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Wassup with that?
They’re eating the files. They’re eating the lists for the Epsteinth time …. Where are the Pedo-Files?
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
Ache beneath the progress
I can’t say with certainty when I stopped believing that beauty was essential — only that it happened without ceremony. Like how moss quietly takes over a stone, and one day you realize the color underneath is gone. Maybe it was during a winter I can’t name or when I first mistook efficiency for virtue.
Still, I feel … this hunger for something unnamed, a sweetness the world no longer offers. I see it in others, too, though they rarely speak of it — just a tiredness in the eyes, as if they’re listening for a music that’s been silenced but not forgotten.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” Keats once wrote. But what if neither is trending now? What if truth has been hollowed out and beauty sold as a filter pack?
I watch the news, and it feels like I’m reading a language I used to know but no longer trust. Everyone’s speaking in absolutes, but nothing feels whole. The powerful parade their wealth like war trophies, while the rest of us are told to clap, be grateful, and keep moving. And I do. Most days, I do.
But some nights … some nights I swear I can feel the moral architecture of the world buckling — like old floorboards under the weight of something they were never meant to hold.
I keep wondering: when did we stop teaching awe?
We’ve traded soul for software. We’ve replaced elders with influencers. And don’t get me wrong — I’m not against change. But I miss silence. I miss you. I miss slow conversations that end in laughter or tears instead of comments and likes.
We are drowning in content, but starving for contact.
I used to believe that we’d evolve if we educated enough people. But our education system seems less like a wellspring of wisdom and more like a conveyor belt for credentials. The questions that kept Socrates up at night now collect dust in forgotten classrooms. “What is the good life?” has been replaced with “What’s your marketable skill set?”
Is it naïve to want meaning to matter again?
I’ve been told that love is inefficient. That empathy doesn’t scale. That soul doesn’t show up on a balance sheet. But I’ve seen what happens when people lose those things: they become hollow, brittle, dangerous. They confuse cruelty for strength and policies for morality.
Sometimes I think we’re not governed by leaders anymore, but by contracts — silent, slippery agreements that bind us tighter than any iron law. And yet the ones who write those contracts rarely speak our language. They speak in loopholes and leverage. And they don’t dream at night — they calculate.
“He who opens a school door closes a prison,” Victor Hugo wrote. But who opens the door to the human soul?
The lawyers write our laws. The rich hire lawyers. And the rest of us? We Google legal advice and hope for mercy.
I don’t mean to sound bitter. Just … frayed. The edges of me don’t meet the center the way they used to.
Still, I believe in the quiet uprising of meaning. I believe in those who sit with children and ask, “What do you feel?” before asking, “What do you want to be?” I believe in art that stumbles toward truth, even when it gets lost. I believe in hands that plant trees they’ll never see bloom.
And I believe, maybe foolishly, that we are more than our data — more than our algorithms, portfolios and passwords.
Human, after all, is the root word in humanity.
Maybe the future won’t arrive with a bang or a breakthrough. Perhaps it begins with something smaller. A pause. A shared story. A refusal to scroll past suffering. A return.
And maybe beauty — quiet, essential, unprofitable beauty — is the doorway we’ve been circling without knowing it.
Larry Winters”
New Paltz
We already have a hub
The Winston Farm proposal now before the town board “seeks to facilitate the efficient and appropriate use of the property while positioning the site as an economic and cultural hub with regional appeal.”
Saugerties does not need this. We are at heart a small-town community. Saugerties already has a hub, the Village of Saugerties. This hub already has regional appeal, as it is frequently cited as the Gateway to the Catskills, a terrific weekend destination for residents of New York City and popular with tourists from Canada.
We should not establish a competing hub at Winston Farm. Winston Farm can best serve the Saugerties community by attracting more visitors who will appreciate the rural character and unspoiled nature of Saugerties.
The Thruway offers easy access, including through public transport. Our historic village offers many cultural and retail attractions. Hospitality services are readily available in Saugerties and could be enhanced on Winston Farm, but only by careful protection of its rural character.
Therefore, most of Winston Farm should be preserved as natural habitat with its forested ridges and wetlands. Small sections can carefully be used to provide mixed-income housing that is needed by the community. The area along Route 32 would be appropriate for modest light industrial or office projects that would provide on-site jobs. But these elements must not be allowed to destroy what is most attractive about our community.
Do not “develop” something antithetical to the Saugerties we love.
Kathy Gordon
Saugerties
Replacing public schooling
What do the people who work in the Trump administration think will happen if they succeed in decimating our public-school system? Does Secretary of Education Linda McMahon believe that vouchers will even come close to covering the cost of private schools? And even if they did cover the cost, how many communities have a private-school option, or one that is suitable for every child?
