The views and opinions expressed in our letters section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Hudson Valley One. You can submit a letter to the editor here.
What a wonderful world?
I may be wrong, but from his letters, it seems Neil Jarmel is still mad at Trump and his supporters. Some time back, noting Neil’s frequent vitriolic anti-Trump missives, I wrote the parody “I’m a Trump-Hater” for Mr. Jarmel, suggesting that every time his TDS became too much to handle, instead of writing another letter, he should send my parody to the HV1 editor and Feedback readers would get the message loud and clear. In fact, since his Trump attacks are so frequent and Neil’s vitriolic words so repetitive, I bet if a Neil letter consisted only of a title indicating the letter was about Trump with Neil’s signature at the bottom, readers would be able to fill in the blank page with anti-Trump words, to which Mr. Jarmel would say “Amen.”
With this in view, since Neil never acted on my offer (was my parody song not vitriolic enough?), I’ve written another parody for his consideration. This song is based on Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” and though more subtle than “I’m a Trump-Hater,” it should prove helpful to Neil in his “I hate Trump” feedback campaign. (Neil’s fans – both real and imagined – are invited to sing along as they envision Neil, in his best Louis Armstrong imitation, tenderly performing the parody song.)
(Stanza)
I see the wave of red turning blue
The Senate’s ours, the Congress too
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
(Stanza)
I see Chuck Schumer passing bills galore
‘Cos the Senate rules will be changed for sure
Now, we really will have quite a wonderful world
(Bridge)
Some people of the rainbow so happy and sincere
Join with RINOS and many Dems as they sing and cheer
“We once called Liz Cheney ‘a right-wing freak’
Now we think she’s ‘insurrection chic’”
(Stanza)
I see Trump’s clothes colored like his hair
He’s strapped in an electric chair
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
(Stanza)
I hear pundits cheer Joe on news shows
Though America seems weak to her foes
Since bad old Trump’s gone now, it’s a wonderful world
(Bridge)
Just as the rainbow was a sign that “judgment” rains would cease
Too much cash and too few goods make inflation increase
When a judge asked, “What’s a woman?” answers “I don’t know”
It’s a sign that judge was picked by Joe
(Closing stanza)
I hear a baby laugh and think of Roe v. Wade
The decision to overturn it should not have been made
Abortion on demand made a wonderful world (oh yeah)
And I scream at the sky where’s my wonderful world?
George Civile
Gardiner
Got grandchildren?
Though an environmental advocate for many decades, as a Boomer, how can I not feel ashamed and despairing about what we have wrought and what we’re leaving for future generations? While trying to limit impact, I drive a car, switch on lights, fans, phones, radios, refrigerator, water heater, washer/no dryer, an A/C occasionally and faithfully and gratefully cook organic on a propane stove. A privileged and complicit white woman for 75-plus years? Yup…for sure.
Yes, and a Brit Boomer to boot. And one increasingly choked, acknowledging the harm done by we arrogant Anglos over the last centuries. Harm which ripples through to this day from the betrayal and brutality inflicted upon the people of this land, upon which I and anyone reading this likely lives. Land and matrilineal lifestyles honoring the Earth we stole from the Lenape people of this Hudson Valley, virtually none of whom exist here anymore, many fled to Wisconsin and Ontario (https://native-land.ca/maps/territories/munsee-lenape). And I haven’t even begun to touch on our British history with slavery: www.bbc.com/travel/article/20130610-a-pilgrimage-to-ghanas-slave-forts.
This systemic exploitative colonizing arrogance continues today and is responsible for so much of the state of the world’s “climate emergency” this summer of 2022. This thanks to an inherently dominant patriarchy which has done as much harm to most men as it has to we women and children and to this planet.
Today’s example of our capitalistic complacency is rather than ration gas and fossil fuel use; Biden’s challenge is to drop the price and drill for more! Rather than create policies which change our patterns enough to prioritize the future for our grandchildren – and all other life on earth – instead, we all buy into the profit-driven politics which perpetuate our collective gargantuan greed.
Curious we don’t consider fossil fuels addictively suicidal and ecocidal. Drought here, floods there, wildfires not quite everywhere in Europe, New Mexico, California, Oregon et cetera, Arctic ice melting faster than ever before. While in the mid-Hudson Valley, so far relatively insulated from such life-threatening terrors, lamentably our many self-indulgent, self-destructive patterns continue apace. The UN chief just warned, yet again, “Humanity faces collective suicide over climate crisis,” but clutching our single-use plastic, when have we ever listened?
