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.
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Hudson Valley One welcomes letters from its readers. Letters should be fewer than 300 words and submitted by noon on Monday. Our policy is to print as many letters to the editor as possible. As with all print publications, available space is determined by ads sold. If there is insufficient space in a given issue, letters will be approved based on established content standards. Points of View will also run at our discretion.
Although Hudson Valley One does not specifically limit the number of letters a reader can submit per month, the publication of letters written by frequent correspondents may be delayed to make room for less-often-heard voices, but they will all appear on our website at hudsonvalleyone.com. All letters should be signed and include the author’s address and telephone number.
What does John Butz say about this truth
At the close of that fateful day of January 6, it appeared that Trump’s attempted coup had failed. But now the former president is far and away the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president in the 2024 election, promising to be a “dictator for one day” while at the same time asserting that “he will employ the levers of power to exact revenge on his enemies and to protect himself from legal consequences for his former actions.”
His threat to democracy is nothing to laugh at. Is this the entrance to where the floodlights of Ronald Reagan’s America illuminating a shining city on the hill go dark?
Anyone who has been paying attention has observed the distinctly authoritarian tendencies that marked the presidency of Donald Trump. He insisted that “he alone was the solution to any problem.” He claimed that he is empowered to do as he pleases, despite the Constitution. He smears politicians and the press as “enemies of the people.” And he has a creepy infatuation with tyrannical dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
And there you have it. Donald Trump said he’s not bothered by comparisons to Adolf Hitler. I disagree with “He is a fascist in the making.” Nah, he is already, and has been for some time, a fascist. Most likely true that Donald Trump in his dreams would gladly fill Adolf Hitler’s shoes. Can you imagine any other decent American being compared to Adolf Hitler?
Trump has invoked Hitler’s name and the title of his memoir at a political rally, but there have been multiple reports over the years of Trump expressing a keen interest in, even admiration for, Hitler’s rule over Nazi Germany. In the past, he’s acknowledged to own a copy of the book. “They said Hitler said that,” as Trump recently quoted Hitler again — he told the crowd in Iowa that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America.
As an American Jew, many Americans like me are in a state of paralysis because they simply don’t understand what they are seeing.
Trump vows to ramp up “parroting Adolf Hitler.” If anything, he has opined, and thinks he was being “too nice.” He wants rhetoric to increasingly mirror Nazi talking points. What does John N. Butz have to say about that?
I opine, “how nakedly he has put out fascist ideas before the public. Trump has doubled and even tripled down on the charged rhetoric that sounds like it’s coming from the mouth of an authoritarian leader as opposed to a candidate for president of a democracy.
Again, I resubmit that I’m an American Jew, and that is some real scary shit which Trump is saying. I hope that Butz will condemn Trump’s rhetoric and not embrace fascist and Nazi-speak. I hope he doesn’t want the readers to hear crickets from him on this topic. And that Mr. Butz is not irrationally thinking here.
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Lessons learned
I was briefly, at the age of 16, a brilliant shoplifter.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
The hard drive of memory: Echoes of silence
In the labyrinth of human interaction, our ears, not unlike sentinels, guard the gates to our minds, often choosing whom to listen to and whom to silence. This selective hearing, a symbolic ‘hard drive’ of memory and attention, is our refuge and prison.
As a poet and a psychotherapist, I’ve often pondered the delicate balance of this selective attention. In the dance of human interaction, I’ve noticed how easily first impressions sway us. A lack of eye contact or a fiery rant about politics or religion can make us turn away, shutting the doors of our perception. This reflex, though protective, sometimes closes our eyes to the hidden depths of others.
In the digital realm, this dance takes on a new rhythm. The screens become our eyes, faces and tongues. Here, in this virtual expanse, our selective hearing evolves. We scroll, we filter, we mute. But what of the nuances are lost in this digital translation? Can a computer truly step in for the warmth of a human gaze, the subtle inflections of a voice laden with unspoken stories?
The family, a tapestry of complex relationships, often tests the limits of our selective listening. Witnessing a loved one’s self-destructive behavior is akin to watching a ship slowly sink, unable to stop it. Here, our ears close, not in judgment, but in pain. The challenge lies in keeping the dialogue open, in striving to understand, even when every instinct urges us to retreat into our shells.
