Getting away from me-first
I heard today that about 1000 people in New York City were newly tested positives, and only 337 people died. That was considered a good day, and a clear understanding of how things are getting better. Only 337 people died today from the dreaded coronavirus.
Only 337 families were dealing with the loss of a loved one. And those families had to handle the restrictive funeral arrangements, if they were even able to get the chance to bury their beloved with some dignity. So much pain.
At the same time, we have lots of people who are going through their days with no mask and no gloves, and running around with the kind of defiance that hurts all of us. It’s like a rebellious, angry young man, driving recklessly through the streets, with only self-interest in his mind. That is, until he crashes into another car, killing three people and injuring two others for life. Then he feels sorry.
If this coronavirus doesn’t help us shift from a me-first culture to one that is more caring about others, then what will come next? Only time will tell.
Or maybe, just maybe, we will open our hearts to compassion, humility and deep gratitude for the preciousness of the lives we have. We each get to choose how we want to be from this moment on. Isn’t it time for all of us to wake up?
Marty Klein
Woodstock
Of grief and love
Grief is like grabbing the hot handle of a cast-iron pan with your bare hand after the gas burner had been turned off. We drop it. Today, unexpressed grief is on every TV channel, on the majority of Facebook posts, as well as hidden in every dialogue we have.
Of all our emotions, grief stands with its arm on death’s shoulder. The silence that surrounds our grief fills with our emotions, of rage, fear, pain, hopelessness and the loss of love, all hushed by our worry of becoming overwhelmed. One grieves only when one has loved.
The media uses all the aftereffects of grief to hold their audience’s attention. Those who deliver these stories do not grieve on air. They do not allow their voices to crack, their tears to be seen, or their hearts to break in front of their audiences. They hide their emotional truths like makeup. To mourn is to show weakness, to reveal that you have loved, that you have given of self. This vulnerably would reveal far too much truth.
Death has become public. It has stepped beyond family into the town square. Like hangings of old, we are witnessing death daily on our screens, in our hospitals and nursing homes. Funerals cannot take place for fear of spreading more death. People are dying alone, in isolation, and grief has dug deeper into our souls to hide from being seen or heard.
What emotional intelligence tells me is that biologically what we want to do is wail, rend our clothes, fall to the ground to express the sorrow in our souls for the world to know how deeply we have loved. To swallow grief is to repress love.
Everyone reads each other’s affect, and when there is no affect, or it has been shut down, we all know it. The first stage in losing trust is to see no affect, no expression of emotion that reads true. In fact, our affect overrides the words we speak, others feel our emotions and ignore what we are saying. This truth happens daily on our screens.
Go into the woods, close the bedroom door, drive a back road and wail for the love that wants to come out of you. I am headed there. The tears that roll down my cheeks nightly need to come out fully, so I can feel love again.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
There’s no distance for you
In these difficult times, it is hard to know what to believe or how to move forward. As so many individuals, families, and organizations, including ours, work to adapt, the resiliency and steadfastness of our healthcare workers have been astonishing.
A comparison continues to be made on social media that during this crisis, we are all in the same storm, but not everyone is in the same boat. Everyone is undoubtedly facing different levels of struggle, but despite your own struggles and the challenges you are collectively facing as professionals, you continue to patch others’ boats, and bail them out, and let them into your own boat. You are saving us all from going under.
While we work remotely and try to do our best to help from a distance, we recognize there is no distance for you. You are continuously asked to do testing, to enter people’s homes, and to work on the front lines. You are seeing and experiencing loss we can’t imagine, and then being asked to do it again the next day. Your bravery and your sacrifices go so far beyond what should be asked of you, but you continue to show up for all of us.
While you did not ask to bear this burden, we admire the strength and resolve you have demonstrated. The stress you are enduring is unimaginable.
We see you, and we are in awe of you. You are all heroes. Your actions and sacrifices are appreciated. We cannot stand beside you in this time, but know that we are with you, We are rooting for you, we are praying for you, and we are grateful for your service.
Melissa Servant
The Wallkill Teachers’ Association
Gardiner
Turn off Fox News
If Greg Safris is disturbed by finger-pointing between ignorant right-wing politicians and informed medical experts, what does he think he is doing when he blames the Covid 19 pandemic on “the Communist Chinese,” as though the Chinese deliberately set out “to mortally wound the rest of the world?”
While Covid 19 reportedly originated in China, it was not deliberately created by the Chinese, but resulted from the custom of killing and eating animals, which enabled transmission of the virus from animals to humans. Americans are shocked and repelled by Chinese “wet markets,” where wild animals are slaughtered for human consumption, but Americans continue to consume the carcasses of cows, pigs, sheep and chickens raised under inhumane and unsanitary conditions on factory farms.
