Redundant proposal for post office naming
Regarding the proposal to rename the Saugerties Post Office after Maurice Hinchey…
No disrespect to Maurice, but…we have already spent well over a million dollars creating the Maurice Hinchey Catskill Interpretive Center as a legacy to Maurice. It was such an honor that his family also deemed it the most respected place for him to be buried and honored.
The proposal to also rename the Saugerties Post Office after Maurice is not only redundant, but is a poor use of the taxpayers’ money. It also devalues the Interpretive Center honors.
Let his legacy location stay a more elevated focus, and skip any detracting add-ons.
Mark Hoffstatter
Saugerties
Sacred values, violated
To nobody’s surprise, including his, our commandant-in-chief’s recent unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is sure to lead to an increased spilling of blood; and as usual, more of that blood is likely to be Palestinian than Israeli.
But as the near-unanimous UN vote condemning the declaration may foretell, this unholy U.S.-Israel alliance could in the long run lead to the spilling of more Israeli, and Jewish, blood than anyone else’s.
It will almost certainly lead to more anti-Semitism.
For as Israel and the Jewish people continue to align themselves with people like the land-grabbing Israeli prime minister and our own grabber in the White House — with, in other words, the very kind of men who once nearly annihilated us — we continue to violate our sacred values of tikkunolam, menschicheit and kavod; we continue to forsake our heritage as friends of the oppressed and to instead become the oppressors. As Israel continues to fall for the misguided leadership of a misguided man, and as American Jews continue to fall for the empty friendship of an empty man, we become more and more misguided and empty ourselves, and more and more reviled by those who would see us in a negative light and possibly do us harm.
Anti-Semitism is already on the rise. Unless we rise up and defy the two bullies currently occupying the bully pulpits of the U.S. and Israel, it may soon be on the march.
Tom Cherwin
Saugerties
A big year for Mother Earth
I believe that 2018 will be a major historic year for our planet. The Mother Earth as we know it will be going through some crucial changes, as we have seen in 2017. Furthermore, if we head into World War III, we will experience great losses, not only of human beings, but also the majority of other species, as well as a greater loss of clean air, water, trees and more of our natural gifts.
How can we avoid this? Well, we have to look at the leaders around the world and see what we can do to get more sanity and stability into those mostly elected positions. For instance, if we look to history, we can see that after World War II, the United Nations was created, and it agreed to do what it could to avoid a World War III.
But then, change came, and we now have leaders like Putin, Kim Jong Un and Trump. Our own president decided to withdraw support for the United Nations, which was our major hope for peace on earth. At the same time we are seeing forest fires, hurricanes and atmospheric changes escalating with little attention, since we have a boxing match going on between Trumps unusual diplomacy with things like: “Rocket Man” and Kim Jong Un’s: Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard [elder] with fire.”
Trump’s most recent statement on the UN was: “The U.S. will cut its 2018 contribution to the United Nations by $285 million.” That is about 25 percent. An announcement that came shortly after more than 120 nations criticized the United States for its decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
What can we do? That is a personal question for each one of us. If you can come out and protest, put on lots of layers of clothes and do it. If you can contribute, do that. You can call government offices and leave messages, and sign petitions. Whatever you do, please remember that: democracy is not a spectator sport!
Jill Paperno
Glenford
Join the family! 
