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In Our Opinion

In Our Opinion

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is nearly finished with a document that should have substantial influence on the way we maintain Chautauqua Lake in the future. During a public meeting last week hosted by the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance, Chad Staniszewski of the DEC’s Region 9 office told those attending that the DEC expects to finish the internal loading study within the next month or two with the plan possibly being released after review early in 2027. The internal loading study could be the DEC’s biggest contribution to Chautauqua ...

Six Supremes put U.S. elections up for sale

Local Commentaries

Statistics suggest that our current Supreme Court justices have some of the highest IQs in America. It seems fair to conclude, then, that six of them knew exactly what they were doing when they effectively put for-sale signs on the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government—on the presidency, on the Senate, on the House of Representatives. The deciding six were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas. Definitely and positively, all six realized the message they were sending to candidates and their big-money organizational ...

Who is taking Islam seriously?

Local Commentaries

Imploring a young audience to “discard the stuck-on-stupid card,” retired Lieutenant Colonel Alan West then quoted poet Maya Angelou, “When people show you who they are the first time, believe them.” Spoken not just once, “Death to America” has been bellowed a gazillion times by Islamic Shias in Iran and elsewhere including Dearborn, MI. Do you believe them? If not, you own a “stuck-on-stupid” card. In New York City, Muslims on Times Square incessantly shouted, “Allahu Akbar.” The leader addressing the hyped-up horde said sarcastically, “Don’t scare them, ...

10 years later, it’s still impossible to draw conclusions from test score data

In Our Opinion

Ten years ago, almost to the day, we lamented the difficulty in comparing results on state tests from year-to-year because New York’s Education Department changed testing and assessment guidelines more often than most people change their socks. We noted, at the time, that proficiency rates in English language arts was 37.9% and 38.1% in math, truly depressing when one considered that meant only a little more than one-third of students were performing at an acceptable grade level. The state recommended at the time not to try to compare 2016 data to prior years, which would have been ...

250th anniversary of the United States a big deal

Local Commentaries

As it should be, a lot has been made this year of the 250th anniversary (birthday) of our country. It is a time to reflect back on what it has taken to bring us to where we are today. One of my siblings reminded me that, in fact, we have been alive for about 1/3rd of that time — just think about it. If you divide 250 by three … you get my age! Either I am very old or the country is very young — and both are true. It made me reflect back upon conversations with my father. He told us that in discussions he had with his grandfather, that his grandfather described working all ...

Charging back on state of electricity

Local Commentaries

The Editor’s corner by John D’Agostino of August 14 on renewables jolting electric costs was full of misinformation and contradictions. You mentioned that we shuttered “clean burning coal plants.” There is no such thing as clean burning coal, never was. That misrepresentation alone shot your credibility early on. You then jump to the environmental transformation of Lake Erie brought on by the shuttering of “clean burning coal plants” and other industrial facilities that turned the lake (and the land surrounding it) into a toxic waste dump. So is cleaning up polluting ...