Column by Adrian Kuzminski for October 19, 2018 If We Can’t Agree On Basis Of Truth, Nation In Trouble In any war, as the saying goes, truth is the first casualty. That’s become the case, unfortunately, in the war of the sexes as well. It’s turned into a war because the abiding injustice women have suffered from men resists resolution through institutions mostly created and sustained by men. What counts as evidence, or sincerity, or credibility may have more to…
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Column by Mike Zagata for October 12, 2018 Natural-Gas Issue Is A Ruse; Real Intention Is No Growth Apparently something happened to The Professor during her youth to cause her to come forward during the confirmation process for The Supreme Court Justice, but we’ll never know for sure exactly what happened, nor will we know who was responsible. That wasn’t the intended outcome of the public spectacle we’ve been subjected to. The intended outcome was to delay the confirmation process…
Editorial for October 12, 2018 Uncreative? With Full Plate, That Might Be Just The Thing ‘I’m not creative,” Otsego Now CEO Jody Zakrevsky told the Otsego County Board of Representatives at its October meeting on the 3rd, as he began to deliver an “economic update” on the economic-development organization’s 2018 accomplishments. While lacking creativity, Zakrevsky continued, he said he has the capacity to embrace someone else’s ideas and carry them to fruition. Credit Zakrevsky with self-awareness and frankness, both virtues.…
Editorial for October 5, 2018 Isn’t It Time For City To Act, Or Get Out Of The Way? You know, of course: Creativity is making something out of nothing. Or, better, recognizing potential where nobody else does. The scoop in last week’s paper is a case in point: A group calling itself The Market Street Alliance is proposing a distillery in the former Oneonta Ford building, that dreary, long-empty, black-painted hulk at the foot of Chestnut Street, across from Foothills.…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, October 5, 2018. Natural Gas Is A Bad Investment It’s obvious we have to get off fossil fuels, yet we keep hearing that fossil fuels – natural gas in particular – are essential to local economic growth. While “solar and wind would be a viable source for electric,” Otsego Now CEO Jody Zakrevsky wrote in The Freemans Journal & Hometown Oneonta in the Aug. 30-31 editions, “it (the solar and wind source) does not currently provide…
Editorial for September 28, 2018 Balance Today’s Energy Needs, Tomorrow’s Energy Wishes It’s a great idea. In a column at the end of August, Adrian Kuzminski – citing the Tompkins County Energy Roadmap, completed in March – wrote, “Let me suggest … that the Otsego County Board of Representatives, in a bi-partisan spirit, is the logical authority to establish an Otsego Energy Task Force. A large, diverse umbrella group is far more likely to develop a comprehensive, viable energy strategy…
Column by Mike Zagata, September 28, 2018 New York Not So Great Lately, Either ‘America was never that great.” That’s an amazing quote from a man who’s had nothing but opportunity his entire life. Yes, he’s made the most of it, but that’s not the point. The point is that, because America was great, he had the opportunity to succeed. Before moving to the point of this article, I thought it might be useful to look at the media via…
Editorial for September 21, 2018 MISTAKES WERE MADE. WHO MADE THEM? Who Lost Otsego Manor? It’s pretty clear to everyone by now that the sale of Otsego Manor in Jan. 27, 2014, was a mistake. That was punctuated with numerous exclamation marks Wednesday, Sept. 12, when Focus CEO Joseph Zupnik and his chief financial executive, Daniel Herman, pleaded guilty before Otsego Town Justice Gary Kuch in the Fly Creek courtroom. Under a plea agreement, Zupnik and Herman admitted to only…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, Friday, September 21, 2018 Let’s Build On Sustainable Assets, Not Unsustainable Liabilities Otsego County needs a new direction for energy and economic development. An important step to that end was taken last week when the county board’s Intergovernmental Affairs Committee endorsed the idea of setting up an energy and economic development task force. Kudos to them! A county-wide task force would give us two things we don’t have now: long-term economic planning and a wide range…
Column by Adrian Kuzminski, September 7, 2018 THE GOAL: ECONOMIC, POLITICAL FREEDOM Populism As American As Apple Pie Ever since the last presidential election the words “populist” and “populism” have been widely bandied about, mostly as pejorative terms. A populist politician, we often hear, is a demagogue who wins votes by inflaming the resentments and emotions of ordinary people at the expense of rational thought. Those who fall prey to populism are no more to be trusted, critics suggest, than…
