your Kids Editor’s Note: CCS Superintendent of Schools Bill Crankshaw sent this cautionary letter to parents. Dear Parents and Caregivers, Cooperstown Central School District has experienced a sharp increase in “vaping.” This dangerous trend is a common concern in almost all schools nationally. Locally, the most current Youth Risk Behavior Survey (2018) indicates that 44 percent of high school students, grades 9-72, in Otsego County have used vapor products. This is a staggering statistic…
COLUMN Is Any Government Agency Efficient? By MIKE ZAGATA • View From West Davenport When Bernie Sanders starts a sentence by saying “The truth on this matter is,” it’s time to reach for your wallet to see if it’s still there. He’s not alone in that regard, as there are lots of candidates trying to sell us on the virtues of socialism. To learn how socialism has affected you, read the last three paragraphs. The major differences between socialism and…
COLUMN Slow-Walking Inflation-Rate Hikes Hurt Poor By DAN MASKIN • CEO, Opportunities For Otsego Mollie Orshansky was an economist at the Social Security Administration in the 1960s. At the time, she proposed Official Poverty Thresholds (OPM) based on the cost of food. She calculated that any family earning less than three times the USDA estimate for the subsistence food budget was considered poor. That’s how the poverty guidelines began. These thresholds have remained in place for the last 50 years…
COLUMN Can Only Small Business Save ‘Common’ For All? One of the landmarks of the early environmental movement was the essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” published in 1968 by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in Science. It can be to an individual’s private advantage, he points out, to exploit common resources at the expense of others. In the absence of other constraints, he argued, most people will take more than their share, out of greed or fear, eventually depleting the…
COLUMN THE VIEW FROM WEST DAVENPORT Power Grid Mixes Good, Bad And Ugly Electrons A few weeks ago, an article appeared about installing a geo-thermal system to heat and cool the family home. The subject was very transparent about the fact geo-thermal systems require considerable electricity to run the pumps that circulate the fluid and to provide the energy necessary to make up the differential between the temperature of the water sourced from beneath the ground (normally 55 degrees) and…
