Sternberg on COVID this week: Getting better? We’ve been hearing reports that the spike in cases and deaths from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has peaked and is decreasing. This is certainly true in metropolitan New York. Epidemiologists have estimated that greater than 40 percent of the City’s population has been infected with Omicron even though the confirmed case rate is much lower. Most people infected there probably experienced mild or no symptoms and didn’t even bother to get tested.…
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Opinion - Page 105
Letter: Meanwhile in Texas Texas’s new voter suppression law is a great example of how to keep lots of people from voting. The new statute requires a voter to present either a driver’s license or their Social Security number in order to get an absentee ballot. Since Texas only requires one of these IDs to register to vote, if a county registrar receives an absentee ballot request with a type of ID they don’t have on file, they can’t match…
Letter: Cooperstown vote reform It seems like almost every day we hear about state legislatures across the country passing laws that make it harder to vote. Systemic voter suppression continues to degrade our democracy and the consequences of doing nothing will be felt by generations to come. I’ve been thinking a lot about what we can do on a local level to improve the system of elections in our village. As a Village Trustee, I feel it’s my obligation to…
Sunset Stolen: Key West By Terry Berkson After a visit with relatives in central Florida, my wife, Alice, and I headed all the way down to Key West to see one of those famous sunsets. The last 100 miles on the causeway were like flying low in a turquoise sky. We arrived in the late afternoon, paid through the nose for a room and headed over to Mallory Square to watch the sun go down. There was quite a crowd…
Bound Volumes 210 YEARS AGO It seems to be a settled point that our Navy must be augmented. What kind of ships are best adapted to our purpose is a question on which there are different opinions. Some are for a proportion of men of war; others for frigates and smaller vessels only. There are strong reasons in favor of small swift sailing vessels. They should be the most effectual in offensive operations. February 1, 1812…
News from the Noteworthy: Have a plan: Start the conversation New York State is 50th in the nation for hospice utilization, and I wish I knew why. I believe most people know about hospice. It is a service that helps and supports those with life-limiting conditions to address their symptomatic needs. Additionally, hospice supports the patient families, including bereavement care after the patient passes. New York has a hospice utilization of 30 percent, meaning only 30 percent of those who…
Letter: Diplomacy the only route After fighting in Afghanistan for 20 years and spending more than 1.5 trillion dollars and accomplishing nothing but starvation for millions and political instability in the country, the withdrawal was the correct step. What did the United States learn from this terrible mistake, which cost the American taxpayer $300 million a day for 20 years? It seems that our current government had not learned anything to avoid making the same mistake again in Ukraine. Let’s…
Oh, there’s a surprise! By Ted Potrikus We New Yorkers used to leave it up to our state Legislature to fulfill the once-a-decade duty of redrawing congressional and state election district lines. They got so good at it they made the map of the state’s voting boundaries look like the inside of a lava lamp. We New Yorkers got a little tired of it, so we voted in 2014 to amend our state constitution to establish an Independent Redistricting Commission.…
Editorial: The Sideshow “New York will create a bureaucracy out of anything.” So wrote one of this newspaper’s Facebook followers after reading a post about the state’s new “Office of Cannabis Management,” set up as the agency tasked to regulate legal weed and its derivations. The Office was a long time coming; ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo had stalled his appointment of potential agency leadership and then he stepped down. His successor moved (relatively) quickly and, voila, we have a new state…
They’re just words now “Your call is very important to us. Please hold.” There’s one that’s hard to believe, particularly after you’ve been on hold for an hour with a faceless conglomerate whose digital operator’s repeated reassurance becomes more grating than helpful. “Thank you for your service.” A thoughtful and once-meaningful sentiment that recognizes our heroes who serve or have served our nation during war and peace. It keeps its intended depth on a one-to-one or small group setting, and…