Nearly ten years ago, after her unyielding effort, the late Polly Higgins (Earth Lawyer www.stopecocide.earth/polly-higgins) succeeded in establishing our climate-destroying proclivities as illegal in international law. Her commitment was a basis justifying XR/Extinction Rebellion. XR is more active in the UK and Europe, but it offers some hope in seeking to further expand its effectiveness in active communities here in the US and in this region, locally. The organization exists to create and build this common cause in standing for the right to represent and be visible “as ordinary citizens who are passionate about the survival of this planet for future generations to inherit an inhabitable Earth.”
Most crucially to and for and on behalf of kids and young people today, it is for XR and all of us to speak up to help defend Mother Nature and her elements around us: air, water, earth and the sun’s light and heat…which, lest we forget, are the life-giving elements also within us! This planetary chemistry is after all, our life source, and is what we clever Homo sapiens have changed and damaged over the last hundred or so years, daily perpetuating here and now, while doing way too little to change and take responsibility ourselves!
XR’s urgent message to all is based on its unquestionably justified position to strongly but peacefully and unequivocally establish and communicate its right for us all to protest via “international nonviolent rebellion against the world’s governments for criminal action on the ecological crisis.” This global organization is seeking to become more visible everywhere, and especially encourages and invites a way for the many anxious and uncertain young people to join together in nonviolent protest as a community with one voice to reinforce and speak up for this most common of all causes: our present, their future. As always, empowered by donations and participation: https://extinctionrebellion.us, www.facebook.com/xrnphv and https://xrcr.life/and media/2019/11/rebel-starter-pack.pdf.
Meanwhile, we Boomers, whose complacency is so responsible for our colonizing the climate, can support the cause one way via Bill McKibben’s https://thirdact.org/who-we-are; and yes, another could have been here in our “Woodstock paradise,” a chunk of it recently paved over for a parking lot which was apparently legally necessary to help restore and revive and thus preserve and sustain a historic and bucolic icon of American history. We win some and lose some, don’t we?
Here is a schedule of XR events locally and in New York City:
• Weekly meeting, Tuesday, July 19 at 7 p.m., Zoom link here: https://gmail.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=4fffca560e708c71371932eb4&id=b8385ac732&e=70555585db.
• July 30, anti-nuke march from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., All Souls Church, New York City.
• August 2, anti–nuke rally, New York City (sign up at https://gmail.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=4fffca560e708c71371932eb4&id=fd3feed918&e=70555585db).
• Sunday, August 14 and August 28 – meditation sit-ins at the Woodstock Green from 2 to 3 p.m.
• Sunday, September 11 – Climate Crisis art show, Woodstock Green (meditation included), details pending.
Jude Asphar
Woodstock
Secret of a diplomat
Never negotiate with terrorists – unless they also happen to be close friends.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
Outlaws with guns
“When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”
This old and maybe ridiculed quote is proving its basic truth. The evidence is all around us. Places with the strictest restrictions on guns are those now experiencing the most gun violence. Places like Chicago and New York have gunfights between outlaws every day and night, killing and wounding themselves and all too often, other citizens.
And why don’t non-outlaws, you know, the law-abiding, ordinary person, fight back? Only recently has an armed citizen ended a shooting spree by a typically deranged outlaw in Greenwood, Indiana. This is unusual, but obviously, the ordinary person with a gun permit usually leaves their firearm at home. No one expects to be in a gunfight when out and about, but maybe it’s time to take precautions with the possibilities of that scenario in mind.
Frederick Gerty
Gardiner
A dystopian f@#ktastrophe
The religious right and others should be proud their “chose one” had visibly assaulted the SCOTUS with his judicial selections. With the end of Roe, the verdict is in: The Supreme Court majority now has a Christian nationalist legal legitimacy. This large Christian nationalist base helped put former president Donald Trump into power to pack the courts so that further restrictions could be imposed.
It’s the Trump Court. He promised to appoint injustices who would overturn Roe and perjure themselves to get onto the court. Why is this not judicial overreach? Five of those six were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.
At its core, Christian nationalism, the anti-democratic notion that America is a nation by and for Christians alone, is an idea which threatens the principle of the separation of church and state and undermines the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It also leads to discrimination, and at times violence, against religious minorities and the nonreligious.
One thing is perfectly clear: This court is not a court of law or justice. This is a court driven by partisan politics and Christian supremacy – and just the latest consequence of the Christian domination of America.