Americans, like people in all developed nations, could easily obtain sufficient nutrition from plant-based foods alone. Yet Trump, after suggesting that people ingest bleach or other poisons as possible remedies for the coronavirus, is now promoting the spread of infection by mandating the reopening of meatpacking plants.
Instead of parroting Trump’s misleading, racist accusations, Safris needs to re-examine his own lifestyle choices if he wants to survive the pandemic. Americans need to turn off Fox News, stop eating meat and vote Democratic.
For peace and freedom,
R.B. Wilk
Woodstock
Food assistance plan working
Thanks to the efforts of many donors and participants, the food assistance program Help Your Neighbors 2020 launched by the New Paltz Community Foundation, Inc. (NPCF) is working. As a response to the Covid 19 emergency, the project distributes meal vouchers redeemable at participating local restaurants and delicatessens. The program aids local residents facing food insecurity and it helps direct business back to our hard-working local restaurants and delis during this difficult period.
Meal vouchers, valued at $20 for individuals and $50 for families, are available through our partners, the Bruderhof Community, Family of New Paltz, the Town of Gardiner, the Neighbor to Neighbor program in New Paltz and several area houses of worship. To date, more than 150 vouchers have been distributed for use at over 30 local establishments.
A full list of participating restaurants and delis, along with information on how and where to obtain vouchers, is available on the NPCF website: https://www.newpaltzfoundation.org, or by contacting Foundation President Eileen GulbrandsenGlenn at sande2930@aol.com or 256-1945.
Help Your Neighbors 2020 has been supported by many generous donors and a number of cooperating local businesses and organizations. You too can help sustain our efforts with a tax-deductible contribution to the fund. Find us on Facebook, use PayPal on our website https://www.newpaltzfoundation.org, or reach us by mail at New Paltz Community Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 1112, New Paltz, NY 12561. Please earmark your donation for Help Your Neighbors 2020.
Contributions will enable us to keep this program running. And any funds given for this purpose that remain at the end of this project will be set aside by the NPCF for a Community Emergency Preparedness Fund for future emergencies.
Thomas G. Olsen
Board member
New Paltz Community Foundation
New Paltz
Are we doing enough?
On a sunny beautiful spring day, it’s easy to forget the continuing challenge the pandemic still represents. Some of us are gardening, pruning, taking a nice hike or just relaxing outdoors. Others, though, may be suffering the quarantine and still captive to the many risks. Others may simply be worrying about infection.
Big question is: Are we doing enough, and can more be done?
The county’s daily report shows about 6800 people tested (5/01) which is just under four percent of the county population. There’s been a reduction in confirmed daily cases over the past few days.
Question is, are enough people being tested and is this chart misleading? Do you know the number of fatalities in your community?
Our leadership doesn’t seem to think it important to share that with us on the daily report. Maybe it’s not important to members of the communities as well. and I’m one of the exceptions. I think it important to know if a disproportionate number are happening in my town and focus more energy on answering “why” that is. We’re entitled to know, aren’t we?
Our communities are porous and unless we’re testing on a greater level with easier access to tests for anyone who needs it, this can drag out for many, many months.
Also of concern is the number of ICU beds available as May 1. Just eight. We’re not ready to move on and can’t be talking about reviving business yet.
If you care, make yourself heard.
Harry C Tabak
New Paltz
We were snookered
The April 30 edition of the on-line Woodstock Times offered so much to consider about things out of our control that need to be reined in for the benefit of our town. The Covid 19 virus has severely impacted the income of Woodstock taxpayers and residents. Many are having difficulty feeding their families and paying their bills, including water and sewer charges. We must ask the question; do we need to increase the tax burden at this time by trying to float a multi-million-dollar bond to replace the existing library?
Under the Freedom of Information Act, I have sent a request to the Woodstock librarian on February 21. It has remained unanswered. The request is for all reports and expenditures relating to the environmental and structural soundness and/or risks or defects having an impact on the library building.
It may be a good time for the library board to meet with the Library Alliance to negotiate a plan to save the taxpayers millions of dollars and come up with a plan that can accomplish the restoration and expansion of the existing library building. The existing building is approximately 7500 square feet. The knock-down plan is to replace it with a 12,000-square-foot library tha was recently reduced from 13,400 square feet. The knock-down-and-replace would cost about $5 million, recently reduced from about $7 million.
The Library Alliance at www.libraryalliance.org has three renovation and expansion plans for approximately 10,500 square foot that would cost about $3 million. That is a saving of about $2 million. Perhaps it could be accomplished without a bond and could be done with a well-thought-out plan that could occur over a few years addressing the environmental and structural issues first.
Without the referendum of the taxpayers, nor any prior notice to the expenditures, the library board has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars already and is committed to additional expenditures that will be for naught if a bond or referendum is not approved. As recently as April 23, about $42,000 was approved by the library board on the knock-down-and-replace unapproved program.
