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.
Stop the burn!
As residents all over Ulster County struggle to clean up brush and trees after this massive ice storm, I urge you to consider climate smart alternatives to burn piles. Our climate crisis is real and open burning of brush creates air pollution while releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Please consider these alternatives:
• Leave it in place where feasible. Natural fungi and microorganisms will break it down over time.
• Municipal composting. Composting is aerobic and does not create methane as it would by putting it in a landfill.
• Chip and use as mulch. Mulching minimizes evaporation in the soil, suppresses weeds and reduces soil erosion.
• Create a hugelkultur mound. Hugelkultur is German for “hill culture.” It’s a composting method that allows you to grow food while longer decay processes break down large volumes of buried or mounded wood. It’s an amazing way to sequester carbon while adding nutrients to the soil and slowing down run off.
• Make biochar, which is made by combusting wood and other organic materials under low-oxygen conditions. Biochar can take 1000’s of years to decompose and therefore become a reliable long-term carbon sink. Biochar is like a carbon sponge and when properly prepared and applied to farmland or garden soils, becomes an amazing soil amendment.
• Cultivate mushrooms. Fresh-cut oak logs, for example, are an ideal substrate for cultivating mushrooms such as shiitake, maitake, turkey tail and chicken of the woods.
So before striking a match to that pile of brush, consider the alternatives. There are many local resources that can help. New Paltz Climate Smart offers a Climate Smart Solutions Meetup on Zoom every month and we hope to offer a Meetup on the topic of biochar in the near future.
Janelle Peotter
New Paltz
“Improvements” of two Midtown Kingston sidewalk replacement projects are questionable
This spring or summer, Kingston will begin replacing existing sidewalks on Franklin and Henry streets with wider, ADA-accessible concrete ones. Franklin Street’s Complete Streets project is being touted as “climate smart” — it’s partially funded through the DEC’s Climate Smart Communities — while Henry Street’s DOT-funded Safe Routes to School was supposed to improve bike access for the school kids. With the collective cost of these projects now ballooning to over $4 million, one wonders if this is a wise investment of city funds given that neither will accomplish these goals.
The preliminary plan for both projects included the destruction of all existing 23 trees, most healthy and mature, two blocks of largely intact bluestone sidewalks, and the removal of shrubs, hedges, fences and other landscaping features located in the nine-foot right of way extending from the curb to private properties. The city will not be replanting or replacing these features, putting the cost and burden on property owners — or leaving the streetscape bare.
Being climate smart means preserving mature trees, as stated in the city’s 2018 Tree Inventory: “Trees, unlike other infrastructure, perform better and gain value over time…older, more mature trees provide the most benefit to the community.” Researchers have determined that most tree species sequester significant amounts of CO2 only after they reach 50 years of age. Mature trees, along with shrubs, hedges and gardens, are incredible incubators of life and without them, we’ll lose our migrating warblers, bats, katydids, butterflies and other avian and insect life.
While ADA accessibility is obviously desirable, the law allows for variances that would preserve the scale of the existing sidewalks on historic residential streets. Widening them is creating all kinds of problems. On Henry Street, for example, the city is reducing the planned six-foot width of the new sidewalk, designed to accommodate kids on bikes, by a foot to reduce the cost and damage to the adjoining historic bluestone retaining walls, steps, edging and even a carriage step and hitching post. That’s a sensible change, but what is the point of investing millions of dollars for better bike access when the street is not that heavily traveled in the first place? Perhaps signage directing bicyclists to use one of the sidewalks, new trees and incremental sidewalk repairs would have done the job at much less cost.
The city is scrambling to accommodate the public’s complaints regarding trees and bluestone and now says some bluestone and trees will be preserved. A better approach for future sidewalk improvement projects would be for existing healthy trees and historic bluestone to be integrated into the plan right from the start. The benefits of preserving bluestone, which can be made ADA compliant, and mature trees are clearly documented in the city’s Tree Inventory and Bluestone Inventory. If Kingston truly is a Climate Smart City, then it should cease to follow the old, failed, urban-renewal playbook of “wipe the slate clean” and instead preserve and enhance the historic and natural resources that still exist.