The Supreme Court’s extreme conservative Christian-based ruling reversing Roe v. Wade is only one example of the patriarchal white supremacist Christian theocracy that has polluted the United States. The Supreme Court is relentlessly empowering Christian fascism.
I totally agree with separation of church and state. We now have a receipt of the truth: Under the new anti-abortion regime of the Christo-fascist Supreme Court, and I’ve said it before, “The ayatollahs are wearing suits.”
The Founders wrote the Constitution; it was not written by the Apostles. They added the Bill of Rights, not the Ten Commandments. Their intent was freedom of religion. It was not to be controlled by religion. They created a democracy, not a theocracy. Christianity is not a political party! To say it another way, we should not wrap Christianity in our national flag.
Meanwhile, and yes, there’s a new face, who can be called Christo-fascist. Sad, really, that we have sunk so low. I see no daylight, only evil, as our democracy breaks apart. Law and order allied with religion can be a deadly mix. With a populace of ignorant, programmed and brainwashed sheep incapable of critical thought or action, we are at the mercy of madmen and psychopaths; and yes, our worst fears are coming true.
I don’t want the Christian Taliban to become the norm. What is it that some just don’t get? Religion should not be part of the affairs of the state or part of public education. These extreme Christians should not think and act as if they have the right to rule the Earth.
Who would have thought that people would be so lazy and cowardly to exchange humanity for what I consider to be pure evil? The public has been drinking from the Kool-Aid fountain of freedom and democracy for decades and can’t tell an oligarchy or a reign of religious terror from a hole in the ground. Is there hope for the future? I’m beginning to be a pessimist.
“Fucktastophe.” I think that’s too mild. Oh, and my neighbor called to ask about the steam coming off my roof. I said I was watching the news… I see no daylight, only evil bastards from the elected extreme conservatives and from the thuggery of the far-right citizenry everywhere. And I will have a lot to say about it – when I can find the words that will not melt the keyboard.
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Thank-you to so many
When I announced my run for the State Assembly last year, I asked the people of District 103 to choose hope over fear, to put our collective imagination into what we stand to gain, and not just what we stand to lose. Since then, basic rights that have been fought for in this country have come under attack from the right wing – the same right wing that spent $80,000 on mailers against me, mailers meant to scare, confuse and discourage voters. The same right wing I expect to come to the aid of my opponent this November.
However, in that same time period, my volunteer team members and I have also been warmly welcomed into thousands of homes. Regardless of which candidate they picked, the conversations were full of astute political insight and a continued willingness to take action on fixing the complacency of our government. But we also had long and difficult conversations on loss, abandonment and the constant testing of our hopes.
Whether they went to the polls or not, and whether they voted for me or not, I want to thank every single person who welcomed us into their home and opened themselves up to us, who took time to ask us questions and listened to the answers in good faith. I also want to thank the children who told their parents to vote for me, the parents who told their children to vote for me and the grandparents who opened the door and said, “It’s time for a change!”
I also want to thank our volunteer team members who put their personal lives (and the health of their cars!) aside and put everything on the table for this race, who drove up to a door and said, “Have you heard about Sarahana?” no matter how long the driveway was. Many of us have been knocking doors since December through ice storms, rain and heatwaves, and we can’t wait to go back out there and meet more of you.
Everyone I have met through this race has further inspired and emboldened me. We are building a multigenerational movement to fight against the undermining of our democracy and for the beautiful future we all deserve.
Winning the primary was just the beginning. Next, we must build on our common ground and bring people into the right direction we need, not just for the Hudson Valley and not just for New York, but for the whole country.
Lastly, thank you Assemblymember Cahill for 32 years of service to the mid-Hudson Valley. I look forward to building on his legacy by working with our local representatives, organized labor and other partners as we seek to build the New York we deserve.
Sarahana Shrestha
Democratic nominee for the State Assembly in District 103
We appreciate Hudson Valley One
Much appreciation goes to the Hudson Valley One for including the Lloyd United Methodist Church’s BBQ chicken notice in several editions of your paper. Our event occurred on July 17, and we are happy to tell you that all tickets were sold. HV1 is our major way to let people know of our fundraisers. Your paper helped make this event a success for us. Many thanks to you and the folks at Hudson Valley One for your continued support.