According to the most recent statistics, there are approximately 30,000 private schools in the U.S. (compared to nearly three times as many public schools). Almost always, private schools have a small student body because of their selective admissions process — unlike public schools which operate under the mandate that all children have the right to a free and appropriate education.
Or perhaps McMahon believes that if public schools are shuttered and parents have no private-school option, they will have the desire, the qualifications, and the financial ability to homeschool their offspring. And forgive me for being cynical, but what if, like the rest of Trump’s cabinet (whose net worth is at least $13.8 billion), our Secretary of Education has no plan at all to educate our children?
Maybe that’s the endgame. If so, it makes sense. An educated populace is, after all, the enemy of an authoritarian regime.
Charlotte Adamis
Kingston
An unhealthy police culture
Thanks to the town board for issuing its recent statement in response to the disturbing allegations and arrests involving members of the Saugerties Police Department. While I acknowledge and appreciate the effort to address these matters publicly, I must express deep concern regarding the continued erosion of community trust — and the incomplete picture the town board’s letter presents.
Let me begin by stating clearly: a letter is not enough.
It is not enough to restore trust. It is not enough to explain how we arrived here. And it certainly is not enough to repair the trauma now experienced by victims, families, and residents of this town.
The letter references a departmental review and the subsequent “retirement” of the chief of police and a captain. However, the timing and framing of those retirements do not align with what many in the community understand to be the truth. To suggest that these were routine transitions amid departmental review without directly acknowledging the longstanding and unresolved issues that preceded them is to obscure the very transparency this letter claims to uphold.
For years, community members have whispered these allegations — about misconduct, abuse of power, and an unhealthy internal culture. These weren’t isolated rumors; they were warning signs. But instead of swift action, the town’s leadership failed to listen, failed to act, and in doing so, failed to protect its residents. The result has been a slow and painful unraveling of public trust.
Yes, we appreciate the town board’s collaboration with the Ulster County district attorney and the state attorney general’s office. And yes, we commend the officers and individuals who came forward and took appropriate action when new information was discovered. But we must not mistake this for resolution. It is merely a starting point.
This moment demands more.
Perhaps it is time for a full, independent investigation by the office of the attorney general — not just into the police department, but into all operations of the Town of Saugerties. This must include how past complaints were handled, how personnel decisions were made, and what systemic safeguards failed to protect this community. Such an inquiry should lead to measurable steps — ones that promote accountability, transparency and structural reform.
Let me be clear: this is not about political grandstanding or finger-pointing. We have enough of that in our national discourse. This is about ensuring that our local leadership — elected and appointed — is willing and able to meet this challenge with the clarity, courage and compassion required to rebuild what has been lost.
Most importantly, we cannot lose sight of the fact that there are victims at the center of these cases. Real lives have been shattered, and real pain is being lived every day. As we hold individuals accountable, let us also be mindful of the collateral pain carried by families — including the family of officer Mills. While we must condemn actions that betray public trust, we must not extend that condemnation to those who are themselves navigating the fallout of this tragedy. Compassion is not weakness. It is a requirement of community.
Saugerties can — and must — emerge from this stronger. But that strength will only come if we are honest about how we got here, bold in the steps we take next, and united in our desire to create a town where public service is honorable, leadership is accountable, and every resident feels safe, seen and heard.
Ruben Lindo
Saugerties
Just a few months left
I previously thanked the Ulster County workers on Facebook for delivering on their promise to complete the Wittenberg Road bridge/culvert work on time — and they did. That stands in stark contrast to our current supervisor, Bill McKenna, who insists his projects have been completed promptly and within budget. But we know better.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
Death was no longer theoretical
I have no recollection of that moment when death became a concept in my young mind. No one I loved had died until my high-school roommate committed suicide in his early twentiess, and a few years later my stepbrother died. Both losses brought shock and grief but not dread. By the time I became a hospice volunteer in my sixties, I fully believed I had incorporated death into my living. Thanks to events of the past year, I see that death had been only theoretical.
In 2024 my wife Susan’s longstanding inflammatory condition in her eyes proved to be lymphoma. There was a period when the specialist could not yet say whether cancer had migrated to her brain. In the weeks between the diagnosis and the determination of its extent, Susan and I faced the possibility that she might have a terminal condition. In that gap of time, dying and death crowded in, demanding that we feel and face this unknown. The prospect of death in this moment was not dark; it was illuminatory.
I coined the term “fore-light” for this illumination. It was like the light at the end of a tunnel, that streams back to the one who approaches it.
In that light, Susan and I had conversations we had never had before, and we felt, moment by moment, the preciousness of time. Most decisive of all was how clearly we saw the futility of those rabbit holes we could fall into, where anger and blame tangled into a vain insistence on being right, where neither of us was able to acknowledge, or even see, our part of the matter.