Lynn Woods
Kingston
Almost greed
New Paltz has deep-pocketed friends in low places. In the last couple of weeks we have been told, proudly, that our Village has been given nearly a million bucks to upgrade what we call, intended humorously I am sure, our sanitary sewer system. Hopefully, despite continued additional toilets being connected constantly to this undersized sewage treatment plant, we will pump less raw poop into the much-beloved Wallkill River, which merges with Rondout Creek before flowing into the Hudson, near beaches and intake pipes for drinking water. Not New Paltz drinking water, but our neighbors’.
Then our Town supervisor proudly announced we’re getting still more money, about a half-million dollars, for cutting down trees and tree limbs on the single least-bicycle-friendly road in all of New Paltz, Henry W. DuBois. This absurdly steep and narrow lane is now going to host firetrucks, cops and ambulances racing to emergencies. Supervisor Bettez, a bicycle enthusiast, we are told, perhaps is not a downhill skier, so perhaps not familiar with the concept of the “fall line” on a hill. Roughly, it is the line a bowling ball will follow if released at the top of the hill.
Henry W. DuBois is a road which follows precisely the fall line; it is steep, and not just on one side, but on two, as it travels over a ridgeline. So, his plan is to have families walking and biking up and down these steep hills as they go out for an evening ice cream or slice of pie. BS.
The real reason for the destruction of this nice old neighborhood is that it is too narrow for the firetrucks and has been selected by our Town brain trust as the path for the New York City-to-Buffalo bike path to follow. In stark contrast, the participation of New Paltz in this “once-built, quickly-forgotten” bike path will be nearly eliminated, as the only real landmark in the Village the bikers will experience is Village Pizza, with its cherished drive-thru window. Otherwise, they’ll see our bridge over the Thruway, our Freihofer’s day-old store and our new super-combo cop/firefighter/EMT 9/11 memorial.
The New York City-Buffalo bikers, all dozens each year, would have a safer and easier trip just staying on North Putt another mile, then crossing down to the Rail Trail on Shivertown Road. Drive it yourself! Try them both on a bike!
For the protection of human life, go ahead and widen the road, make it clear it is an emergency vehicle road, put in pullouts for cars to make way for emergency vehicles and quit kidding that people will ride up and down the hills of Henry W. DuBois. Also, leave some money for the poorer towns without the expert grantwriters. That would be neighborly.
Paul Nathe
New Paltz
Protest against white supremacy
This Saturday, February 19 New Paltz Women in Black will stand vigil to protest white supremacy, which has had deep roots in the wars that decimated Native nations and the enslavement of African Americans. White Supremacists treat people of color, immigrants, Muslims and Jews, women and LGBTQ people as inferior to white men.
Native Americans and Alaska Natives have the lowest employment rate of any ethnic group in the US and live with greater poverty (a median income of $40,000) and worse health, living about five years fewer than whites. Murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women. Native youth have the highest suicide rate of all ethnic groups.
Black people produced great wealth for plantation owners and the nation for which they were never compensated. Today black Americans earn on average $47,600 a year, compared to $77,000 for whites. They own on average one-eighth the wealth of whites, reflecting differences in home ownership, pensions and businesses. They are 2.5 times more likely than whites to be killed by police and five times more likely to be incarcerated.
Latinx people earn a median of $57,000 annually, but Latinx families have less than one-sixth the wealth of whites. ICE detains over 20,000 children and adults, mostly Latinx, across the US. The US violates international and US laws requiring the admission of asylum-seekers by turning them away at the Mexican border.
Women’s wealth is less than a third of men’s. Many single-parent households headed by women live below the poverty line. The median full-time female worker makes 81 cents for every dollar a male makes. In 2018, men murdered nearly 2,000 American women. Ninety percent of the victims knew their murderer. One in six American women has been the victim of rape.
LGBTQ people make up 4.5 percent of the U.S. population and 18.5 percent of hate crime victims. Discrimination affects their work, housing, access to education and their ability to engage in public life. According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 44 trans people were killed in 2020, many of them people of color.
New Paltz Women in Black invites you to join us in our protest on Saturday, February 19 at 12:45 p.m. in front of Elting Library on Main Street in New Paltz.