I’ve learned that patience is the key to my personal and professional journey. It takes multiple encounters, gradually chipping away at the walls we build, to truly hear someone. Empathy, that gentle hand, can turn whispers into dialogues, silence into understanding.
Perhaps the art of listening is not so much about the ears as it is about the heart. It is about the courage to confront our own biases, step beyond the comfort of our hard drive and embrace the cacophony of human emotions and stories. In this dance of listening and understanding, we find others and ourselves.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Hard no to the mega warehouse
I urge all residents of the greater community to voice their opposition to a proposed mega warehouse in the Town of Plattekill. There is an application for a ten-acre warehouse building (451,000 square feet) in Modena/Town of Plattekill on Route 44/55 on the border of Gardiner. This will destroy 32 acres of a 50-acre parcel, 75 tractor trailer loading docks. This needs to be scaled down to an appropriate size for the area, or not occur at all.
We need to repurpose existing vacant properties such as iPark 87/Tech City and the Hudson Valley and Newburgh malls. Three million kilowatt hours of electricity annually is an unacceptable burden on our already strained electricity grid. There should be ten acres of solar panels on the roof of that ten-acre building. They are seeking a height variance. They could be storing toxic or hazardous substances, fireworks or explosives.
Over 15 acres of impervious surface will create an undue burden on the stormwater discharge system. Utilizing 1,725 gallons of water per day will deplete our water table and aquifer. What are the contents of this wastewater? You cannot discharge wastewater into wetlands.
Exterior lighting will destroy the night sky and impact wildlife from the river to the ridge. Destruction of ten acres of forest and four acres of meadow. A full conservation analysis should be completed related to the wetlands, fields, forests, the property as a whole and in relation to adjacent and surrounding properties and connectivity of wildlife corridors.
This site is within five miles of the Shawangunk Ridge, Minnewaska Park, Mohonk Preserve, the Shawangunk Grasslands, the Shawangunk designated scenic byway and the Route 208 scenic byway. A decommissioning plan with security in escrow should be put in place to ensure this lot is returned to forests and fields when abandoned. There will be major tractor trailer truck traffic in all directions and is unsustainable for the road and the community.
Will this warehouse receive an incentive to pay no taxes for ten years? The town will not see an economic benefit from this. But rest assured, we will have longer commute times and our children will be sitting on their school buses for even longer and longer periods of time. The environmental assessment and the wetlands delineation were completed in July 2022, during which it was classified “severe drought” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It needs to be done again properly.
There are possibly Native American artifacts on this site. Truck traffic, noise, air pollution, safety hazards, garbage. This will impact Wallkill, Newburgh, Montgomery, as well as Plattekill, Gardiner, Highland, over Minnewaska to Ellenville and through New Paltz up to Kingston. Hundreds and hundreds of tractor trailer trucks in all directions rumbling past our homes, screeching up behind us when we’re driving, spewing fumes and noise, blocking the way, making wide turns, endangering bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians and children. This mega warehouse will destroy our community, our environment and our way of life.
Roberta Clements
Gardiner
Democracy is on the ballot
On January 5, 2024, Christopher Worrell, a Proud Boy from Florida, was sentenced to ten years in prison for invading the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020. He was convicted of assaulting four members of the Capitol police with a large canister of pepper gel, among other offenses. He claimed he was a hero who was fighting “Antifa,” a notion the judge labeled “preposterous.”
Also on January 5, 2024, Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol police officer who stood in defense of that building on January 6, 2020 announced that he was running for Congress in Maryland’s third district. Referring to this assault on American democracy, he said, “I did my duty as a police officer and as an American and defended our nation’s Capitol from violent insurrectionists. Today, I’m running for Congress because the forces that spurred that violent attack are still at work. As a patriotic American, it is my duty to defend our democracy.”
On January 6, 2024, Donald Trump said, “Think of it, magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets. Why didn’t they use John Deere? Why didn’t they bring in the John Deere people? Do you like John Deere? I like John Deere.