It turned out that her lymphoma was confined to her eyes; it was treatable. Less than a year later, a new normal now prevails. We had been spared. But in that interim, when death’s fore-light cleared our sight, we let go of many of the patterns and habits that had sent us into the warrens of argument and anger. Death was no longer theoretical; it had become a force for clarity.
One sign of old age has to do with the fore-light, the way the recognition of dying and death has a transformative potential. A second heart attack may make lifestyle changes possible that were not there before. One wakes from a successful and perilous surgery and makes a phone call to a sibling that shifts decades of distance and misunderstanding. The escape from a near-collision on the highway opens the heart to the power of forgiveness. Susan and I can let go where once we gripped, and in that letting go, something new is possible. New life.
Peter Pitzele
New Paltz
Comment on Winston Farm
The public comment period regarding the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS), submitted by the owners and project sponsors of Winston Farm closes on July 28th. This is the last week for public comment on a proposed rezoning that will have significant impacts on the character and environmental health of Saugerties and the surrounding region. Go to beautifulsaugerties.com for comments and critiques from people who have been reading the DGEIS.
Written comments must be sent to winstonfarmcomments@saugertiesny.gov. You can view the document at the Saugerties library and on the town-board website. Please keep in mind that only substantive comments will be taken into consideration. This is about substantive critique of the DGEIS document itself, not opinions about whether people have the right to do what they want with the land (no one does), or personal opinions about whether or not development should happen, or what kind or why. The purpose of the public comment period is to review the DGEIS and critique it for inadequacies and missing or contradictory data to ensure environmental protection and mitigation from inappropriate development.
At the second and last public hearing for comments on the DGEIS on July 18, those critiquing the document outnumbered supporters of rezoning for development by more than two to one. They provided relevant, substantive critique of the DGEIS. The supervisor and board members were presented with a petition of 150 signatures, almost entirely from Saugerties residents, collected over the last few weeks demanding that (instead of the 50 percent proposed in the DGEIS) the town honor the open space plan of keeping 73 percent of Winston Farm as open space. If you agree, demand the same of the town board in your written comments.
If you have not had time to review the 192-page document (not including hundreds more pages of appendices), then email the town supervisor (fcostello@saugertiesny.gov) and the board members (emails on the town’s website, saugerties.ny.us) and request the board set a motion for a 120-day extension of the public comment period.
Margarita Asiain
Saugerties
Blank-check zoning
I oppose the revised Planned District Development rezoning proposal for Winston Farm put forward by three developers. The PDD is essentially blank-check zoning, allowing them to do whatever they want on the 840-acre property.
Their initial proposal was site-specific, with many features I and others believe would irreversibly alter the character of Saugerties, cause unacceptable traffic and construction problems, unfairly tax the entire town due to additional needed public services and expanded school needs, undermine the aquifer that many of us rely on for well water, irreparably pollute Beaver Kill Creek and, it appears from the ambiguous and confusing language in the PDD (See Page 9, G3), overrule the environmental overlay zones the town long ago adopted.
Some of the worst ideas included a 5000-seat amphitheater, with parking for thousands of cars. The project would require widening Routes 32 and 212 and expanded Thruway access, with the additional associated costs to be paid for by the public with tax funds. Further, it would reduce the 73.5 percent open-space requirement set forth in the town’s 2009 comprehensive plan to 50 percent in its revised 2021 plan.
According to the PDD, the property is to be developed according to a master development plan to be written by the developers, presumably to include the site-specific proposals omitted from the revised PDD. How is this not a conflict of interest? In addition, this seems to put the cart before the horse, a way for the developers to achieve approval of the PDD and then submit their own overall and specific plan. Thus the “Planned” Development District is that in name only; it is not objectively a planned district at all.
In the developers’ revised Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement, site specific proposals are omitted, except in a list of possible but not proposed uses (Appendix P), making it even more difficult for the public and the board to parse. The developers – all well-regarded local figures – are now essentially asking for a blank check. If the PDD is approved, they could sell off individual parcels to outside builders and investors to develop. (See p. 16: “Future development … may be undertaken by multiple property owners or developers.”)
The promised local jobs during construction and afterwards would no longer be assured. With each forthcoming building application assessed separately, Winston Farm would no longer be a Planned Unit Development; the town board would evaluate each proposed project separately to comply with the developer-written master development plan. There would be no guaranteed component for affordable workforce housing, as promised early on. Except from the developers’ perspective, how does any of this make sense, for the town, for the citizens of Saugerties, for the property and school taxpayers here?
In presenting their revised PDD application, the developers have used a lot of planning jargon that hides the actual impact of blank-check zoning. Talk of “thresholds” and “maximum allowed development” are no more than code words for unfettered development. Whatever past promises the developers made to garner community support may no longer apply.
Do not be fooled. The PDD as outlined in the revised “complete” DGEIS is a Trojan horse. After all is said and done, the best course for Saugerties is to reject this Winston Farm PDD rezoning application.