Ingrid Blaufarb Hughes
for New Paltz Women in Black
We need more love in this world
On a recent commute with my co-workers, the subject of Valentine’s Day came up while listening to a radio program discussing its impending arrival. Most did not celebrate the day, I among them. If we are being charitable and take the day to be a celebration of love (a noble enough cause), this is what I have to say: In my experience, love is simply painful attachment, best left uncelebrated. But in reality, my gripe is with the glorification of romantic love, which I 100% indulge in by listening to WGNY constantly. It is that kind of love that is celebrated on Valentine’s Day, but in my humble opinion (imho as my young friends tell me) the purest love is love of your friends. So my valentine this year (because you only get one) goes out collectively through our beloved local paper, Hudson Valley One, to all my friends. We do need more love in this world, but not the romantic kind.
Bob White
Kingston
Reach for Mars
Mars is the only planet that is a verb.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
Working in the pit
The article on Rob Houtman, “The alley of fun” by Brian Hubert, took me back to a time of my youth.
I was a pinsetter during my high school years of 1951-55. We made ten cents a line (game), which would be $6 a night working two leagues. That money was essential to me, as I helped put food on the table for our family of five kids. Poverty was no stranger to us, as we went hungry at times.
Pinsetting was hard work and sometimes dangerous, as there was no protection from flying pins back there in the “pit.” There was a pedal down at the end of the alley that we would push down with our foot to release small pegs that popped up on the alley. We would snap those pins, which had holes in the bottom (and still do), onto those pegs. We did this faster than the machines of today.
Usually, on Friday nights after working two leagues (60 games), a small group of us guys would bowl for a half-dollar a game. I remember rolling a 786 three-game series at one of those matches. We had a group of fairly good bowlers among us, including Hillar Adamson, who would go on to be one of the best in the Hudson Valley. The season of 1954/55 would be my last in the pit, as the machines came in and eliminated our pinsetting days.
So, I want to thank Bernie Levine, owner of the Dutchess Recreation Bowling Alley in Poughkeepsie, for taking me under his wing and becoming the father that I never had. He not only provided me with much-needed income, but gave me a sport I have enjoyed into my 80s.
Tom Losee
New Paltz
NY Health Act
The proposed New York Health Act would be disastrous for our area as well as New York at large. This legislation would eliminate all private insurance in New York and replace it with a state-run healthcare system. Nobody is sure how much this plan would cost, but it’s agreed it would at least double the size of the state budget (which is around $210 billion this year). How will we pay for this? Why, a new payroll tax of course!
We have enough trouble attracting and retaining medical professionals; the last thing we need is a system implemented where a faceless committee in the state Department of Health decides reimbursement rates. If our medical professionals don’t like the rates, they can and will move across state lines to seek more competitive payment for their services!
While I agree with the goal of everyone being insured, throwing out our state’s entire insurance structure and placing us at a competitive disadvantage with surrounding states is not the way to do it.
Todd Schmidt
President, CSEA Local 856
Kingston
Promises unkept
Although Donald Trump was a controversial figure, he was loved or hated not only for his personality, but because he kept his campaign promises, to the joy of some and chagrin of others. And he did so in the face of unprecedented opposition from the opposing party and unfair coverage and unabashed ridicule from most of the mainstream media. However, POTUS Biden’s great popularity has plummeted among independents and even within his own party because of unkept promises and a nasty streak that belies his reputation as a gaffe-prone but endearingly avuncular politician.
The following song, “Oh How We Hate the Things You Do,” is based upon the Temptations’ great hit “The Way You Do the Things You Do.” It tells the story of POTUS Biden’s failure to keep his promises and how this partisanship has hurt and further divided the nation and undermined his popularity.
