Column by Adrian Kuzminski June 15, 2018 Demagogues Happen – And Can Happen Here The Wikipedia – it may be the closest thing we have to a common standard of what things mean in our culture – tells us that a demagogue is “a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. Demagogues overturn established customs of political conduct, or…
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Columns - Page 98
Column by Mike Zagata, June 8, 2018 Doctor-Patient Discussions Private? Little By Little, Confidentiality Goes Are there circumstances where it’s OK to violate your privacy? It might be OK if you make an informed decision to allow that to happen – but what if you don’t? Have you heard of HIPPA – the Health insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996? If you have, you probably have a sense of comfort that it protects conversations your doctor has about your…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, May 31, 2018 Are Today’s Disputations Only Reformation Battles Revisited? A recent op-ed in the New York Times by a University of Virginia professor, Gerard Alexander, was provocatively titled: “Liberals, You’re not as Smart as you Think.” It may have been a shocking idea for the Times, but it’s old news for anyone who’s been listening to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or watching Fox News. Hillary’s comment about the “deplorables” in the 2016 campaign was…
Column by Mike Zagata, May 25, 2018 ‘Big Brother’ May Be As Close As Your Next New Automobile If you haven’t read George Orwell’s book “1984”, now would be a good time to read it. In the book, Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the Party (Big Brother) scrutinizes human actions with ever-watchful eyes. Winston chooses to defy a ban on individuality by daring to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski on May 11, 2018 Money Made Out Of Thin Air, But Be Sure To Repay Lenders You’ve got to have money to make money, the saying goes. If you have money, you can invest (or speculate) in something you hope will produce a profitable return. If you don’t have money, you’ll need to figure out where you can get some. There are two basic options for most people: work and debt, and they usually go together.…
Column by James Dean, May 11, 2018 To Succeed, Otsego County Must Be Known Editor’s Note: James R. Dean, the Cooperstown village trustee, has been proprietor of New York Custom Curved Wood Stair Railings & Handrailings locally since 1973. In last week’s Part I, he analyzed out economic-development challenges we face. This week, Part II offers solutions. So what is the plan? Almost everything that has been done so far to increase our population and business base, while very good,…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, May 5, 2018 More Gas? Only If Paired With Equal-Sized Renewable Project When fracking was proposed in New York State a decade ago, the potential benefits were jobs, economic growth, lower energy prices, and energy security. Opponents (like me) worried not only about local degradation of the environment but about the global consequences of methane seepage and emissions for the climate as a whole. In most places outside of New York State, the frackers won the…
Column by Mike Zagata, April 27, 2018 Christians Told: Help The Poor, But Resist Continental Pipeline Each week while attending church, a member of the clergy reminds us of our responsibility to assist the poor. Doing so is important and something engrained in us by our parents. It is especially important in this area because we are part of Appalachia, a region known for its poverty. Indeed, according to Catholic Charity’s definition of poverty, 30 percent, or three out of…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, April 20, 2018 Nation’s Two-Party System Guarantees ‘The Iron Law Of Oligarchy’ Most voters enroll in one or the other major party, though the number of non-party enrollees has grown in recent years. In our area, and nationally, it’s very roughly one third Democrat, one third Republican, and one third non-partisan, or independent (small “i”). The two-party system goes back to the battles between Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans. The Jeffersonian Republicans have since…
Column by Mike Zagata, April 13, 2018 Audubon Now Says: Young Forest Desireable You’ve just read the Spring 2018 issue of “Living Bird” magazine published by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and were startled, and excited, to read: “Overall, specialists say a healthy forested landscape should include roughly 10 percent of young woodlands.” (Right now, that number for our forestland hovers around 2 percent.) That’s a dramatic shift from just a few years ago when Audubon was adamantly protecting…