He also ridiculed and mimicked Joe Biden’s stutter: “Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing. He’s saying I’m a threat to democracy. He’s a threat to d-d-democracy.”
Also on January 6, 2024, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Joe Biden told the American people, “You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. As time has gone on, politics, fear, money, all have intervened. And now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump on January 6 have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy.
“They made their choice. Now the rest of us — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we have to make our choice.
“I know mine. And I believe I know America’s.
“We will defend the truth, not give in to the Big Lie. We’ll embrace the Constitution and the Declaration, not abandon it. We’ll honor the sacred cause of democracy, not walk away from it.
“Today, I make this sacred pledge to you. The defense, protection and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.
“America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear: Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.”
Yes, freedom is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Support President Biden. Work on his behalf. In November, cast your vote for him.
William Weinstein
New Paltz
Freedom lost
I recently watched a television show whose scenes dramatized police in the 1950s beating demonstrators who blocked traffic to protest black neighborhoods being razed and replaced with new interstate highways. The next morning I read about scores of demonstrators filling the Kingston public square to protest actions in the Gaza war and US involvement in them.
Although in both cases Americans were and are divided in our feelings about the events, I’m still confident we’re united in one respect: we cherish our freedom to think, feel and express our values without fear of reprisal by arms of government or private actors. In the end, we largely stand for a free society tolerant of many voices.
It’s deeply disturbing, then, to see ex-President Trump’s revised vision of MAGA if he wins in 2024: “retribution.” He promises revenge against his enemies — may they “rot in hell” — achieved with an authoritarian fist, “a dictatorship on day one” at the least. If you think his rhetoric is meant only to gin up his supporters, you haven’t paid attention to his documented desire, as president, to use federal military forces to quell demonstrations or to call for prosecution of our top military chief for treason.
Think of an America where you could be part of a public protest: maybe you decry the use of public domain to empty neighborhoods for commercial development; maybe you are unhappy with the way we educate; maybe you don’t like wind farms; maybe you want to hear humane solutions to homelessness. Imagine armed forces staring you down in a tense confrontation. Imagine a neighbor you thought was a friend reporting your involvement to hostile authorities. Imagine a family member demonstrating in those hostile streets, regardless of whether you support the cause.
Many Americans might rate a place on Trump’s expansive list of “vermin” to “root out.” It’s a prospect for a future without freedom that should freeze the heart. You don’t believe it can happen here?
Tom Denton
New Paltz
Immune
From HV1: Ratcliff attacked McKenna for breaching confidentiality by making the complaints to the town and state public. “….the supervisor chose to break confidentiality and share the complaint with others by bringing it up himself at the town board.” This is not the first time McKenna has broken confidentiality. Years ago he also shared a complaint at the town board, and the end result of that breaching of confidentiality was that members of the ethics board resigned as volunteers. When will his abuse of policies and procedures cease.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
“Give peace a chance”
Regarding the letters of genocide-deniers, John Butz and George Civile in last week’s issue of HV1, they both demonstrate once again their ignorance about genocide and arrogance in the face of documented facts.
Mr. Butz displays his foolishness by stating: “Steve’s experts have taken it upon themselves to embellish and reconstruct the meaning of genocide to support their ceasefire agenda” without giving any examples. Nice try Mr. Butz, but 900 of these experts have not “taken it upon themselves,” but are, in fact, professionals devoted to exposing genocide when it happens.
The other 300 who are Holocaust survivors, have every right to let the world know when they see the horror that happened to them manifest in similar form again.
Furthermore, they are not “reconstructing the meaning of genocide,” easily seen if one would actually read their statements and letters, but are responding to the well-established and agreed-upon meaning from the Genocide Convention of 1948 that now has 153 member states including Israel. Mr. Butz’s seemingly lack of diligence offers no experts of his own, only his unqualified-self to make his nonsensical statements while innocent civilians and children are brutally dying.
Mr. Civile, on the other hand attempts to demonstrate that there are experts who don’t think genocide is happening, but as can be seen by his examples, are few in number. According to Mr. Civile, the 900+ distinguished genocide experts and the 300 Jewish Holocaust survivors who agree with me that Israel is indeed committing genocide, are all “guilty” of peddling “propaganda.” I doubt anyone with a reasonable IQ will believe that ad-hominem nonsense.