When you announced your run
You said you’d be a great uniter
But your partisan ways
Made you our country’s great divider
The way you picked your veep
You know it should have caused a scandal
She’d be a black female
Racist Joe should be your handle
(Chorus)
You didn’t do all the things that you said you’d do
Now it’s tru-u-u-u-ue
We really hate the things you do
Oh, how we hate the things you do
The way you tell big lies
You know your pants should be on fire
The way you change your views
We know you’re just a pol for hire
The way you pulled the troops
Was oh, so dangerous and foolish
Excuses that you gave
Really were quite ghoulish
(Chorus)
You didn’t do all the things that you said you’d do
So, now we hate the things you do
The way you blamed old Trump
For all the COVID deaths that he had
You’ve had much more than him
You know it’s just made you look so bad
The way you whisper low
It makes you look so dumb and creepy
Dozing at the UN
Showed us you earned the nickname “Sleepy”
(Chorus)
You didn’t do all the things that you said you’d do
So, now we hate the things you do
The stories that you tell
Prove once again that you’re a liar
And all your spending bills
Will only make inflation higher
Your Better Build Back plan
You couldn’t get it through the Senate
Joe and Kyrsten warned you
It seems you didn’t think they meant it
(Chorus)
You didn’t do all the things that you said you’d do
So, now we hate the things you do
Our border’s overrun
And yet you never give it mention
You try to hide your flaws
By giving Trump all your attention
We’re looking at Ukraine
Russian troops are at its borders
You said we’ll help them out
But NATO doesn’t like your orders
(Chorus)
You didn’t do all the things that you said you’d do
So, now we hate the things you do
The way that Hunter paints
You know he should have been a plumber
You said that he’s so smart
It only made you look much dumber
You’re talking to the press
You’re giving them your latest sales pitch
Doocy asked a question
You called the guy a son of a bitch
(Chorus: Repeat last two lines to fade)
You didn’t do all the things that you said you’d do
Now it’s tru-u-u-u-ue
We really hate the things you do
Oh, how we hate the things you do
George Civile
Gardiner
My winter storm odyssey
It has probably only been a slight blip on the national news networks, but Ulster County has been the scene of an extraordinary winter weather ice storm disaster, with widespread, long-lasting electric outages.
The ice came Friday evening. Blackout, as far as we could see. No electricity for lights, heat, warm water, phone, TV, radio et cetera. Well, we still had our cellphones for communication, music and info about the outside world.
As Saturday came and went, more things were lost. Unable to recharge, our cellphone batteries lost all their power. Our water situation went from no hot water to no running water at all. Our need to resupply food stocks from the outside world grew, but our two perfectly functioning cars were in our garage, sitting idle, behind a door that opened via electric power.
We spent Saturday night in what appeared to be increasingly dire circumstances, huddled next to our propane-powered but real-fire stove. It was seven degrees out, 48 degrees in the house.
Sunday morning, we figured out a way to open the garage door. The car’s power enabled us to charge our cellphones. Hurray, we should be able to find a hotel room! However, there was not an available hotel room anywhere in Woodstock, Kingston, Ulster County and beyond.
The ice storm hit Ulster County so badly that 50 percent of its 80,000 electric users had lost electricity, with most still out. The competition for a hotel/motel room was intense. Unable to find an available hotel room, we spent Sunday night, once again, huddled in front of our real-fire, propane-powered stove.
On Monday, we were able to exit our icy driveway, found a functioning restaurant and finally a hotel room for the night. We returned home to a now electrically restored home on Tuesday.
Along with the difficulties of this experience, there were many blessings woven in. I will mention one: The ice crystals in the bent tree limbs shone like diamonds against a clear blue sky. To drive around was to see the most extraordinary natural beauty any of us had ever seen. It felt almost supernatural, like entering a crystal universe, in another sphere. It was a photographer’s dream universe.
Mel Sadownick
West Hurley
Suggestion for saving space
There is a limited amount of space for letters. Those writers who send poems or song lyrics with fewer words on each line are taking up space that could be used for another letter.
Please revise your word limit to include space – that is, so many words in text or so many lines (the same as a letter with the limit of words would take).
Andi Weiss Bartczak
Gardiner
Wipeout
Are we all legally high yet? Late Thursday, February 3, the ice came and the electricity went away in most of Ulster County. No TV, Internet, stove, heat et cetera. Don’t know what they do in Ethiopia, but sure were bummed in Ulster.
The president came to the Big Apple to speak to the new mayor on Friday about crime et cetera. They had a nice “political” talk. Not sure about what, but not about solutions for crime et cetera. Whoopi is confused. Snoop Dog is doing the Super Bowl halftime show, then making a speech to the New York Police Department and the US is sending most of its finest winter athletes to Red China for the games – brilliant! George Soros has helped Alvin Bragg and many other DAs all over the country to get elected – all progressives.
Unelected Governor Hochul wants to give Bragg a “chance.” It’s obvious the adults have left the room.
Socialism is on its way. Gas prices here are edging towards $4. We should all go out and buy Teslas. Immigrants are coming to a town near you, but no one is making the announcement. With the border wide open, tourism is booming. You don’t need a green card, just a flashlight and we’ll fly you there – wherever.
