City Councilman Grant Olson, R-Ward 5, asked an interesting question at last week’s City Council meeting — should there be a spending freeze during the COVID-19 pandemic? It’s a good question from a new council member. And while we agree with Council members Kim Ecklund, R-At Large, ...
There is a reason “Yankee ingenuity” is recognized throughout the world. We Americans have a reputation for identifying challenges and devising ways to overcome them. Use your head if you decide to come up with a home remedy, a way to stretch supplies such as those of food — or any ...
To The Reader’s Forum: During this difficult time we all should remember to respect and care for others. This is written after a shopping trip to Wegmans. We went at 8:30 am trying to avoid a crowd since we are senior adults. There were more people than expected but you could still ...
It is understandable that area residents are struggling to justify the virtual close of Chautauqua County’s economy when there are so few cases of COVID-19 inside the county. There is a good deal of unease for small business owners who don’t qualify for many of the programs available to ...
Whenever I have met an Army veteran wearing a medal/badge with a rifle on a blue background resting on a laurel wreath, I take special notice. This is one of the highest honors, in my view, that can be attained in the U.S. Army—the Combat Infantryman Badge. It means, “yes,” I have been ...
Without truckers, UPS and Fed Ex, what would keep food on the shelves and other vital products delivered? They keep the lifelines of society from breaking down. You have to include the farmers on that one for sure. This is just the short list. It is helpful to thank them and especially the ...
Every church youth group has a least one of them — an enthusiastic, extroverted teen who is the life of the party and always delighted to meet someone new. And when she does, she naturally begins with an icebreaker: “If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” Yes, in the midst ...
Sometimes errors by the press are small. When this columnist was a newspaper reporter, another reporter wrote in a hilarious April Fool’s Day story that a local library was imprisoning – in its dungeon – patrons with overdue books. The story understandably omitted mentioning what in ...
Logic dictates that the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic can’t possibly sustain the thousands of out-of-work families in Chautauqua County. A family of four would receive roughly $3,600 if both working adults in the home each earn less than $75,000. That $3,600 is a nice tax ...
To The Reader’s Forum: I contend that a “man of faith,” yes, even a pastor, Betty, is free to defend President Donald J Trump if he so chooses. Christians are not following Trump but are followers of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Pastor Mel is an intelligent man of high ...
It is difficult, frankly, to view people refusing to join the rest of us in attempting to contain the COVID-19 coronavirus as anything but spoiled brats. The vast majority of them appear to be young. At least reports from our country, such as those of college students packing beaches for ...
Sources ranging from the CIA to the Census Bureau disagree on how reliant we Americans are on drugs and medical equipment imported from China. Extend that to international agencies and the variances are even greater. For example, some sources place China far down on the list of countries ...
To The Reader’s Forum: There are a lot of people grumbling about the closings and cancellations around the country and even in our areas where we are barely affected so far. What you are not understanding is that the purpose of this is to stay ahead of the virus and try to stop it ...
Millions of dollars in stock transactions on behalf of five U.S. senators have raised serious questions about their ethics — and whether they broke laws against insider trading. Clearly, the matter needs to be investigated, but not as a witch hunt with the preconceived notion that someone ...
At President Donald Trump’s urging, the United States is adding a sixth branch — the “Space Force” — to our armed forces, in order to defend the vast region beyond our atmosphere. Perhaps we should be thinking of inner space, instead. Throughout the nation, public health officials ...
The decisions being made in the halls of Congress and in Albany regarding COVID-19 are important — but so are the decisions we all make every day. One of the best decisions we can make is to do all we can to support local small businesses that are staying open during the coronavirus ...
To our neighbors, colleagues, and friends: We are living in an unprecedented time where our world, our nation, and our community, is faced with the threat of an international pandemic known as COVID-19. This novel virus is unlike any flu or disease we have seen in modern times, and has the ...
Each day, COVID-19 appears in more counties, more communities across New York. It is inevitable that the virus will appear in Chautauqua County, although at this point, there are no confirmed cases. We are monitoring several individuals and waiting for test results. Because of community ...
When I lived in Potsdam as a student in 1998 we endured a spectacular ice storm that brought life in the North Country to a standstill for weeks. For seven days I lived with about 1500 others in the college’s fieldhouse, waiting for news from the state about when our power would return. On ...
When I was a kid, there was a TB (Tuberculosis) hospital on a hill near the Cassadaga Lakes. It was meant to be in a rather isolated, rural area because TB was known to be very contagious…it could spread easily. I remember being sad that people with this disease had to be “quarantined ...