Gene Meyer
Saugerties
Sonorous pairing
My wife has stopped snoring – or I’m going deaf.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
A Colosseum for Trump’s America
Ancient spectators who celebrated conquering gladiators in the arena elevated despised slaves into celebratory worship … for as long as the hero was a winner. Other wretches in the holding cells were merely fodder for the entertainments with lions. We look at these gory cinematic scenes today and maybe ponder how human beings, then, could sink to such depravity.
Barbarity thrives when the victims are not recognized as human … something else, people deserving of their miserable fate. In Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, apprehended individuals are housed in packed cages, rounded up because they are “murderers, rapists, the worst of the worst” — a heinous distortion from our Serial Liar, who must know that the mix of inmates includes many undocumented workers whose sin was trying to find a better life, others with no criminal convictions or arrests for petty crimes, and people living legally in the U.S. Most are united by the colors of their skin.
Conditions at the site would not be tolerated in regulated U.S. jails and prisons: packed cells, unsanitary conditions, untreated medical issues, spoiled food, mosquito infestations, 24-hour lighting, what many call “psychological torture.” Maybe inmates are expected to turn on each other.
Trump jokes about the prison in the swamps of the Everglades and prisoners who try to escape: “Snakes are fast but alligators — we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator …. Don’t run in a straight line, run like this.” The National Republican Congressional Committee is raising money by selling T-shirts with the image of a smiling alligator and this message: “ICE with a bite.” http://bit.ly/44DHoNU
Turns out we aren’t so different from those howlers in the Roman Colosseum, unless our response is to vomit and demand that our corrupt leadership be eliminated not by lions but by votes.
Tom Denton
New Paltz
Mayor doesn’t follow the law
I am writing regarding mayor [Tim] Rogers’ comments in last week’s paper regarding ‘families.’ The mayor and I have had this conversation before. The problem is that the mayor’s comments are factually incorrect and ethically disingenuous.
His remarks about court decisions are half-truths, that omit the court findings which he does not like.
The cornerstone of legally defining ‘family’ is case law, in particular the 1974, City of White Plains v Ferraiolli, which stated that a ‘family’ or family equivalent group is “to all outward appearances, a relatively normal, stable and permanent family unit.”
Then the court went a step further and stated that a ‘family’ is not “a temporary living arrangement, as would be a group of college students sharing a house.” The court’s opinion continues, “Every year or so, different students would come to take the place of those before them. There would be none of the permanency of community that characterizes a residential neighborhood of private homes.“
That is the law. The trustees’ “position statement” is not law and can never be law because it actually contradicts the law.
The mayor’s statements are a misleading attempt to defend the village’s illegal rooming houses. Almost all if not all of them supported by the mayor, are being operated illegally.
One of the first things a typical rooming-house landlord does with a newly acquired house is to convert the living room into one or two bedrooms. That makes the old dining room into a combined living /dining room, usually in violation of the state building code. If the mayor is opposed to overcrowding, why is he allowing this to go on?
Often, when a former three-bedroom house is converted into an illegal five-or-more-bedroom house, they do not have the required two bathrooms. Now the house is overcrowded and unsanitary. Why is the mayor allowing these slummy buildings?
Remember, every illegal rooming house represents another family that has been forced out of New Paltz. Consequently, the mayor’s attempt to protect these illegal operations is distinctly anti-family. Is that what we want in our town supervisor?
Terry Dungan
New Paltz
Crypto PACs fund Pat Ryan
Pat Ryan voted with 78 Democrats for the Clarity Act and 102 Democrats for the Genius Act, two major bills promoted by the crypo industry that wants to transform itself from “a scandal-ridden technological experiment” into “a mainstream financial and commercial instrument,” as The New York Times summarized.
No surprise here. In 2024, Fareshake, a crypto PAC, gave Pat Ryan, $1,987,660, a fourth of all the money he raised for his reelection. Nationwide the cyrpto industry spent $245 million on last year’s elections. Fareshake alone raised $170 million. Pat Ryan was their fourth highest Democratic recipient in the House, according to Politico.
Is crypto good, bad, or both? I’m not the one to ask. But a few experts have warmed that giving crypto federal financial backing could lead to a financial crisis like the housing collapse of 2008, when loads of sketchy investments failed, and we, the taxpayers, paid the price. One skeptic told New York, “It’s a great business: printing fake money and trading it to people for real money.”
If the Genius Act goes south, I just hope Pat Ryan is still around to explain himself.
Will Nixon
Kingston
Last call on Winston Farm
Between now and July 28th, Saugerties citizens have an opportunity to weigh in and help shape the future of our town by sending in their written comments about the proposed zoning change for Winston Farm to a Planned Development District (PDD).
It is not necessary to be either “For” or “Against” development to be helpful in this discussion. One can be pro-housing, for example, but still wonder whether permitting 250,000 square feet of lab or light industrial space is a good idea.
