THE PARTIAL OBSERVER Farmland Protection is Everyone’s Concern New York is an agricultural powerhouse, you may be surprised to learn. The state ranks in the top 10 nationally in no fewer than 14 crop and value-added agricultural products: number one in yogurt, number two in apples and cabbage, top 10 in tomatoes and potatoes, to name a few. Forty-three percent of New York’s wine grapes go to California for their wine industry. This productivity is all the more amazing when…
Online home of The Freeman's Journal and Hometown Oneonta
Advertisement
Columns - Page 36
The Partial Observer Adventures in Casting: ‘Roadhouse Coup’ an Otsego County Who’s Who Folks throughout the area have asked me at least a thousand times, “How did you get all those leaders of Otsego County to be in your film?” Here’s the “Reader’s Digest” version. I first met former Oneonta Police Chief Douglas Brenner while working on another project. The introduction went something like this: “Hi! My name is Lori. You don’t know me, but I’m going to make a…
News from the Noteworthy Get Ready for the Great American Spit Out Few may know that the third full week of February is “Through with Chew Week,” an annual campaign that raises awareness of the dangers of using smokeless tobacco (chew, dip, snus and dissolvable tobacco) and encourages users to quit for the week or just one day. In fact, the Thursday of TWCW is the Great American Spit Out, when users are encouraged to quit for the day and…
Column by Dr. Richard Sternberg Is It Live, or Is It Memorex? One of the hottest advances in technology is the development of an artificial intelligence product called ChatGPT. Its basic program is available free on the Internet. It is causing an uproar in academia because students are using it to write their homework assignments. This is already a game changer for teachers in figuring out how to evaluate student’s performances. ChatGPT is a state-of-the-art language model developed by OpenAI,…
Bassett At 100 Stroke Awareness, Prevention Is Important By DR. TOMMY IBRAHIM Dear Friends, Neighbors and Colleagues, Since February is National Heart Health Month, I’d like to focus this column on cardiovascular health—specifically on stroke awareness and prevention. Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke, making it the most common cause of paralysis and the fifth leading cause of death in this country. What’s even more startling is that the stroke rate has gone up among…
News from the Noteworthy Thursday’s Forum Will Address Cat Overpopulation This Thursday, February 9, the Susquehanna Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is hosting a Community Cat Forum at the Foothills Performing Arts and Civic Center in Oneonta. The event begins at 4 p.m. and is free and open to the public. “Community cats” is a term used by the American SPCA to describe outdoor, unowned, free-roaming cats. They can be friendly, feral, adults, kittens, healthy, sick, altered…
The Partial Observer What If? Unpacking the Net-Zero Transition On December 19, 2022 the Climate Action Council charged with developing strategies to implement New York’s “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” issued the “Scoping Plan” that outlines their recommendations to meet a net-zero goal by 2050. This year the Department of Environmental Conservation will propose regulations and the Legislature will consider legislation to implement those recommendations. The Scoping Plan outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate…
News from the Noteworthy Remove Temptation By Disposing of Unused Medications It is not news to anyone that we, as a nation, are in the midst of the worse overdose and drug-related death crisis in the entire history of our country. Based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control, we have lost 107,000 people to drug overdose in the last 12 months. That number would equal losing about the same number of people who live in Chenango and Otsego…
The Partial Observer What Is the Cost of ‘Saving’ a School? Further Thoughts on the Schenevus-Worcester Merger Schenevus/Maryland/Westford friends:As a community, we have gone back and forth about whether or how students would benefit from an annexation merger with Worcester. We have sincere disagreements, despite all wanting what we believe to be best for our community’s children. Many want an answer to whether the district can or can’t be “saved.” This is an honest question, but not the one I…
Life In The Time Of COVID It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over On Monday evening, January 30, the White House announced that the COVID-19 emergency will end on May 11. The emergency, which was initially declared by President Donald Trump in 2020, has been renewed every 90 days since. If the Biden administration simply fails to renew the current 90-day declaration, the emergency would lapse in April rather than May. The White House stated that an “abrupt end to the…
