I might have been confronted with sudden violence. Because not one member of law enforcement who saw a woman driving alone into the specific terrain of great danger warned me of it, without my having to ask. Because the search area that night was small — maybe 50 very rural households at most — and none of the dozens of police cars or milling officers were assigned to go house to house warning unsuspecting, isolated, vulnerable residents to “barricade yourself in.” Families did not know. If their doors were even locked, they would in all likelihood have opened them to a young couple.

“Only the ‘bad apples’ will be affected by the police patrol,” writes the safety/courtesy coordinator for the Hudson Valley Rail Trail. “Cyclists behaving responsibly should welcome them.”

One letter writer argues that while progressives are united in their disdain for the current occupant of the White House, many seem to have a blindspot for the policies of Democrats like Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whore are “currently devastating our region’s environment and public health, is forcing toxicity and economic ruin on Hudson Valley residents.”

The pay is ludicrous — I’m teaching four courses in this spring semester for $10,000. For a typical class size of 20 students, that works out to a per course instructional cost of $125 per student, or $500-625 for a typical semester course load of 4-5 courses taught exclusively by adjuncts (and they do teach over one-third of the courses at New Paltz).