Perhaps you think all sorts of ideas have merit on their own, but maybe not if every single one of them is done on the property. Perhaps you agree with the general benefits of a PDD but find that this one, as written, does not accomplish the goals, or maybe makes things worse.
We have but a brief opportunity to speak to these questions now. This is the time to do some soul-searching about where the line is for you between appropriate versus excessive development, between what you believe is necessary and desirable versus what is frivolous or needlessly destructive. This is your chance to say, “I think the overall idea is fine, but I really think (this or that) needs to change” (whether in the plan or the process itself).
The town board wants to hear our comments. Let’s help them make the PDD as good as it possibly can be by weighing in with our concerns and questions while we still have the opportunity. Comments should be addressed to: winstonfarmcomments@saugertiesny.gov.
Michelle Aizenstat
Saugerties
Thresholds aren’t standards
I’d like to bring attention to a portion of the current DGEIS for Winston Farm to highlight what I find so disturbing about this rezoning proposal before I present other thoughts. I am discussing the first of three “thresholds” on Page 165. It addresses “buffers” of a sight distance from the road to the developed areas of 125 feet. I ask this: Consider that a driver must allow that much distance to signal in a timely manner when making a turn: Would that distance maintain the rural nature of this land (a stated goal in the DGEIS) with buildings that close to the road? 125 feet is about the same distance from Walgreens to Route. 9W.
I cannot imagine that citizens who speak up at the hearings in support of development and trust in the good intentions of the sponsors will be happy with the appearance of suburban sprawl — unspecified as to what type and where in the document — on the beloved site of Winston Farm. And I want to add here that I also think the owners have the best intentions — but the document itself has to specify those intentions and provide written protections of them, or we have no certainty of them. A threshold is a minimum. It doesn’t mean that 125 feet has to happen, must happen, will happen. The fact is that with the language in the current DGEIS, it could.
The town board held its last hearing this past Wednesday the 16th for the purpose of commenting on this Environmental Impact Statement.
It is notable that a good many speakers prefaced their comments on an adjacent community issue. Many were dismayed by the “us-and-them” stances that have been expressed according to opinions “pro-development versus anti-development.” Others addressed this in a more positive light while commenting on perceived inadequacies in the DGEIS, saying that they look forward to working with the entire community on the development of Winston Farm.
I feel dismay for the antagonism I sometimes see very deeply on the one hand, but I do wish to work with the entire community as well. This is the reason I cannot but feel that, in adherence to my beliefs, I speak out against the current rezoning proposal for Winston Farm. “
It is so very important to stress that it is the “proposal” that I am criticizing.
I am going to state something here more plainly than I did during the public comment period at the hearing. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is a phrase we are all familiar with, whether you practice a faith or not. In this case, my neighbors are the people who vehemently disagree with me on the rezoning of Winston Farm. I may love or hate what they have to say – but I love them as neighbors. Therefore, when a proposal for my community is a document that will become the basis of actions that can allow abuse of an enormous tract of land in my community, affecting the entire population of my town, I have to say, vehemently, no.
I have to say, “Please, everyone, reject this document and request that the owners submit one that contains clear and transparent protections of this precious jewel of the Hudson Valley, Winston Farm, a place whose beauty takes your breath away, every time you pass by, no matter how many times you pass by, inviting visitors from far and wide. It’s a place that holds within its borders generative resources beyond price, that if properly cared for, will safeguard both our own lives, and the lives of the flora, fauna and elements within.”
Both the beauty and the resources are our greatest assets. They must be protected, but how can they when all we have to do so is a document that contains no exacting protections, and sets low-bar “thresholds” as standards. I gave but one example, others have been discussed in great detail in letters and at the hearings. Please, dear neighbors, review this DGEIS. You have until July 28th to submit written comments to the town board at winstonfarmcomments@saugertiesny.gov
Joanne Pagano Weber
Saugerties
This is a dangerous plan
I am a Saugerties resident who has deep concerns about the proposed rezoning of Winston Farms. While I understand that the construction brought by development creates work for long-term residents, those of us who love this town must think about the long term impact of over-development on our quality of life. The Hudson Valley is now a major attraction to the tourism industry, but if Saugerties becomes a town with multiple condos, shopping malls, and environmental degradation, it will not only lose the tourism industry, but residents will find that their property values are going down rather than up.
I am a citizen who cares about the environment, yes, and the town residents who have said they don’t want this in the hands of “radical environmentalists” are not thinking about the land their grandchildren and great-grandchildren will inherit.
The Winston Farm Environmental Impact Statement has several serious flaws that must be corrected. The current proposal says only 50 percent of it has to be undeveloped space. This does not accurately reflect the original study, which said a minimum of 73 percent must be under permanent protection as open space including the woods and wetland in their entirety and a significant part of the meadowlands.