Back to the electric problem in Ulster. We love going to sleep at 7:30 p.m. and getting our 14 hours.
Greg Safris
Woodstock
Wow
Woodstock just received notification from the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) that Woodstock is eligible to apply for the Comeau Building to be designated as an historical entity. The designation, if granted, could save Woodstock taxpayers over $800,000 for the proposed Comeau renovation. The question is, will McKenna and his Town Board apply for the designation?
Howard Harris
Woodstock
Ulster YouthBuild
Thanks for your recent article profiling Ulster YouthBuild! And kudos to Bonnie Landi’s leadership over the years. Long under the radar, YouthBuild meets two of our community’s urgent needs: training youth for jobs and adding to the housing stock. If only YouthBuild – and groups like Ulster County Habitat for Humanity – could triple or quadruple their efforts, we might make a dent in the housing crisis.
Tom Polk
Town of Ulster
Maus droppings
I smell a rat, and it’s the banning of a book. Things like this shouldn’t even be a consideration. If you feel banning books is good, you then are the problem. What is going on in our country? We as people need to “know the truth, read the truth and speak the truth. Don’t bury it.”
Yes, Maus is a gut punch, and that’s the point. Imagine the mindset of someone who looks at Maus, sees naughty language (citing the use of the phrase “God damn”), a nude cartoon mouse and the friggin’ horror of the Holocaust and is most offended by the language and nudity. The mind boggles. We know what sort of people would ban Maus, “whatever name they’re going by now.” Sounds a lot like the fascist Nazis in the 1930s.
And it was just in time for Holocaust Remembrance Day, too. I know I should know better by now, but I just keep saying, while covering my eyes, rocking back and forth, and moaning, “How on Earth can people be so incredibly stupid?” each time these idiots repeat their idiocy.
We are so backwards. I can read the tea leaves. Morons and like-minded conservative reactionaries run amuck. I just shake my head in shame and amazement at how this attitude persists. The older we get, the older this gets – as in, “This is getting old.” We saw it in Charlottesville, with the tiki-torch Trump supporters shouting, “Jews will not replace us!” – that is white supremacy and a repeat of literal Nazi propaganda.
One doesn’t need to look too far back in time for proof. From the book Burnings of the Fascist Third Reich to Chinese control over facts and journalism to US control over books taught in schools and the “alternative facts” of the up-and-coming Trump insurrectionists and far-right media, we are surrounded by thought control. Thought control, book-banning and government-owned journalism are the hallmarks of a dominant, totalitarian society and government.
We’ve escaped book-burnings – so far – but there’s an element of the conservative population bound and determined to give up decades of human understanding. So, if history is upsetting, should we stop teaching history? That’s worth a ban in MAGA upside-down-land, apparently – and yet they’re whining about “cancel culture.” OMG, pearl-clutching and fainting defines these current Christian right-wing ignoramuses perfectly. What comes to my mind is, “When ignorance is a virtue, and knowledge is a crime, we are f@#ked.”
All this would bring a smile to Hitler’s face – that is, if there are smiles in Hell. You’re not banning institutionalized hatred. You’re banning empathy and understanding. Book-banning is the tip of the sword of intolerance and ignorance. Next, they will come after the intellectuals.
Bottom line: Maus is a masterpiece and an extremely powerful tool. The real “crime” that Maus commits is it effectively allows the reader to empathize with the characters.
Finally, to those trying to ban books and to those happy about it: “The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Amnesty letters together make a difference
On Sunday, January 23, members of our community gathered for Amnesty International Mid-Hudson (AIMH)’s annual Virtual Global Write for Rights event on Zoom for the second year in a row.
Thank you to all the community members who joined our chapter members to write letters for the ten cases that had been selected democratically by Amnesty International members. We joined hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, all writing letters on behalf of these prisoners of conscience, human rights defenders and others at risk of human rights violations.
We contributed 219 letters, a record number of letters for our chapter, as part of the largest human rights letter-writing event in the world. All of our letters together will make a difference, and as in past cases in AI’s 60-year history of human rights activism, prisoners will be freed as a result of our combined efforts worldwide.
This year we wrote letters on behalf of ten human rights defenders. Each letter written can change a life; our united voices cannot be ignored. Cases included US citizen Ciham Ali of Eritrea, arrested and missing since 2012; Bernardo Caal Xol of Guatemala, imprisoned for defending a sacred river against a hydroelectric plant; and Sphere NGO in Ukraine, for defending LGBTQI rights.