In Woodstock Times, Nick Henderson did an excellent job reporting that among other things that the library board is now considering construction of a new building on the site of the old laundromat to replace the book barn for the Friends of the Library. Who approved this construction for the benefit of a private not-for-profit corporation? As a taxpayer, I know I did ot.
The taxpayers previously approved annual budgets for the library that did not include a mention of building a new library. Yet monies from those budgets were diverted and are being spent on a new, unapproved library. Perhaps those annual budgets should have been more honest and funded for less by the taxpayers.
We were snookered into approving overstated budgets. The next time a budget is presented to us, I hope what is being submitted for our approval is based on real numbers.
Jim Dougherty
Bearsville
Your taxpayer dollars
I am writing during this difficult time of vulnerability for all global citizens. I am writing because I feel compelled to make a difference in any way that I am able. Recently, that has been to make masks for essential workers and friends. That is one thing I can do and others can do to protect ourselves.
Yet, there are too many who cannot take the same protective measures that my freedom affords me — namely, those who are incarcerated in the US and abroad. Right now 190 people have tested positive for Covid 19 in NYS prisons, with no hope of clemency for the elderly or those vulnerable to the virus.
Did you know that today 192 Palestinian children are being detained for “security reasons” in Israeli prisons? Did you know that most of these same children were seized in the middle of the night, abused and coerced into confessions for acts they did not commit?
Why should we care, you might ask? Because this is being done with your taxpayer dollars. Because now there is a pathway to reverse this practice and to bring awareness to the need to protect all children from inhumane and unjust treatment and to stop the spread of this deadly disease. If you live in District 19, please sign this open letter to congressman [Antonio] Delgado (http://chng.it/vtSpBJnz6h). Please do so because we have the freedom to write a letter or sign a petition. Please do. because it is one simple act to protect those who are vulnerable.
Cheryl Qamar
Saugerties
Woodstock ZBA priorities
On February 27, 2020, prior to social distancing going into effect in Woodstock, there were four outstanding cases before McKenna’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA): two cases from 2019 and two cases from this year whose applicants were awaiting the ZBA’s decisions. These meetings were canceled.
However, on April 14 of this year, in the middle of the pandemic, McKenna’s ZBA held a special meeting in order to vote on a variance request application from ZBA chairperson Maria Mendoza. Needless to say, her variance for an illegally built potting shed was granted.
On March 6 I asked the ZBA to have a member of the ZBA email me as to why that meeting was canceled. To date, I have not received a response.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
A victory for cynicism
It’s becoming clear Joe Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in November. The cancellation of the New York presidential primary while allowing congressional races is a first step.
Party leaders realize he won’t win and want to replace him without giving the nomination to Bernie Sanders. Cancelling the primary keeps Bernie from getting any more delegates. Watch to see if California follows suit. Whether Biden pulls out citing health problems or is denied the nomination, due to the Tara Reade accusations, at the convention by denying Bernie the opportunity to garner more delegates it will allow the party bosses to pick a nominee that is younger and not as left-wing as Bernie.
Cynicism never bothers politicians.
John Habersberger
New Paltz
Leave my benefits alone
Fact: With the stimulus money being pumped into the economy to address the unemployment, job cutbacks and money provided to research for an antidote to this virus, as well as to support the quest for additional supplies that outreach the state government’s ability to pay, which must rely on the federal government at this time, the deficit is astronomical. How is this going to be paid for?
Opinion: I am not an economist, financial planner, investment broker or Wall Street guru, but a ‘Joe Everyday’ reacting to the reports being picked up from AARP, CPSSM, newspapers, magazines, independent researchers and the answer is strictly from this writer’s perspective. And that, boys and girls, goes right back to the seniors — those wonderful, aged, experienced old farts between the ages of 65 to 95 — whom I feel are going to pay back a big portion of this stimulus debt. Let’s recap.
Let’s look at some facts listed numerous times before which will be repeated here for the benefit of all you senior Conservatives and Republican Trump-lovers, who by the way are drawing benefits for the last 50-plus years and which you had no control over: they just took the money from your paycheck, invested it for a future payback to you years down the road to address the inequities arising from the Great Depression of the 1930s, so it would not happen again.
Fact: 1. AARP in a letter-bulletin to this writer mentioned that the Congress is considering, in addition to ‘privatization,’ as previously discussed, a 15% to 20% cut in all senior monthly benefits. Now for someone drawing $1200 per month, 20% of this is $240 less a month or $28,800 a year — gone! Now figure there are approximately 60-million seniors between the ages of 65-95 drawing these benefits; this $2880 times 60 million seniors gives us an amount of $1,728,000,000,000.
