As demonstrated by the major local hospital systems’ recent and significant financial investments in electronic health records (EHR), the value of health information technology and the benefit it provides to treating physicians is critical to improving the quality of patient care, enhancing ...

I doubt that many people have been keeping track of the various moves and shenanigans that have been going on in Albany relative to the state budget. Most citizens don’t care much unless it hits them directly in the pocket book. Yet, as an old-time observer of Albany budget-making, I ...

This paper ran an editorial on Tuesday, April 2 on the subject of Governor Cuomo’s “Green New Deal,” his most recent crack at reducing New York State’s carbon emissions. It’s no surprise that many are apprehensive about pursuing a revolutionary transformation of how humans have ...

Recent headlines sweeping across the United States have provided us with the slow but steady release of legal documents detailing how opioid and fentanyl-based painkillers have been marketed to vulnerable populations, such as children, the elderly and veterans. With the opioid epidemic ...

New Hampshire Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan are angling to eliminate the Electoral College—and now editors at the Concord Monitor are jumping on that bandwagon, too. They urge state legislators to join an under-the-radar effort known as the National Popular Vote interstate ...

There have been some political developments lately that leave me, as a local citizen, a little bit in “limbo.” I am referring to the repercussions of Senator Cathy Young’s recent resignation of her position as our state senator. Just two months into her new term, she has left her ...

On Thursday, March 28, The Post-Journal featured a story covering the previous evening’s meeting of the Chautauqua County Legislature where a proposal to fund a study of the feasibility of growing cereal barley and hops in Chautauqua County as an aid the area’s growing craft brew and ...

The IRS has had a lot to contend with this filing season. The monthlong government shutdown hampered the agency’s ability to provide a level of service that would be adequate in a normal year, let alone in a year where taxpayers are learning how to benefit from lower tax burdens under the ...

“Where we are is not a good thing. And this idea of like, ten percent better than garbage, it shouldn’t be what we settle for.” — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the American economy. If the American economy is “garbage,” the rest of the world dreams of being Oscar the ...

I was intrigued recently to hear County officials talking about another community in New York state which might be a model for addressing the issues surrounding Chautauqua Lake. This is the Lamoka- Waneta Lake area in the southern Finger Lakes. Around fifteen years ago, an old friend, John ...

The United States will be short 120,000 doctors by the end of next decade, according to the latest research from the Association of American Medical Colleges. That shortage will become permanent unless medical schools make the path to becoming a doctor a bit less arduous. Some medical ...

March Madness is here. One of the unofficial signs of Spring. Two weeks of exciting basketball for hardcore fans, casual gamblers, and office dwellers alike. Every year the games produce pressure, excitement, heartbreak, pride—but money is what the NCAA basketball tournament churns out the ...

Some of the liberal criticism of President Donald Trump since his election stems from an intellectual tradition that gained tremendous influence in the West during the 1960s, especially in American universities. According to what historians have labeled the New Left, a more radical strain of ...

Last year, soon after the new hotel opened in Celoron, my wife and I joined some other couples in listening to one of the owners discuss the business plan for the facility. At the time, I wondered why there was such a big parking lot. It was much larger than the number of rooms in the hotel ...

With great fanfare, politicians on the left are thinking big on tax reform: a 70 percent rate on incomes over $10 million, a wealth tax on the super-rich, estate taxes as high as 77 percent. With no fanfare at all, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has made the case for ...

It is not uncommon for elected officials, particularly in Congress, to have a “shtick.” With 434 colleagues fighting for legislative victories and press attention, it can be very useful to market themselves as a certain type of legislator and represent that brand in public. Some are ...

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has come under blistering criticism for their extraordinary imposition of a $114 million bill for re-hooking Dunkirk’s power plant back into the grid. “We need to shine the light of accountability on the NYISO,” it’s been observed, ...

Things will change with the retirement of Cathy Young. It is not often that our region has an elected official who achieved the level of political leadership that she did in Albany. Among Republicans, you may have to go back to when Joe McGinnies of Ripley was Speaker of the Assembly ...

I am deeply disappointed in the 3/2/19 Lakewood Lens column titled “A FISA Primer”. Primarily, “primer” is defined as a basic introduction to something. The column falsely states the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a means for the US government to “spy” on its ...

If you’re like many Americans, the answer is the grocery store. And frankly, that disturbs me. The grocery store isn’t where food comes from – it is just from where it is distributed. In reality, far too many people are unaware of the role of American agriculture in their daily ...