The Planned District Development has no specific plan, meaning the land could be sold to developers who don’t care about our beautiful town. We need a master development plan that shows what is actually intended instead of the vague, inadequate “thresholds.” The current proposal gives the PDD precedence over the current aquifer and gateway overlay districts in the event of a dispute.
This is a dangerous plan that must be eliminated. The studies so far on the availability of water and the capacity of the aquifer to replenish itself are completely inadequate and conflict with other studies. We need proper studies of the water supply — not just what is there now but the capacity of the aquifer post-development.
Jan Alexander
Saugerties
Apology
We apologize to the letter writers below. We had a technical failure last week and did not run these letters in last week’s newspaper. We hoped to have fixed this glitch. However, if there has been anything omitted please reach out to us. Thank you all for sending us your letters each week.
The hunt for objective news
Charlotte Adamis has clearly pointed out a serious problem that only seems to have gotten worse and more troubling to navigate … how and where to find the most objective journalism as possible on all the current events of the day. This challenge has especially gotten worse in the past decade or so.
Charlotte’s background gives her a decided advantage over most of us in trying to find the needle in the haystack … the honest, objective, and neutral news source, assuming they actually exist any more.
No matter what we read or hear any more, especially in recent years, we find ourselves wondering “Where is this news item coming from?” Many times, we can tell just by the tone of the wordage and slant that the source leans left or right. Other times we might not readily recognize much slant or bias, leaving us to start doing our own research, vetting, and fact-checking on who the writer is, whether they are progressive or conservative, and how much truth may be in the article. Sadly, I believe far too many people are too lazy and uninformed and that they don’t even bother to do their own due diligence, and just readily accept what they’re reading or hearing as gospel.
We all know that Fox News leans to the right and that most all other news outlets, especially CNN and MSNBC, lean to the left and most of the time to the extreme left. So, with everyone having a slant, how is Fox News, even given missteps of their own, is solidly and constantly rated number one by independent sources and studies, with CNN and MSNBC clearly at the bottom?
Fox News gives significantly more air time to Democrats than the lefties give Republicans. Fox News even has shows that have permanent full-time panel discussion seats for Democrats where both sides of all issues are respectfully discussed and, as expected, there is a noticeable amount of disagreement. The dialog displays listening and respect on both sides. This is why Fox News is clearly on top because they listen, as Charlotte suggests, to their Democratic colleagues as well as all other colleagues and guests.
Unfortunately, as hard as she tries, Charlotte still gets some of her news from the cellar-dwellers because she echoes much of the same lame streamer’s tired and monotonous talking points when bashing Trump.
In conclusion, fake news and severe bias doesn’t put you at the top of the ratings. It obviously puts you in the cellar, where you’ll always find CNN, MSNBC, et al.
John N. Butz
Modena
Where’s Pat Ryan?
Pat Ryan has yet to speak anywhere at an anti-Trump rally in his district. Shall I say that again? Not at the “Hands Off” rally in the cold April rain. Not at “No Kings” that rocked this country. We’ve heard fiery speeches from Michelle Hinchey, Sarahana Shrestha, and Jen Metzger, local leaders who share our fears yet embolden us to demand a better future. We’ve felt empowered surrounded by friends and allies. But Pat Ryan? I know duty calls him to Washington, D.C., but can’t he even tweet his support? On “No Kings” day he was busy endorsing National Flag Day.
What is he afraid of? Here’s my theory. Pat Ryan’s favorite word is “bipartisan.” (Sorry, Bernie. I’m not sure Pat Ryan has ever dared to utter your favorite “o” word, “oligarch.”) Read his newsletter. Listen to him talk. He’d much rather find a point of agreement with a Republican than rally with the fighting Democrats. Time and again he insists that contested issues should be above “partisanship.” That’s the way things worked in the Army, the great love of his life, and that’s the way it works for him on the Armed Services Committee, happy to support a trillion-dollar military budget. We should be polite. We should abide by the rules.
Sorry, some of us grew up on a different history of the United States. A history of abolition, of woman’s suffrage, of unions and workers rights, of civil rights, of opposition to misguided wars. (Did Pat Ryan learn anything about misguided wars at West Point?) A history of marching in the streets. A history that includes John Lewis who, as a young organizer was brutally beaten along with dozens of others when a march from Selma faced a wall of police on a bridge, an event now known as “Bloody Sunday.” The next day president Lyndon Johnson vowed to send the Civil Rights Act to Congress, where John Lewis later went on to serve for more than thirty years. To mark his memory “Good Trouble Lives On” events will be around the county and in our region on Thursday, July 17th.
Pat Ryan, why not try it? Join us just once! Leave the suit at home. Dress for some lively fun. Try a t-shirt. Try a sign. (“Pete Hegseth: You Suck!”) Meet your constituents who’ll be relieved to learn that you care more than your talking points suggest. And why not bring your two young sons? (Plenty of children grace these rallies.) Show them what the American belief in freedom is all about.