Opinion: I’m not an accountant or financial expert, but I believe this amount is in the billions! Is it possible that Trump, McConnell and the ladies of the evening in the Senate would consider something so drastic as doing this to our benefits, to pay down the deficit; my opinion is most certainly, yes! “Why?” Do not be surprised if the rationale goes like this: ‘gee whiz, since so many people are out of work and will be for some time, it is appropriate that the seniors buckle down and bite the bullet to assist these people; after all this is the American way.’ Bullshit! My reasons I’m against this:
- Why just the seniors? Let everyone — senators, representatives, judges (yes, Supreme Court ), as well as those still working do so?
- Take 20% from the war machinery; stop spending billions on state-of-the-art technology, which will only be obsolete down the road in a short period of time.
- How about the billionaires and millionaires kicking in 20%; how about Amazon paying 20% who I believe pays no taxes at all.
- The most important justification for doing this to the seniors is the hatred the Republican’s have had for this program since its inception in 1935; this is a perfect rationale for them to do this; do not be surprised you stalwart men and women of the upper ranks of life, if there is a push for this. Get on the horn and complain, complain, complain — leave my benefits alone.
Robert LaPolt
New Paltz
We need a true leader
What this nation needs now is a true leader, someone who stands as a role model for the U.S. Instead, we have Trump (besides being a liar, misogynist, nasty and vindictive), who demands we “do as I say, not as I do.”
Can you imagine anyone whose health, medical and scientific advisers say, “Wear masks and stay six feet from others,” publicly ignoring this sane advice by having a news conference, for example, in his office where attendees sit on couches — not six feet apart and not wearing masks.
It is probably because of Trump’s actions that his vice-president was the only one at the Mayo Clinic without a mask. Unfortunately, the Mayo people did not have the nerve to demand that Pence wear one, and as a result possibly endangered themselves.
People are becoming horribly sick and dying because others have followed the actions of Pence and Trump.
And now the new information: hoarding Covid 19 testing equipment, prioritizing its use for the White House and thus making it unavailable for the senators who were ordered back to session.
Definitely not the actions of a leader!
Susan Puretz
Saugerties
Today’s generalization
No one trusts a bald entrepreneur.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
The PSC’s responsibilities
This is the state Public Service Commission’s defining moment to protect the people it serves.
A fracked gas pipeline passing just hundreds of feet from an elementary school after crossing a highly trafficked river and beelining it for critical safety infrastructure at a crumbling nuclear plant which hosts an overstock of spent fuel cells, 30 miles upstream from New York City, is a disaster.
The NRC and FERC did not agree.
“This is your chance to protect the people you serve,” we said, yelled, screamed and sobbed.
No sound decisions were made. Today, no one along its path is protected. Furthermore, while this pipeline was being forced on us, Enbridge was merging with Spectra, coining themselves “the FedEx of the fossil fuel industry.” The merger gave a foreign company the right to push toxic and dangerous product past two different US regulatory commissions.
All of this, rubber-stamped, with no regard for the people.
The NRC and FERC continuously make catastrophic detrimental choices, waging our well-being on dirty energy. The NRC’s decision to let the gas flow was highly negligible at best, murderous in deed, and clearly not considerate of the safety of those in close proximity or the global community.
On February 26, the Office of the Inspector General of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) released a scathing report on its own investigation into the NRC approval of the Spectra AIM pipeline under Indian Point. The NRC staff analysis of the safety of the AIM pipeline was flawed, it said, and the 20 million people living within 50 miles are facing unknown risks of a pipeline rupture damaging the plant and the spent fuel stored there.
As we approach the decommissioning of Indian Point, we know the threat that it poses doesn’t go away. Don’t wait a second more, PSC. Make the right decision now — shut down and remove the pipeline immediately.
Can you hear us? I hear myself repeating myself as I type. I’d apologize, but we, communities along the route, have been living with the redundancy of these same reasonable requests and the same inconsiderate negligence in response for years. The result? Life-threatening corporate enablement.
It’s unacceptable for Enbridge/Spectra to continue operating this pipeline in light of this shocking report.
Too many words? I can to introduce you to some children who can put it into a few easy-to-comprehend sentences, or just say it simply: Shut it down.
Rachel Marco-Havens
Woodstock
Diagnostic advice
In this time when routine medical exams and procedures are mostly on hold, here’s a men’s urological diagnostic exam I’ve come across that can be performed at home:
Go outdoors and pee in the garden.
If ants gather, you may have diabetes.
If you pee on your shoes, enlarged prostate.
If it smells like a barbecue, high cholesterol.
If your wrist hurts when you shake it, osteoarthritis.
If you return to the house with your penis still outside your pants, Alzheimer’s.
This is a heck of a lot safer than some of the medical advice being touted by Donald Trump, and probably at least as useful.
Marc B. Fried
Gardiner
Join the family! 
