from JOHN RUDY

Isn’t Resisting Everything

Prescription For Decline?

To the Editor:

Your editorial on The Simpsons’ “D’oh Canada” episode nicely expresses an optimistic counter to the show’s negative portrayal of Upstate New York.

From a macro sense, it would be hard to find fault with your even-handed depiction of the many causes of the decline across the state, as well as the various efforts at reinvention and renewal.

Most telling was your observation that one of the problems of success…is there’s too much to lose in abandoning the status quo. That observation also holds true at the local level.

We would all do well to ponder whether opposition and resistance to change in our villages and towns – whatever the issue – is motivated solely by a desire to leave things as they are, regardless of the economic and social consequences.  For to do so has been shown, time and again, to be a prescription for decline.

JOHN A. RUDY

Cooperstown