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Continuing Education In Humor Is Serious Business

Long car drives are good for sweeping out the sticky cobwebs. Lottsa time to think. On my way back from the writing conference I recently attended in Dayton, I had 375 highway miles to review the stimulating weekend, to relive many new stories. The conference’s real name is the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. It is named for Erma, the housewife humorist and distinguished alumna of the University of Dayton, the conference venue. She began writing for her school newspaper in junior high school. And never quit. Dayton is a Catholic University. It was Brother Tom Price, Erma’s ...

Reliance On Fossil Fuels Drives Up Costs

The New York Independent System Operators (NYISO) released an interesting white paper In January titled: Impact of National & Global Conditions on the Cost of Electricity in New York. NYISO are the folks who actually deliver your electricity, so they ought to know. The paper is objective, concise, and an easy seven-page read for anyone who is upset by high electricity prices and wants to know the factual reasons for the increase. If you don’t know the cause, how can you come up with the correct solution? The second sentence in the paper sets the stage: “Over the last five years, ...

Hochul Runs Into Walls Of Reality

Like the coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon, our governor has run smack into the walls of energy policy and tax policy. Her stance on both demonstrates her abject lack of economic sense. Regarding energy policy: Gov. Hochul was recently forced to admit publicly that New York cannot meet the net-zero mandates established by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (CLCPA). Energy realists have been warning her for seven years that the CLCPA mandates are impossible, but the governor ignored those warnings. Or perhaps there is an election coming and people are noticing ...

About Trend Of Naming Things After Oneself

I was brought up in a tradition where normally things were named after national leaders posthumously, after history had time to judge and evaluate their contribution to society and to the country. For example, the Washington Monument wasn’t completed until sometime in the 1880’s, long after Washington had died. Similarly, the Lincoln Memorial wasn’t opened until 1922 — decades after Lincoln’s untimely assassination. Our current President apparently can’t wait for history to evaluate his impact on our history. Among other things, the Kennedy Center in Washington now bears ...

Court Annuls DEC’s Wetlands Regs

Let’s pick up where we left off on Labor Day weekend 2025. In the court battle over New York’s new wetlands law, Round 1 goes to the challengers. Bravo. * * * You, faithful reader of this column, will recall how devastating the law can be for Chautauqua County, particularly because of the law’s impact on Chautauqua Lake. The law has the potential to turn the lake into a weed farm, hinder growth of lakefront-property values, and have the effect of driving up property taxes for those owning land not along Chautauqua Lake. You, faithful reader of this column, will also ...

From Legends’ Mouths To Blue Bloods’ Pens

Throughout my life, as a parent, a teacher, a coach, as a churchgoer, and as an advisor when asked to be by others, I look for “magic” words that will help those whom I am raising, teaching, coaching, praying with, and/or advising. I try to think of ways to just say something I think will leave my lips and enter their minds for an assisting fix to their mission, dilemma, or cause. As my parents taught me throughout their lives as my parents, they would try and teach all of us, there are no magic words, there is no book of magic spells, there are no magic wands, or magic lamps, there ...