One more well-known professional genocide expert to consider is Frances Boyle Esq., a lawyer of international law for decades, was the first lawyer to win a court order from the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) on genocide, and won two orders regarding genocide committed by Yugoslavia. He has reviewed all the documents submitted by South Africa to the ICJ and does not agree with genocide-deniers arguments. Instead, he believes the ICJ will acknowledge Israel is indeed committing genocide and will recommend taking actions. So stop reading your slanted Time magazine articles Mr. Civile, and take a good look at a real deal 84-page “very detailed” (Boyle) legal document submitted to the ICJ by South Africa to see the case for genocide (https:// d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/01/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf).
Finally, Mr. Civile can name drop a famous musician and quote all he wants from John Lennon’s music. But, if John were still alive today, he would be totally against this horrific genocide and would be calling for a “ceasefire now,” while singing “Give Peace a Chance!”
Steve Romine
Woodstock
Facts vs. fear
Save Woodstock indeed! Save Woodstock from anonymous letters, websites without attribution and now “Save Woodstock” on what is usually a “Welcome to Woodstock” community billboard at the entrance to town. All make claims without saying who is making them, what their expertise is and without facts against the zoning “overhaul” they are fighting. They rely on hyperbole and bits from the zoning revision taken out of context. Who are the Wizards of Oz paying for this effort to discredit the two years of work by the Housing Oversight Task Force (HOTF) and its highly qualified land use consultant? They don’t say.
HOTF (now disbanded as their job is done) was a publicly appointed task force made of long-time volunteers on boards and committees concerned with housing. Their specific purpose was recommending updates to the town’s housing zoning laws. They did so adhering to Woodstock’s comprehensive plan and with particular attention to environmental protection, going above and beyond the current code. Dozens of citizens and committees submitted suggestions for changes and asked questions. Changes were made to version one, resulting in version two and then again for version three. Recommendations for additional changes are now solely in the hands of the town board.
Zoning is complicated. Most people are not versed in the current or proposed law. Others have participated thoughtfully in the revision process. The so-called Save Woodstock campaign does not offer constructive suggestions. It is misleading and spreads fear.
Woodstock needs homes for lower- and middle-income families and individuals. We will soon be losing almost half of our currently affordable housing as Woodstock Estates funding restrictions expire. We will only be able to meet the town’s housing needs using multiple strategies. Updating zoning to allow for multi-family and cluster housing is one.
Remember, the Wizard of Oz was a small man hiding behind a curtain. If we are to consider the views of this new group, they should identify themselves so Woodstockers can assess their credibility.
Susan Goldman
Woodstock
Expert texpert, Part 2
There is a story of a Jewish father taking his four-year-old son to a tall ladder in his yard and helping him climb to the top. He then encourages him to jump promising that “Daddy will catch you.” Hesitating, the son finally trusts his father’s word and takes the leap. However, the father doesn’t catch him and he crashes to the ground. Looking into his son’s disappointed and tear-filled eyes, the father says, “Son, I love you very much and would never deliberately hurt you, but this is to teach you that in this world a Jew can’t trust anyone.”
Steve Romine accuses me and others of propaganda and claims that the reason we don’t accept his sources’ definitions of genocide is either because of our ignorance of the impressive nature of them or that these definitions belie our acceptance of the Israeli-government-propaganda narrative. Although it appears that Steve thinks he’s capable of reading minds, he is wrong as we have indicated in various letters. Moreover, while Mr. Romine criticizes us in this manner, we can, similarly, assert that Steve’s acceptance of his sources and his interpretation of their definitions as applicable to Israel is based upon his anti-Israeli bias and the anti-Israel propaganda he and his sources embrace. Furthermore, Steve once offered the presumptive statement that it was obvious that I didn’t know anyone who went to Palestine and was just accepting Israeli propaganda when I said Palestinians were “Jew haters.” He then gave the example of his friends visiting Palestine being shown hospitality in Palestinian homes to refute my “Jew hater” claim. I responded by writing that I had two friends who lived in Israel for six years and broadcast a podcast that spoke of Israeli life and that what I actually said was “Steve underestimated the degree of hatred for Jews that exists in the Middle East” not “Palestinians are Jew haters.”