Herb Witz
Tillson
Vote Colin Schmitt for Congress
I have lived in Ulster County my entire life. As of now, I am not sure how much longer I can afford to stay. With our economy plummeting, elected officials failing us and no signs of relief ahead, how can we continue on this path? The only thing at this point that can be done is for us to vote for candidates focused on kitchen-table issues, rather than pandering to the most radical sides of both political parties. That is why I am supporting Colin Schmitt, a veteran and sitting state legislator, who is running to be our next congressman.
Colin Schmitt is fighting back against Biden and his policies that have caused inflation, is running on a platform that supports law enforcement who are putting their lives on the line everyday as crime rises to historic highs and he is focused on bettering our community instead of trying to just make a name for himself like his opponent is doing. I urge all of my neighbors, vote Schmitt for Congress.
Giorgio D’Angelo
Highland
Great writers & Lizzie
Articles by Frances Marion Platt, Violet Snow and John Burdick are always “must-reads” for me. Each writes beautifully and their coverage of the arts in the Hudson Valley is greatly appreciated. Recently I resubscribed to Hudson Valley One and added Rokosz Most to my favorite HV1 journalists list.
The response by Lizzie Vann to last week’s comment about the Bearsville Center’s asphalt parking lot couldn’t have been better. She clearly explained its need and reiterated her commitment to “polishing” of the Bearsville Center “diamond.” She deserves a lot of credit for transforming the complex into a state-of-the-art venue and restaurant hub. Personally speaking, I’ve enjoyed several delicious meals at Bearsville Cantina and love the collaboration between Golden Notebook and Nancy’s Artisanal Creamery, which has the best ice cream outside of Italy, IMHO.
Paula Silbey
Woodstock
Prelude to our benefits
I received a report from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. I will quote directly from this report: “Medicare was not created as a private program. In fact, it was enacted in 1965 as federal health insurance for seniors because so many private insurers refused to cover them. But over the past decades, insurance companies and private investors have found a way to capture a growing share of federal Medicare dollars – money that should go toward patient care, not corporate profits.” End of quote.
I mentioned this previously in the June 22 edition of this newspaper of this year. This is the REACH program, where seniors across the country are quietly being enrolled in this program. The funds that Medicare allocated for a person’s medical expenses are now, and will be more so, subject to oversight by insurance companies and private investors. Medicare will then allocate corporate middlemen a defined portion of each senior’s medical expenses. What they don’t pay for each senior’s expenses, they keep for themselves.
Our Social Security, passed by FDR in 1935, and our Medicare and Medicaid benefits, passed by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, are the best and most secure programs for seniors.
The GOP have hated these programs since their inception. They hated the entrance of the federal government into the social lives of the individual states. But with a conservative Supreme Court (note abolition of Roe v. Wade) and a GOP Congress (both chambers) with Donald Trump as POTUS, this country is going back to the days of Hoover. This is the realm of the capitalist, the “money men,” where all that matters is profits and more profits, like a drug that encompasses the mind and distorts everything but the pursuit of money.
Our Founding Fathers gave us a treasure in the form of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is up to all seniors to fight like hell via the ballot box, to cast our votes, to force the “tap-dancers” to leave our benefits alone; also, pass laws forbidding the “money men” from not paying their fair share of taxes, to stop their overseas “hideouts,” where money not taxed is stored.
Perhaps C. W. Mills in his book The Power Elite best sums up this attitude, and I quote: “For virtually every law taxing big money, there is a way those with big money can avoid it or minimize it.” Also, Mills states, “As chiefs of the industrial manorialism, they have looked reluctantly to the federal government’s social responsibility for the welfare of the underlying population.” (Quotes are from pages 155 and 165 of his book.)
There it is. It is not just my opinion regarding the Republicans. Mills is just one of many authors essentially stating the same thing: “looked reluctantly to the federal government’s social responsibility.” It can’t be any clearer than that.
It all goes back to pre-FDR, when the “money men” were running rampant, when the pursuit of money was the only goal worth fighting for. Ever since the Supreme Court act of 1886, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, laid the foundation of “corporate personhood” and established the precedence of corporate prerogatives over citizens’ rights, this country has been in the grips of these “money men.” And with the Supreme Court decision of 2010, Citizens United, ruling that corporations could spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, equating corporate money with free speech (The Party is Over by Mike Lofgren, page 14), this country has been in the grips of this “money madness” to the extent that the public is virtually powerless. Not the case, though. The senior voting bloc is the largest voting bloc in the country, with over 70-plus percent of these “oldies” voting.
