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Organizing All That Wonderful ‘Stuff’

Local Commentaries

I foolishly planned a yard sale. I even hornswoggled Dear Richard into the idea. I’m an idiot. For the past three or four years, we’ve been donating our worthy goods to worthy charities. Simple. Easy. Sensible. Then one day I found a bunch of little things I don’t use and put them in a box for donation. Thereafter, every time I was in a closet, a kitchen drawer, or the garage and found something useless, I’d add it to the box. Hmm. But planning a sale was overwhelming. A truly organized sale would require tackling our jam-packed garage, which was armpit deep in ...

Politics: It Can Be A Noble Vocation

Local Commentaries

To some the words politics or politician are pejoratives. A person the voters have elected to represent them and their community may be dismissed as “just a politician.” In our representative democracy, what should a politician be and how should politics be viewed? The famous American theologian and ethicist, Reinhold Niebuhr astutely observed: “The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.” Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II and President from 1953-1961 said the practice of politics is a “serious, complicated and, in ...

Local Decisions Led To Democrats’ Gains In Tuesday’s Election

In Our Opinion

This should be a week of soul-searching for Chautauqua County Republicans - particularly those in the cities - after Democrats made gains in Jamestown and the Dunkirk area on the Chautauqua County Legislature and the Jamestown City Council. Surely national politics and their effect on the cities played a part in Tuesday’s local elections. What happened here happened elsewhere too, with Democrats either retaking positions they haven’t held in years or making large enough gains to prompt hand-wringing among Republicans who have come to take electoral wins for granted. There is some ...

Winter Is On The Way!

Local Commentaries

I hate to admit it, but winter is on the way! This morning one of the weather prediction sites said that we could have “intermittent snow” next week. I have never been a big winter guy. I think I would be happiest if we had continual rotations of spring and fall - but such is not the case. Winter is a reality, especially around here. A good friend calls me about this time every year to discuss the shortness of days. We both get a little down as the daylight hours get shorter and the nights become longer. But, she is an optimist, and I am more of a pessimist. “Just think,” ...

County Response To SNAP Withholding Is Underwhelming

Local Commentaries

What are we to make of Trump’s handling of the SNAP “crisis”—one of his own making? Because he hasn’t offered a logical explanation of why anyone would want their fellow Americans to go hungry when the government is sitting on the resources they need, we have to read the contextual tea leaves. Before we do, a crucial caveat: the government shutdown isn’t an excuse; SNAP benefits have never been curtailed during previous shutdowns. This time, a federal court has ordered the administration to continue these benefits, but Trump is resisting that order. Given Trump’s ...

No Reason Not To Help The Poor

Local Commentaries

My church, Zion Covenant of Jamestown, is sponsoring a refugee family with seven kids. The father works as a janitor in a public elementary school making $16 an hour. Why is our government threatening their SNAP benefits? Some say the Democrats are at fault, but why is a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to release the contingency funds for SNAP benefits, and not the Democrats? Massachusetts US District Judge Indira Talwani is telling “the administration [that it] must access the contingency funding to pay the benefits and had until (November 3) to report back to the ...