Of course, Steve’s example of his Jewish friends being shown such hospitality implies Jews should trust that their Palestinian neighbors have their best interests at heart. However, Mr. Romine’s anecdotal story ignored the examples that I gave of Jews being abandoned by their close Gentile friends after Kristallnacht, as well as 1,600 Jews being brutally murdered by their lifelong, friendly, hospitable neighbors (just because they could) in the Polish town of Jedwabne, to challenge his story’s implication. In fact, Steve dismissed these examples by simply writing that he didn’t have to be told about Holocaust related matters because his Armenian relatives suffered at the hands of the murderous Ottoman Turks. I suppose Steve would agree with some “experts” who think that had Israel returned to the pre-1967, six-day war, borders — as proposed in UN resolution 242 — or conducted the present war differently, peace would be achieved. However, in order to persuade Israel they are correct in this regard, these experts would have to convince her people that thousands of years of Jews being betrayed and persecuted by neighbors, wherever they lived, were aberrations. These would include Kristallnacht and Jedwabne and the 1967 war itself — where these borders already existed — as well as the 1973 war and even the October 7 attack, as well as the explicit statement by Hamas that they would continue October 7 like attacks until Israel is destroyed. With this in view, I think that an Israeli Jew would be best served by not underestimating the implications of the cries of “from the river to the sea” by following the advice and example the father gave to his son mentioned above rather than Steve and his Jewish friends that were shown hospitality by Palestinians.
George Civile
Gardiner
Touching moments
Glasco recently held a funeral for one of its most respected family members. It was a day filled with many touching moments. But, I have to take the time to note that I was overcome with additional emotion as we made our way to St. Joseph’s Church and passed a road crew from J. Mullen and Sons Construction who stopped working and stood ramrod straight with their hard hats over their hearts until each and every car had gone by.
This simple gesture of respect meant so much during a time of grief for a beloved patriarch and community loved one. John Mullen should be immensely proud of his crew!
Jo Galante Cicale
Saugerties
Annual ask for SUNY impact aid
One of the first resolutions our board writes each year involves our official ask for SUNY Impact Aid from our representatives in Albany. This resolution also functions as a snapshot to illustrate how busy emergency services were during the previous year.
For example, fire department calls in 2023 to the SUNY New Paltz campus accounted for 18.1% of our all-volunteer New Paltz Fire Department’s total call volume. With 18,209 townwide calls for service, 2023 was the busiest year for the New Paltz Police Department compared to each of the previous five years.
New Paltz remains thankful that former Senators Bonacic and Metzger, and former Assemblymember Cahill, made sure our community received SUNY Impact Aid in fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021. Senator Hinchey, Assemblymember Shrestha and Governor Hochul deserve thanks and praise for reinvigorating this important assistance for fiscal year 2024, after a two-year hiatus when our requests were not included in the Senate’s one-house budgets of ’22 and ’23.
New Paltz’s SUNY Impact Aid has supported the townwide A-Fund for police expenses, the New Paltz Fire Department reserve fund for future expenses to benefit townwide taxpayers and the New Paltz Rescue Squad.
At last week’s meeting, the Village of New Paltz Board moved to request SUNY Impact Aid of $300,000 in fiscal year 2025 for emergency services to help reduce some of the burden off our local taxpayers.
Mayor Tim Rogers
New Paltz
We must convince the EPA to enact a ban on neonics nationwide
Governor Hochul finally signed the Birds and Bees Protection Act into law and thanks go to any who encouraged this development. The birds, bees and other pollinators are threatened with extinction so it’s good that the law prohibits the use of neonicotinoids on lawns and ornamental landscapes; unfortunately, it doesn’t go into effect for three years. The ban is also on the most widely used neonic coated seeds, which turn any plant emerging from them into a killer of anything that eats it — and that doesn’t go into effect for five years. The wheels of progress grind much too slowly.