We have enough voting power, not to change the country per se, but enough to force the “tap-dancers” and the “money men” to leave our benefits alone. According to the AARP and the NCPSSM, that is exactly what these two organizations have done, down through the years. Time and again, they have stopped the “money men” and “tap-dancers” from pushing through changes on our benefits. And that is because of the large number of enrollees in both organizations. Get involved, boys and girls. It is our “keesters” on the line.
Robert LaPolt
New Paltz
Opening Pandora’s box
Wikipedia describes mass gatherings as events that are attended by a sufficient number of people to strain the planning and response resources of the host community. Recent applications requesting mass gathering permits for events that violate the Zoning Law, do not require any of Woodstock’s service resources and were not on town property, were approved by Supervisor McKenna. The proposed events were on private property; nowhere in our zoning does it state that a mass gathering permit is needed on private property. So why did McKenna even get involved?
Howard Harris
Woodstock
The disposable generation
One of the most glaring and gaping holes that COVID exposed throughout the American health care fabric was the spotlight showing that approximately 93 percent of American deaths involving COVID, according to the CDC, were 50 years of age and older. This definitive statement of the American (lack of) health care system from the Trump-era strategy of anything but Obamacare, to the Biden-era strategy of lacking a definitive and clear plan, has perpetuated a decades-long philosophy that people over a certain age are feeble, weak, sick and a drain on the American economy.
Having a healthier senior population begins by having those same seniors being healthier decades earlier. We make a healthier senior population by making healthier younger generations. America is failing dramatically in this arena.
We are making those above the age of 50 into a disposable generation. We are losing, and it is costing lives.
Dr. Otto Janke
Empire Longevity
Cortland
Outrageous, Part 2!
The current conservative Supreme Court, in their recent major decisions, has chosen to overturn Roe v. Wade, a flagrant misogynistic decision. Women no longer have choice. It’s now against the law to have an abortion, even if you got pregnant by being raped. It’s not enough that women have to endure the horror of rape. But now they can actually be thrown in jail if they break the law and get an abortion in their attempt to rid themselves of living with such a poisonous trauma. The rapist, even if convicted, could actually be sentenced to less time in jail than the woman he raped. Are you kidding me? Unbelievable.
The decision for more freedom to carry guns in our country is another head-scratcher. Anybody with half a brain can see that more guns is exactly what this country does not need. But the Supreme Court is inexplicably more focused on supporting and protecting the gun lobby and all the gun businesses that continue to rake in millions, while American citizens continue to die every day by gun violence.
Pollution issues? Climate change? You think this Supreme Court has any ability to make a decision that could help our country and our planet? The answer is no! The decision to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency is taking away a good portion of the Agency’s power to curb irresponsible businesses, who are adding to pollution and the out-of-control heating of the planet. It’s a fact that pollution and extreme heat is causing millions of people to have shorter life spans. These decisions of the Supreme Court do not make sense at all.
It is written that, “The mind is a terrible master, but a wonderful servant.” It is then logical that the group mind of the Supreme Court can turn out to be a terrible master, but could become a wonderful servant, supporting the spirit of the people of our country. But are they?
A court that helps only billionaires make more money, while at the same time passes laws to make the working class suffer more, is not a court that is serving the people of our nation. Let’s be clear: The Supreme Court has lost its soul!
“When injustice becomes law, then resistance becomes duty.” – Tom Jefferson.
This precious country needs our help right now. Our democracy is being threatened. Our cherished life as we know it, and our individual dreams, are also being threatened as well by these court opinions. But is there anything we can do?
Yes. We, the People must realize that our once honored and respected Supreme Court has been hijacked. We can hope and pray for them to have a change of mind and heart. But the odds of that happening appear to be slim and none.
But We, the People have the power to render the current Supreme Court neutral by voting. Every caring citizen of our precious United States of America must make the commitment to vote this November. If each one of us makes this commitment, then we can interrupt the downward spiral. We can neutralize the hijacked Supreme Court. We can bring more stability to our nation and insist that good, rational thinking, with heart and soul, becomes our future. It’s completely possible! But we must find the wisdom to know what is right, and then the courage to act. Will you?
The Serenity Prayer
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference between the two.”
Marty Klein
Kingston
Update needed
While I thought the article by Rokosz Most about the fire towers was overall good, there was a very ill-informed paragraph that should be updated/removed/corrected. At the beginning of the “Ever upwards” section, the author recommends bringing cherries and spitting the pits along the trail and bringing clementines and tossing the peels along the trail. This is not appropriate behavior! These suggestions violate Leave No Trace principles (https://lnt.org).
Hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts shouldn’t be leaving garbage behind when they recreate, “biodegradable” or not. Citrus rinds are also notoriously slow to biodegrade, even in a compost bin, and much more slowly just tossed on the ground. And no, the wildlife don’t need our trash to survive. They need the native food sources they have coevolved with.
Our parks and trails were nearly loved to death at the height of the pandemic, and all these newly minted outdoor enthusiasts should be receiving accurate information about how to enjoy our beautiful parks and trails responsibly.
Christine Guarino
New Paltz
From the writer: You’re absolutely right to take issue with the “ill-informed paragraph” in the fire tower article. It was totally irresponsible of me to suggest tossing clementine rinds into the underbrush.
I admit, it was just a bit of color I added to the story that took my fancy as I was writing it. It seemed decadent and aristocratic and it gave me a perverse amusement. I had no consideration for the reader that might actually emulate my suggestion, and for that my apologies.
Thank you again for reaching out.
Response to a letter by David Drimer
David Drimer lives in an alternate universe, where Israel “wants nothing more than to be at peace,” and is willing to build “an independent Palestinian state, to see that dream come to fruition.” I don’t really think that Drimer believes all that. How could he? Israel is an apartheid state, with separate laws, roads and housing settlements for its Jewish population, and nothing but bullets for its five million Palestinians living under occupation. So all the evidence in the world isn’t going to change Drimer’s mind.
In fact, any attempt to point out how brutal Israel is to Palestinians gets put in that grand, amorphous category of anti-Semitism. Suddenly, one is labeled a proponent of “ZOG,” whatever that is, and Drimer is back to familiar territory. We can argue about what anti-Semites do beside yelling “Zog” to other white supremacists. And whatever criticism of the extreme racism used to ethnically cleans the Holy Land gets identified as just another “trope.” It seems like there is a trope for almost any criticism of Israel. In fact, pointing out that there are a lot of tropes is probably another trope.
So I am not going to descend into trope land. If Drimer can argue about what anti-Semitism is, why then he doesn’t have to talk about what Israel actually does to its Palestinians living under brutal occupation. That behavior is simply indefensible if one cares at all about human rights.
For it is indefensible to drive millions of Palestinian from their homeland. It is indefensible to destroy 170,000 Palestinian homes since 1948. Indefensible to cut down 9,300 Palestinian olive trees last year alone. Indefensible to murder civilians with drone and sniper attacks, with an average of six Palestinian children killed each month in 2021. No, Drimer would prefer not to go there. He can’t really defend Israel; the American people know too much.
Fred Nagel
Rhinebeck
Measuring and managing long-term sewer treatment plant capacity
We make charts and use arithmetic to illustrate how much capacity remains at the Village’s Huguenot Street sewer plant. We’re lucky we also have high-quality local weather data from the Mohonk Mountain House and Mohonk Preserve to help assess how precipitation impacts our treatment plant. Too much stormwater curtails our plant’s capacity.
The plant is regulated by the NYS DEC and required to maintain daily flows averaged monthly where the average cannot surpass 1.5 million gallons per day. We have low-volume days below 600,000 gallons (when SUNY New Paltz is on break) and some high-volume days above 1.5 million gallons. The high-volume days occur during big rains or when temperatures suddenly rise and there’s snow on the ground that melts. Rain, snowmelt and groundwater can find their way into our municipal sewer system through old infrastructure. This is known as inflow and infiltration “I&I.” The extra water makes our sewer plant work harder by wasting electricity and adding wear to our plant’s expensive mechanicals.
We have been assured by DEC staff that it is good we monitor the “> 1.5 million gallon days” and our averages are well within compliance and below our permitted 1.5 million gallons per day. Our plant has never violated its permit that was granted in 1999 when its mechanicals were updated to handle 1.5 million gallons from 1.2 million.
In addition to health and safety requirements, sewer plant capacity is also carefully monitored for long-term planning because various developers with projects at different stages are before the Village’s busy volunteer planning board and others have expressed serious interest in building in New Paltz.
As we have stated many times over the years, fixing I&I is the most effective way to manage and protect our conveyance system and treatment plant’s 1.5 million gallon per day permitted capacity. Building a new plant or expanding ours would cost many tens of millions of dollars.
Several year’s worth of Village capital projects should be credited for reducing the impact of I&I on our plant, but we must also factor in annual precipitation changes, using Mohonk’s data, to evaluate trends.