For more information, visit our Facebook page for Amnesty Mid-Hudson: www.facebook.com/Amnesty-Mid-Hudson-1346808352112084.
If you would like to join our chapter to support our efforts to fight for social justice year-round, we meet the third Tuesday of every month at 6 p.m. on Zoom. For more information, contact Diana Zuckerman at (845) 389-3779 or amnestyhudsonvalley@gmail.com.
Thank you to Ulster Publishing for the excellent coverage.
Rosalyn Cherry
Amnesty International Mid-Hudson Chapter
New Paltz
Thanks for getting power back on!
Thank you to the utility workers who came out here to fix our power lines after the crazy ice storm! Monday there were two incredibly brave crews out there in the cold rain, way high up in those retractable-arm bucket things, cutting branches off the lines and fixing a line that had actually detached from the pole. Another crew showed up Tuesday to do more work. They were trusting that they would not fall out of the bucket thing, and they were also trusting that the power was turned off while they were working on the lines. Oh my goodness.
It is just so amazing that all of these wonderful people so kindly showed up in the middle of winter to make sure that we have drinking water and heat for those who rely on electric. The ground crew was also out there just as much, standing in the cold, managing traffic and giving support to the people working 20 feet in the air.
What a brave and hardy bunch of souls. Thank you for getting the power back on!
Ruth Kopelman
Glenford
Digital Iron Curtain
Donald Trump was swept into the White House by the singular promise to bring coal, steel and manufacturing jobs back to working-class America.
That was a shameless lie. Mr. Trump knew, and every billionaire and millionaire knew, that those jobs were never coming back. They were aware that the digital age consumes more jobs than jobs sent overseas.
Over the past two decades, the marriage between technology and capitalism has spawned massive digital offspring that consumed millions of jobs. Such jobs as agriculture, food service, transportation, medical treatment have a growing dependence on technology, and there is no going back to hands-on work for any of them. Most of the remaining jobs are in the service industry, plumbers, electricians, bathroom cleaners et cetera. And those jobs are slowly reducing.
Do politicians drive this? No. Politicians are the valets and gofers of the wealthy who fund nonhuman work. Politicians’ primary responsibility is to keep the public’s eyes on half-truth rhetoric. Instead, the rich pull the puppet strings of politicians who create drama distracting the media from their power grabs, seen in every state in America.
So many of us still want to believe that political change will eventually balance the boat. But unfortunately, it’s apparent politicians have thrown all the public life rafts over the ship rail while still clutching their own.
Today, our elderly, many educated liberals were germinated by enrolling in college to avoid the Vietnam War. Then they waved their burning draft cards and diplomas from the moral high ground that saved their lives. Where did that morality go after Vietnam? So, we’ve had over 40 years of conflicts and wars that their children and grandchildren have become cannon fodder for fast cash. They only return to the streets when their 401Ks begin to crash. Those same liberals, which I am one, have lived in the syllogism of investing in corporate America as much as Republicans and conservatives.
The moral wounds I suffered as a Marine in the unjust Vietnam War were not all I carried home. My trust in benevolent capitalism was wounded there. Still, I invested in the capital market, knowing Social Security was in jeopardy. Unfortunately, when Donald Trump began leading the country, his social programs revealed the frail backbones of our social programs.
The insurrection, impeachment events and the digital giants’ agendas have helped add to the drama to distract the wealthy from taking responsibility for their decisions and the consequences on the general public. In the body politic, it is evident that those who elected Trump want or are ignoring the fascists’ new world order. Labor and jobs are no longer needed when you need fewer workers to grow your food, fix your roads and cure your illness. Why share the wealth?
Today’s focus on technology has become the Digital Iron Curtain, just as the wizards in the Wizard of Oz did. Perhaps those decisionmakers might want to remember smoke ends when the fire goes out, and all mirrors eventually crack.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Owners should be able to develop Winston Farm property
It looks like the anti-Winston Farm development people plan to respond to every comment supporting the development with two against it. Well, get your pens ready. If you were so dead set against seeing this property developed, then why didn’t you mobilize years ago and buy the property yourselves and preserve it “as is?”