Now we must convince the EPA to enact a ban on neonics nationwide. Despite the fact that the agency already determined that neonics threaten over 200 species toward extinction, it is currently reviewing, as it does every 15 years, the safety of neonics. What are they waiting for? Maybe us — to pressure them to actually DO something!
They know that neonics are dangerous but are reviewing rather than acting. Let’s get them while they consider what they already know. (FDR was known to say: Make me do it.) You can send your comment to the EPA at: pesticidequestions@epa.gov.
Doris Chorny
Wallkill
The real anti-democracy threat
To follow up on and expand upon Ralph Mitchell’s accurate depiction of anti-democratic sentiment from Democrats, it’s necessary to see how Joe Biden fits into this big picture.
Biden’s anti-democratic rhetoric and behaviors are negatively impacting everyone in every state and not just in New York as Ralph points out. Of course, the Democratic knee jerk rebuttal is that Trump is the “threat to democracy,” which is solely based upon an unorganized mob riot intentionally mislabeled as an “insurrection.” What happened on January 6 has never met the definitions and examples of REAL insurrections.
Another Biden anti-democratic behavior was and is the use of big tech in conjunction with the obvious weaponization of the DOJ and FBI to muzzle conservatives, depriving them of their guaranteed First Amendment right of free speech.
How about Biden’s support for states and factions who vilify and attempt to remove Trump from ballots even though Trump has not been found guilty of ANY punishable crime in a court of law. Is this a behavior exhibited in a democratic administration or society?
Biden’s biggest “legacy accomplishment” is and will be his divisiveness. What democratic leader refers to nearly half of his country’s voters as fascists and Nazis? What democratic leader pushes for the “right” of a man to pretend to be a woman so that he can now dominate in real women’s sports because he was barely mediocre as a male competing against other males? (What happened to real women’s rights?) What democratic leader mocks his own faith and religion by championing the slaughter of innocent unborn children?
A final example of Biden’s incomparable divisiveness is in the area of racism. He is firmly behind his party’s conveniently manufactured political phrases of “systemic racism,” “white supremacy” and “white privilege.” Will someone please tell poor Joe that these were appropriate terms in the time span from slavery till the 1964 civil rights laws. But that is NOT who we are now! If this was still our reality, then Biden needs to explain to us all how Dr. Ben Carson, General Colin Powell, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, 2,156,000 black millionaires and seven black billionaires ever succeeded in the democratically described “sea of white oppression.”
In his 2020 campaign, Biden pledged to be our “healer.” He said “it’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again and listen to each other again.” Isn’t that the saddest, most hypocritical joke you’ve ever heard?
John N. Butz
Modena
Write letters to free human rights protectors
Amnesty International USA Mid-Hudson is hosting its annual in-person and Zoom global Write for Rights letter-writing event Sunday, January 28 between 1-3 p.m. Please hold that date!
This year we will have the option to come in person to the Elting Library at 93 Main Street in New Paltz to write letters together or the option to write letters from home on Zoom. In the past, it has always been a great experience to write letters together!
Amnesty holds this annual event throughout the globe. Join us and thousands like us around the world to write letters to challenge systemic human rights abuses like torture and gun violence as well as standing up for women’s rights, freedom of speech, indigenous people and environmental justice.
Each letter you write can change a life, and together we’re changing lives across the world. We are writing on behalf of human rights defenders and survivors of human rights violations who have been silenced by powerful entities. Our united voices cannot be ignored.
For those attending in person, we will provide all materials including sample letters and mail them for you. At home be prepared with letter-writing paper, envelopes and pens. Your Zoom link will be at eltinglibrary.org under calendar/January 28. Visit write.amnestyusa.org to read about the cases and view sample letters. You can mail your letters or we can arrange for us to mail them for you.
For more information, contact Diana Zuckerman at 845-389-3779 or email amnestyhudsonvalley@gmail.com. Visit us at facebook.com/Amnesty-Mid-Hudson-1346808352112084.
Your voice, your pen, and your letters have power!