Will Nixon
Kingston
P.S. Pat Ryan did recently speak at a “Save the Ferry” rally in Beacon. It’s a start, I suppose.
Nagel responds to Puretz
My old letter-writing friend Susan Puretz has run out of Israeli talking points. One doesn’t have to be any particular religion to understand the purposeful starvation of tens of thousands can’t be what God wants.
She maintains that Israel’s extermination of the Palestinian people is all about “degrading” Hamas. Were the Nazi’s just trying to degrade the Jews during the Second World War? Genocide is a special case, an extermination based on the vilest of racist impulses. The Third Reich committed genocide, and the Israeli state is doing the same.
Just why is this apartheid state so generous with its campaign cash? Pat Ryan raked in $220,000 in donations from the Israel lobby last year. He can’t bring himself to even mention the tens of thousands of children roaming Gaza looking for a crust of bread. Kirsten Gillibrand got $480,000 from the same lobby in 2024. Has she ever referred to the suffering of two million Palestinians who are without food, water or shelter?
Chuck Schumer, who calls himself Israel’s “protector,” sucked in $292,000 from the pro Israel Blackstone Group, and $236,000 from the Zionist Paul Weiss legal firm. All these Israeli “donations” can be verified at Opensecrets.org. Isn’t it time we put an end to all of these Israeli bribes to our Congress?
Fred Nagel
Rhinebeck
Salt in the wound
After reading the local news in multiple papers last week, I just cannot get past this: “…He filmed himself sexually abusing an unconscious victim and was later found in possession of child pornography.”
Moreover, our recently hired Woodstock town employee is a Level 3 sex offender — the highest alert level, “signifying a high risk of re-offending and poses a significant threat to public safety … history of repeated sexual offenses, sometimes involving violence or cruelty. Their crimes may also involve a lack of remorse or minimization of the offense.”
Horrifying. As a woman, I guarantee you, the one thing we all share is fear of sexual violence, It’s what makes me lock my doors. It’s why I didn’t drink in high school. It’s why I spread my keys between my fingers when walking to my car in the dark. And now, why I feel unsafe in my own home town.
Salt in the wound. The current supervisor [Bill McKenna] admittedly knew and hid it from the rest of the board and the community. Rather than admitting a serious mistake (as all humans can do), he doubled down and tried rationalizing his actions by deflecting instead of taking responsibility and doing the right thing. Who else got a pass? Outrageous!
This is the last straw for me…
Bill, your ego has gotten way out of control. I strongly suggest that you go up the mountain to the monastery and meditate on what has brought you to this point in your life. Reflect and let go of your ego. When you’ve had that moment of enlightenment, come back down and apologize to all the women, young girls/boys in our community, and yes, your colleagues on the board, too. Then do the right thing.
Urana Kinlen
Woodstock
Get consistently active
Last September, the presidential election was a hot topic at a workshop I attended. I assumed, based on conversations with the other participants, that we were all on the same page, at least politically. But after the election, when I shared my grief at Harris’s loss with this group, one of the women confessed that she had abandoned the Democratic Party and voted for Trump.
“As painful as it is,” she wrote, “we need the pendulum to swing the other way for a while.” The divide felt so great between us that, after that exchange, we stopped communicating. It was a mutual decision.
I wonder now, though, what this woman thinks about the pain that will be inflicted by Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, rightly characterized as the biggest upward transfer of wealth in U.S. history, mostly benefitting the top one percent of households while using new bureaucratic requirements to kick an expected 17 million Americans off healthcare coverage for which they are qualified, a maneuver that will kill people and close hospitals. Will that be enough pain for her?
And I wonder if she questions the diabolical engineering of this bill? That most of the pain won’t even be felt until after the 2026 midterms?
I’ve thought about contacting this woman to ask if she’s had a change of heart since Trump took office. But I think my energy is better spent on reaching people who already have their eyes wide open.
People who feel hopeless and overwhelmed by the daily onslaught of horrible news and don’t know what to do about it. People like my friend who works full-time, but because of her income, qualifies for Medicaid. She didn’t need convincing about the pain that will be inflicted should she lose her healthcare. She’s had to go without before. What she needed to hear about was a way to fight back that felt “doable.” For her, that will be making regular calls to her elected officials.
If you’re not already involved in resisting the cruelty, what will getting consistently active look like for you?
Charlotte Adamis
Kingston
More Shady moves
After years of bringing to light the severe environmental threats emanating from the illegal, unpermitted 200-truckload dump of contaminated construction debris at 10 Church Road in the Woodstock hamlet of Shady, Woodstockers United for Change was recently advised of a new move by supervisor McKenna, instructing Butch Hoffman as building Inspector and zoning officer to agree that the order-to-remedy-violation notices, (of which the property owners’ guilt and liability had already been established in court) should be considered to be satisfied since it complied with the faulty Plan E the issuance of which was deemed in court to be illegitimate.
