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…
Online home of The Freeman's Journal and Hometown Oneonta
Advertisement
Opinion - Page 217
EDITORIAL: April 27, 2018 Retiring Bright Light Is Inspiration To Rest Of Us A touching and inspiring event happened at Gilbertsville’s Major Inn last weekend: 150 wellwishers, from almost every town in Otsego County and as far away as London, England, packed the landmark mansion to express appreciation to a special lady, Erna Morgan McReynolds. For the past 30 years, Erna has been an investment counselor in Oneonta for Morgan Stanley (and its half-dozen predecessors), and thousands of clients have…
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…
EDITORIAL: April 20, 2018 Sheriff’s Shown He’s Tough, Smart First, voters should want a county sheriff who’s steady under fire. Over the past 15 months, county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin Jr. has proved he is. With his son Ros, a guard at the county jail, accused in a workplace disturbance and ordered off county property by the county Board of Representatives, Devlin hung tough, arguing he was the target of a “political witch hunt.” That didn’t seem completely out of…
EDITORIAL April 20, 2018 NYSEG Must Provide Full Range Of Energy OTHERWISE, OUTMIGRATION INEVITABLE Let’s not be prophets of doom, but we’re all thinking people who can more or less put the pieces of the puzzle together. In her March 29-30 column, our colleague, columnist Cathe Ellsworth, alerted us to an Albany Business Review report that Upstate New York lost 2 percent of its population between 2011 and 2015. Seven counties gained population; 20 lost it. In our general area,…
Editorial April 13, 2018 Facing Trade War, Let’s Buy U.S. Pork, Apples, Wine When did tariffs become a dirty word? In the early days of the Republic, tariffs were used liberally to allow the development of such mainstay domestic industries as coal, iron and textiles in the face of Great Britain’s overwhelming advantage. When Henry “The Great Compromiser” Clay died in 1852, obelisks were raised in his honor: Not for saving the Union, but for championing the tariff. Beginning with…
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…
Editorial April 6, 2018 Why Parkland? Maybe We Don’t Care For Kids Enough Here’s an idea. To ensure no student feels neglected, assign every teacher and staff member to meet weekly with 10 high schoolers. Nothing complicated. Maybe a quick cup of coffee or short chat, so the young man or woman knows somebody cares. Gary Kuch, now director of the Clark Scholarship Program, Otsego town justice and Cooperstown’s “first man” to newly sworn-in Mayor Ellen Tillapaugh Kuch, has been…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, April 6, 2018 Are Democratic Challengers Connecting? As of this writing, seven Democrats and two independents are running for Congress from the 19th District, hoping to replace Republican incumbent John Faso. In his first term Faso raised the ire of many constituents with his proposal to eliminate local tax support for Medicaid and related social services. He made no provision for anyone else to pick up the tab, putting the local healthcare industry needlessly at risk.…
WHERE NATURE SMILES ‘Hark The Herald Angels’ Echoes From Main Street Editor’s Note: The muse, evident in the poem that was last week’s “Where Nature Smiles” column, caused the poet (and our columnist) Catherine Lake Ellsworth, to reprise one of her favorites, from 1988. Next week, “Where Nature Smiles” – in verse or prose? – will return to the editorial pages of Hometown Oneonta and The Freeman’s Journal. By CATHERINE LAKE ELLSWORTH • AllOTSEGO Columnist With apologies to “Hark the…