MONEY MATTERS Bad Numbers, Good News By TOM MORGAN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Let us call it The Finger-Pointers’ Dilemma. The toll of the virus has been less than what we were promised. The WuFlu medical experts assured us the sky was definitely falling this time. Maybe 2 million of us would croak. These experts convinced themselves of this. They convinced our public health officials. They convinced Big Media. All of them teamed up to convince our leaders. And so,…
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Columns - Page 84
FROM THE FRONT LINES Crisis Tells Us: Be Prepared! By CHARLES HYMAN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com I want to thank Richard Sternberg for bringing up the difficult issue of triage. Fortunately, our area has not had to face this type of excruciating decision-making. But we may yet. His “elephant in the room” makes me think of yet another “elephant in the room,” and that is the one of advance directives and healthcare agents. April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day.…
BILL GATES ON FOX It’s Gotta End, Maybe By The End Of April…
EASTER SUNDAY SPECIAL Resurrection Guides Pastors’ Reflections On The Coronavirus Let Emergency’s Lessons Strengthen Our Humanity This disease has not been sent as a punishment from God. The sacred scriptures have shown us repeatedly that God, while not causing an event, can use an event to teach us, to bring us closer to God’s very self that we might experience God’s mercy and compassion. And might this lesson be found in a curious parallel in Matthew’s Passion? There are two…
THE VIEW FROM WEST DAVENPORT Oil Embargo’s Lesson Forgotten In 1973, the Organization for the Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) from the Middle East imposed an oil embargo on the United States. It had a crippling impact on our economy and on our way of life because we didn’t produce enough energy in this country to meet the demand. People waited in line for hours to buy a few gallons of gasoline and tempers flared. The same impact was felt on…
LIFE IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 The Elephant In The Room To me, there is no more important concept in The War Against COVID-19 than triage. Merriam-Webster.com defines this as “the sorting of and allocation of treatment to patients, and especially battle and disaster victims, according to a system of priorities designed to maximize the number of survivors.” So far, triage is being used to determine who is taken to, or just allowed to go to, hospital emergency rooms. EMTs…
WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER The Question Of Out-Of-Towners By LARRY BENNETT • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com FOR: First is the idea that all have the right to remove their family from a place of apparent danger to a place seen to be safer. Second is the economic idea that second-home owners have the absolute right to relocate to those homes, which they own and pay taxes on. Presumably that is also true if a city resident can afford to rent…
LIFE IN THE TIME OF COVID-19 Why Wasn’t More Done Sooner? By RICHARD STERNBERG • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Over the last several days I reviewed a great deal of material regarding COVID-19 and the novel coronavirus. I looked at videos. I read scientific and lay papers. I scanned media reports. All to determine what to write about. It was like drinking from a fire hose. But the Monday, March 30, announcement by Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator for the White…
County Pastors Contemplate: WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Editor’s Note: The coronavirus has closed churches, but via the Internet and other means, pastors continue to preach. Over the next few weeks, we will share their words here. Out Of Pain, Grief, Find Understanding Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Transcendentalist Unitarian, wrote, “There is a crack in every thing God has made.” In 1992, Leonard Cohen, singer, musician, and song writer, sang in his song “Anthem”, “There is a crack, a crack, in…
FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE If Not For A Buttonhook By JIM ATWELL • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Some years ago, I had dinner at Great-Grandpa’s house down in tidewater Maryland. It’s a handsome brick house with dormers, and it used to face a clear view across the fields to broad West River. But realtors overran the area, and the fields filled up with houses for commuters to Washington. And Great-Grandpa’s house is now a restaurant – a high-toned French one, mind you,…