To assess year-over-year sewer patterns, we divided gallons of sewer by inches of precipitation and compared trendlines of “total sewer” to “gallons of sewer per inch of precipitation.” (A trendline in a chart, also referred to as a line of best fit, shows the general pattern or overall direction of data.) Both “total sewer” and “gallons of sewer per inch of precipitation” have trended lower.
Average daily sewer volume has decreased from 1,177,492 gallons during the years 2017-2019 to 876,085 gallons from 2020-June 2022. It is noteworthy to add that we took a conservative approach and only considered the highest six months of daily sewer plant volumes each year instead of all 12 months. There was more precipitation during 2017-2019 but even factoring in the extra rain, volumes at the plant decreased.
We are pleased to share that we believe our continued investments in replacing old sewer infrastructure to fix I&I is helping protect sewer capacity at our plant. An efficiently run municipal sewer system protects our community’s health, local economy, and ensures that effluent discharged into our Wallkill River has been safely disinfected.
Mayor Tim Rogers
New Paltz
Commentary on life
Farewell dear, sweet monarchs. Oh, how we loved thee.
Can we de-escalate the passion of inbred division. Yes we can!
Rule of thumb on teeth: If you have less than ten, forget the Waterpik/flosser.
Must we start thinking about the horror of hanging chads?
Watch out for the hyper-local news. We need quiet. 0M.
Why do whiskers grow within the confines of wrinkles?
The lack of outdoor seating at medical facilities is frankly appalling.
TA-TA! I am off to the first senior-only surfing safari danceathon.
Myrna S. Hilton
Ulster Park
Lizzie’s Way
Lizzie Vann has undertaken the gargantuan task of restoring and improving what is now the Bearsville Center, an eight-building, 15-acre property important to Woodstock’s past, present and future. She is doing so out of her own pocket. Each of us would do some things differently. I among them, with my partners, in fact did do some things differently. I ask that our community give Lizzie some support and the benefit of some doubt during the construction phase of her massive undertaking. She is the singular person on Earth that is both willing and able to do what she’s doing to the extent she is doing it. Ultimately, the rest of us benefit from her earnest efforts.
Peter Cantine
Woodstock
Vaginal politics and the Bible
In her “Point of View” article (July 20, 2022), Kris McDaniel-Miccio presents a compelling practical case rebuttal of the recent SCOTUS opinion overturning Roe vs. Wade. In contrast, George Civile’s letter (in the same issue) argues that the Bible supports this SCOTUS decision, and “is viewed as a source of higher truth by most people.”
I’m not sure what factual basis Mr. Civile has for his “higher truth” assertion, but I do know that our US Constitution itself provides much clarity in this regard, as follows:
First Amendment
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Consequently, although Mr. Civile’s religious beliefs should be respected and freely expressed as spoken or written — those beliefs are also protected by the First Amendment from being directly incorporated into any laws created by Congress. Our Founders were very careful to avoid any repeat of the religious persecution that had brought so many new immigrants to our shores from Europe, where governments tended to favor certain religious views over others.
Furthermore, our Constitution also makes clear the following:
14th Amendment, Section 1
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Consequently, women are “persons” who are entitled to the same “equal protection of the laws” that men enjoy under our Constitution; and no State should have the legal right to compel any woman to complete an unwanted pregnancy that would threaten their life or liberty.
Mr. Civile should be aware that we live in a secular constitutional republic, carefully created by our Founders to foster religious freedom – and to keep religion separate from government – thus assuring religious freedom could never be relinquished. So, women who wholly depend on the Bible to guide them through the crisis of an unwanted pregnancy, are always free to complete such a pregnancy – but, conversely, others should be protected by our Constitution to legally decide otherwise.
Peter V Fiorentino
Rosendale
Joyce’s spirit of the law
In her letter of 7-6-22, Joyce Benedict asks, more than once, “where is the spirit of the law?” with regard to the Rowe vs. Wade reversal. Fortunately, the Supreme Court Justices base their decisions upon the intent and meaning of our Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution is there ANY reference to abortion or a “right” to an abortion. The progressives and abortionists would strongly argue that this “right” is included in the privacy clause of the 4th Amendment. But, a closer look at the privacy clause still makes no reference to abortion. However, since the extremists view the Constitution as a “living document,” they think this allows them to spin and distort the privacy clause to adapt to their baby killing agenda.