These gentlemen own this private piece of property and should be free to develop it, with Planning Board and environmental approvals in place. There are already 287,000 acres of Forest Preserve land in the Catskills; you don’t need these few hundred acres, too.
Gregory Kleen
Saugerties
Democrats deliver, Democrats build
President Biden’s poll ratings currently are suffering, in large part because of the mess he inherited and the huge task of extricating the country out of it. The process will take time, even as we all are eager to escape the COVID-caused mire in our lives.
In its first year, the Biden administration and Democratic Congress has delivered, by historical standards, a list of impressive achievements for the American people:
• The country’s 2021 growth rate (GDP), 5.7 percent, is the highest in four decades.
• The most recent unemployment rate was four percent, closest to its 21st-century low.
• The number of new jobs created was the highest first-year total for any American president.
• A success that numbers can’t fully capture: the millions of people and businesses who, because of the American Rescue Plan relief payments, were able to claw their way through the catastrophic disruptions of COVID.
• Passage of the expanded child tax credit dramatically reduced child poverty in a period of family crisis.
• They provided the funding for rebuilding our roads and bridges, modernizing our electric grid and expanding broadband access to rural and other underserved areas.
There’s much more to include. Suffice to conclude that Democrats have delivered sane, rational, deliberative governance and relief from the exhausting torrent of tweets and the ascendance of dangerous crackpots.
Inflation, in large part a consequence of our rapid recovery and the infusion of relief money in the economy, is being addressed, with the Federal Reserve having the heaviest role.
Radical Republicans, congealed into the party of breakers, the party of No, desperately use cultural conflicts to distract Americans from the reality: Democrats whom the nation elected in 2020 are doing the hard work the people asked them to do. They are delivering.
Tom Denton
Highland
The Bio-Frame cannot be undermined or broken
Earth, in its 3.8 billion-year-old development of life from the simplest prokaryotic and eukaryotic species to the hominid culmination of Homo Sapiens, has experienced the throes of every conceivable geological, climatological and geomorphological phase that is apprehensible to the human senses, especially now in the midst of the latest incarnation of The Sixth Extinction that is sweeping the planet.
The ecological apocalypse that is now consuming our planet, however, must also be seen in the context of the Earth supra-organism that Alfred Lovelock coined Gaia, which, undergoing the present horrific climate crisis, is not only losing biodiversity at an astonishing rate, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) calculates at a rate of one species every 20 minutes, but also as a rupture of the key piece of Gaian architecture called “the Bio-Frame.”
The Bio-Frame is not an abstract construction made of illusory parts connecting disparate eco-systems on seven different continents, but the essential overarching framework of all life on the entire planet that enables, sustains and through the complex feedback mechanisms of macro-cellular homeostasis that started from the simplest cells to the complex organisms we have today.
The Bio-Frame is the subcutaneous skeleton holding up and holding together all the interlocking pieces of organic cycling, oxygen replenishment through photosynthesis, carbon and nutrient cycling, ocean and atmospheric stability, nitrogen fixation, speciation and evolution that has resulted in the rich and now disappearing tapestry of living things in every corner of the world.
The ecological and biological engines that keep this Bio-Frame stable is the biodiversity of animals and plants at every trophic level of the biosphere that exchanges life-giving energy with it.
The skeleton of a human body is akin to the Bio-Frame in a smaller sense in that the bones of life-giving white and red blood cell genesis produces the necessary supporting structure for a self-sustaining and healthy human body.
The bones of a human body are the underlying framework of bio-support that powers all the subsequent biological processes arising from them, like blood circulation, respiration, the endocrine and nervous systems, skin, muscles, brain development and reproduction.
So too, the Bio-Frame is the undergirding skeleton of the Earth’s living network of biomes and all the ecosystems which provide the integral biological foundation of the living planet that we call home.
The Bio-Frame of the earth thus, is our Bio-Frame which must be maintained at its highest functional level lest we reduce it to the lowest functional level of ecological unsustainability that could render our planetary status equivalent to cold Mars or to hot house Venus (at 900 degrees Fahrenheit), both of which are forever hostile to any semblance of life, if there was any there to begin with.
The choice is ours to make, the Bio-Frame that we have been given to maintain is a living dynamic home that cannot be undermined or broken or we will pay the ultimate penalty of an environmentally unconscious species-extinction.
Victor C. Capelli|
Town of Ulster
Join the family! 