When recently asked, Butch said, “The violation is active in the report and will remain on the property until documentation of satisfaction from the town engineer and accepted by the town supervisor (board) is received.” But the engineer’s letter only refers to the “fill” violation being remediated and specifically excludes the “ground-water issues.” So how can anyone say there is no continuing violation of our solid-waste law since the material still in the ground has been there illegally for five years now?
Does this town realize that the 10 Church Road owner has already been cited and is in default of the required compliance with Town Law 192-4, just as you, Bill McKenna, are attempting to relieve them of further liability or responsibility, so that the next town supervisor has the perfect excuse to continue to do nothing?
Aren’t you the same supervisor that signed the letter to attorney general Letitia James stating in part:
A: “This issue has caused great concern in our community. In addition to potential impact to the immediate neighborhood’s aquifer,”
B: “The material was brought in from the (Karolys) Saugerties site”
C: “There is the potential to impact the town aquifer.”
This letter on Town of Woodstock letterhead, dated 7/12/2024, cc’d Michelle Hinchey and the DEC commissioner as if it wasn’t official enough already.
So although we should know better than to expect an answer, we have to ask if you were willing to tell the top lawyers of the State of New York, and a sitting senator that you are aware the dump consists of the highly contaminated and known hazardous material from the Karolys Saugerties site, why are you telling Butch to make the problem go away so none of us will be able to remediate it even after you’re gone?
Vincent Mow
Woodstockers United for Change
Woodstock
Wherever you are, join in
On Thursday, July 17, communities across the country will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the passing of congressmenber John Lewis with nonviolent, peaceful and action-oriented Good Trouble Lives On rallies, marches and programs.
Here in Ulster County, there will be events in Ellenville, Kingston, New Paltz and Woodstock. We will come together to recommit to John Lewis’s call to make “good trouble, necessary trouble.” Wherever you are in Ulster County, you can join a Good Trouble Lives On event.
In Ellenville, the NAACP Ellenville branch and Indivisible Ulster NY 18 & 19 will meet at 5:30 p.m. at The Common Good, 119 Canal St., for speakers, music and light fare. It’s an evening to come for the inspiration and leave with a plan of action.
In Kingston, the Center for Creative Education and Indivisible Ulster NY 18 & 19 will hold a Good Trouble Lives On rally and community celebration at the Kingston Pop-Up Shop and Café, 10 Cedar St., from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. with performers, speakers and food.
In New Paltz, Indivisible New Paltz, U-Act and Move Forward will have a Good Trouble Lives On march and rally beginning at 6 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 163 Main St. They will also collect donations for the Margaret Wade-Lewis Center.
In Woodstock, Third Act Woodstock Creatives will host a John Lewis Good Trouble Lives On candlelight vigil at the village green from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. There will be a pre-event at Mothership on 6 Sgt Richard Quinn Rd (Hillcrest) from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
In Lewis’s words, “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up.” And clearly, things are not right. So please join us.
Christine Dinsmore
Saugerties
Thank You, New Paltz: A Cooperstown Dream Come True
After eight months of tireless fundraising, late nights, and community-wide support, our 12u New Paltz Knights baseball team made the journey to Cooperstown—an experience that will live in our hearts forever.
With 82 total teams competing this week, our boys played nine games over four unforgettable days. We played against teams from across the country and beyond—including California, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, and even Canada. With grit, heart, and determination, they battled their way to a 4-5 record, finishing in the top 8 of their bracket.
This week was more than just baseball. It was memories made, friendships strengthened, and dreams realized.
None of it would have been possible without the overwhelming generosity of our community. Your support lifted our team and brought this once-in-a-lifetime trip to life.
We offer a heartfelt thank you to our community—and a special shoutout to the generosity of the following local businesses: Fall Fittings, Willingham Engineering, Mohonk Mountain House, Garvan’s, Rino’s Pizza, Runa, Main Course, McGillicuddy’s, P&Gs, Apizza, Dutchess Beer, Mountain Brahaus, Lola’s, Zeus Brewing, and The Bagel Shop.
Thank you for believing in these boys and helping us give them a week they’ll never forget.
With gratitude,
The 12u New Paltz Knights Baseball Family
New Paltz
Fifty-one years of days
You did not know your clock was set so very early at 41. Daddy, you lived an honorable life: wife, family, house, two cars. Then the alarm. Then gone.
Daddy, our clocks did not stop the moment lids were sealed and sods of grass covered up your box.
Daddy, we’ve lived these 51 years of days. Some of us, too, have died. Some of us still here counting the years before we all put our clocks aside and join you.
Patrick Hammer, Jr.
Saugerties