Joyce argues that there would be far less criminals in jail if unwanted pregnancies were able to be aborted, willy nilly, on the theory that the offspring of unwanted pregnancies are born into dysfunctional families and, apparently, doomed to failure. She adds a misleading statistic that 76% of women in the world are raising children, alone. Actually, the most recent statistic in the U.S. says that only 25% of families involve a single parent raising their children, with 80% of them run by mothers. I’m guessing that Joyce views kids raised by single moms and dads as a grim situation, too. However, as we all know, there were and are many single mothers who chose to raise their children as opposed to killing them, and both they and their children, as well as society, are pretty happy about that. Just a few examples of children raised by a single mom: Bill Clinton, J. K. Rowling, Al Pacino, Eric Clapton, Jack Nicholson, Barack Obama, and the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize, Marie Curie. I don’t think anyone would consider them prison material.
As I mentioned in previous letters, only 3.5% of all abortions result from rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother. The other 96.5%of abortions are due to “social and economic” reasons. So, to quote a term used by our famous queen of word salads, VP Kamala Harris, let’s look at the “root causes” of the vast majority of unwanted pregnancies in this category: immoral and impulsive behavior coupled with the lack of common sense in having unprotected sex. But, the REAL “root cause” is, unquestionably, the thinking that the ultimate, default go-to form of birth control was always the total reliance on the old Roe vs. Wade…….in other words, “no worries, I’ll just kill my baby.” Suddenly, morality and common sense might come back into fashion!
A very important part of Joyce’s statistics that she failed to address when expressing worries that, if there was no abortion, how are we going to feed all these extra mouths, is the comparison of total non-abortion deaths per year to the total of abortion deaths per year. In 2016, there were 926,260 abortions. However, people who died from heart disease and cancer, alone, numbered 1,233,298. The next 11 health related deaths totaled another 891,140. So, if the 926,260 slaughtered unborn babies were provided their God given right to life, that would mean that there were 1,198,238 LESS mouths to feed (2,124,438 – 926,260).
Finally, I wholeheartedly agree with Joyce when she states that women (as well as men, I might add) have a right to be captains of their souls. Excluding the instances of rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother……..by exercising morals and good judgment, the woman is ALWAYS in total control because the man has NO control, when she simply says “no, it’s not happening.”
John N. Butz
Modena
Road Rage
My wife and I were on route 213 headed to Kingston on that straight stretch of highway where you can go 55 just before the Eddyville bridge. A car was coming toward us in its lane when I heard a roar behind us. Just as the oncoming vehicle reached us, a motorcycle shot by us, almost clipping my side mirror. Behind him, four other bikers squeezed between my truck and the car at breakneck speed.
I once was a young man who flirted with death by doing acts that risked my life, such as driving fast, but I never intentionally jeopardized innocent folks.
For weeks afterward, I attempted to determine why I often see this behavior on our roadways. This thinking brought me to Henry DuBois Drive, where I walk with my wife. This road quickly has become the primary bypass for vehicles going North around New Paltz. Henry DuBois crosses many small side streets, all with stop signs. On each walk, I count how many cars come to a complete stop at the stop sign. I started this about three years ago, and out of ten drivers, four stopped. Now my count is down to about three out of ten. Add to that two to three times a week, I see cars going full speed through stop signs.
Why is this happening? Your car can be imagined as a safe place to yell and scream. No one hears you if the windows are closed. Instead, I see drivers often expressing their discontent and upset with hand gestures and contorted faces. The common acronym Road Rage is fitting. You begin to understand what I am conveying if you see a one-ton four-wheeled piece of steel and plastic careening through a stop sign after I’ve taken two steps into that roadway. You will quickly appreciate how our highways are becoming pathways for drivers with distracted minds and repressed emotions.
I ask myself, where is all this repressed emotion coming from? Is the pandemic bringing death to the forefront of our lives with daily newscasts? We are not in war, but we are at war, where every vital commodity has risen to fund our wealth making new weapons to kill humans. Every driver must refill their car or truck with gas and are reminded why they are paying more.
The ever-present message we all hear, including in a weather forecast, is that we are in a race with nature every day to see if humans will be wiped out by nature or by psychopathic political leaders creating Wars. If that coming over the car radio is not enough to increase drivers’ anger, add the struggling medical system, the loss of job security, the absence of morality in our government, and our legal system; all this is communicated while we drive our highways.
What is a poor driver to do but slip into an unconscious state of rage and gamble with the only thing they have power and control over in their lives? Their auto?
Larry Winters
New Paltz
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