Rosalyn Cherry
New Paltz
The answer: Six feet
Monday, January 22, 2024 is the third anniversary of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. There are 93 nations that have signed and 65 states have ratified this treaty. The following have done neither: U.S., Great Britain, Russia, China, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, India and France. These are the nations that possess nuclear weapons. Please contact your representatives to urge them to support the signing and ratification. Sen. Schumer (202-224-6542), Sen. Gillibrand (202-224-4451), Rep. Molinaro (202-225-5441), Rep. Ryan (202-225-5614). These numbers can be used to contact our representatives on other issues as well: immigration, the Assault Weapons Ban Act, the Israel/Hamas conflict, the Ukraine/Russia conflict, environmental justice, federal budget priorities, revised minimum safety and wage standards for nursing home staff and other health care workers, etc.
As people begin to become involved with groups that raise their voices out of concern for various issues, it becomes quite evident that young people are concerned about events of the day and the effect these events will have on the future. Those who may be older have many of the same concerns and share an apprehension for the present and the future. Please listen to younger people who speak out, offering support and/or guidance as needed. And, whenever possible, show support for youth who are not yet ready to become involved actively in causes but can use an encouraging word or acknowledgement nonetheless. The qualities associated with our interactions might just spread while we are being observed as adults by the young people of our communities.
Whether on the international stage or in the land/housing development of our local communities, the question that produced the answer in the title to this letter was posed by Leo Tolstoy over 100 years ago in his short story (no, not War and Peace) entitled How Much Land Does a Man Need? You should read the 14 pages of the story in order to get to its last line. The journey to the conclusion is worth the effort.
Terence Lover
Woodstock
The Red Cell
The Red Cell
after William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red cell
phone
flowing with extra
minutes
besides the unlimited
data
Patrick Hammer
Saugerties
Voting thoughts
I was happily surprised to be present for the guest speakers at the January 10 Woodstock Democratic Committee meeting: Kelleigh McKenzie, chair, Ulster County Democratic Committee; Kari Savona, incumbent and candidate, Ulster County Family Court; Gabriella Madden, candidate, NYS Assembly, District 103; Sarahana Shrestha, incumbent and candidate, NYS Assembly, District 103.
First, I want to acknowledge the good work that UDC chair McKenzie is doing keeping the many Democratic committees on target in this challenging election year.
I was greatly impressed with Kari Savona’s words and passion about the work she is doing and what she has accomplished in her capacity as lawyer and judge at the Ulster County Family Court over the past decade. I hope you will be supporting her candidacy.
I was interested to hear the contrast between the two candidates for Assembly District 103. Gabriella Madden, who is opposing the incumbent Shrestha, presented as narrow in her perspective of what an assembly member might aspire to in spite of her local roots and connections to established local politics, such as working with Kevin Cahill who was a great contributor to our district. My impression is that Ms. Madden is not mature or experienced enough to have the imagination that is needed in these particular times to make change in how our state government works and set the priorities that truly represent the District 103 community.
In her first term in the legislature, Sarahana Shrestha has proven herself to be true to the principals she ran on in support of the working people of NY. She has cosponsored over 150 bills supporting minimum wage increases, housing rights and opportunities. She was more than instrumental in bringing Central Hudson to task with seven town halls on energy equity throughout her district and organizing the Public Service Commission hearings from CH consumers with billing issues. Her multiple responses to environmental issues represent a strong voice for combating climate change. She supports the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act [A5322] and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill [A6353] which if enacted will reduce plastic waste by 40%. Other environmental acts supported by Shrestha include Teachers’ Retirement System Fossil Fuel Divestment, climate negligence regarding safety and health, NY tropical deforestation-free procurement and supply chain transparency in support of small/medium sized businesses and women and minority-owned businesses, prohibition of pesticide application to freshwater wetlands to mention just a few.
In the words of Gabriella Madden, I heard no references at all that would suggest a knowledge or interest in the wide range of issues, in particular the environment and climate change already addressed by the work carried out by assemblymember Shrestha in her first term as District 103 assembly member. Outspoken, determined and accessible as she is, it would be a huge loss if Sarahana Shrestha is not re-elected to carry on the important work she has begun.
I urge Woodstock voters to “get behind” both Kari Savona and Sarahana Shrestha in this election year.
Sarah Mecklem
Woodstock
Join the family! 
