EDITORIAL How Can We Make 8th Most Vibrant Arts County Thrive? What? In a United States that some insist on characterizing as a burning dumpster, can there be good news? Well, here it is: Oneonta, as Otsego County’s “urban core,” has been ranked the eighth most-vibrant small community in America in Southern Methodist University’s fifth annual Arts Vibrancy Index Report. According to the Census Bureau’s American Factfinder, there are 16,360 towns in the U.S. Not all of them, of course,…
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Opinion - Page 195
COLUMN Some Indicators Suggest Recession Not Looming By TOM MORGAN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Are we staring at a recession? You have surely seen or heard reports, opinion and speculation to that effect. Gloom has been a mini-rage lately. A few questions are in order. Are economists able to accurately predict recessions? No. If their accuracy percentages were batting averages you would bench them. Why is the subject of recessions in the air so much lately? The Left salivates at…
EDITORIAL How Often Can We Help Something 1st-Rate Happen? Solicitations, by phone, mail, email or in person, are a pesky part of 21st century life. The advantages the Susquehanna SPCA’s “Shelter Us” campaign for $3 million to build a new animal shelter are: one, the people who are running it are our neighors – we know them. And, two, everything about it is first rate. Anita Vitullo of Clinton, Staffworks’ president and philanthropist to the pet world, underscored the many ways…
COLUMN Questions Are Neutral. Answers, Not So Much By JIM KEVLIN • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com Asking questions: It’s a method of teaching that goes back to earlier than 399 B.C. and Socrates, the seminal thinker who laid the foundation for much subsequent Western thought. Hence, the Socratic Method. The idea is that a question, in itself, is neutral; at worst – or best? – a provocation to think. It’s the resulting answers to the question that aren’t neutral. The hope…
COLUMN VIEW FROM FLY CREEK On Flying The Flag By ADRIAN KUZMINSKI • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com The other day I was chatting with a long-time local business man in Cooperstown who occasionally reads this column. He brought up the recent decision of the Village of Cooperstown to officially fly the Gay Pride flag on Village property. He expressed discomfort with at least some aspects of gay lifestyle, and clearly felt that the village action did not represent him and, by…
Doesn’t That Sound Better Than A Mantra Of Hate? All this talk about hate. Maybe it’s different in a rural enclave like Otsego County, but how often in the course of a week or month or year do any of us come face to face with something we can define as “hate.” Yet Governor Cuomo, last Thursday, Aug. 21, in announcing our state will be the first in the nation to enact a “Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act” (see excerpt…
LETTER from CHIP NORTHRUP Whartons Best President, First Lady We Never Had To the Editor: Your newspaper did us all a great favor with its coverage of Dolores Wharton’s autobiography, which serves as a fine complement to her husband’s book. You have helped put the Whartons in their proper historical context – they were pillars in the advancement of minority meritocracy in the United States, moreso than any ballplayer in the Hall of Fame. Because, while Jackie Robinson proved that…
LETTER from R. SCOTT DUNCAN Flag Already Symbolizes Hope, Freedom, Equality To the Editor: I get tired of all these special interest groups whining for attention. Basically, the Pride flag is a symbol of whom you want to embrace and the freedom to do such and be loved and accepted. The design of the flag is not very creative. That flag design is used to represent the Inca Empire, the indigenous in Peru and Bolivia. The design is used around…
LETTER from CONSUELO KRAHAM VELEZ Flying Confederate Flag Dishonors Our Ancestors To the Editor: My great-grandfather, Malachi Kraham, an Irish IMMIGRANT, came to this country in 1859. He settled in Otsego County and shortly after arriving, like many other young men from Otsego County, he joined the New York Militia during the Civil War. He served in the Union Army, under the American flag to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Eventually, he came back to Cooperstown, to his young…
COLUMN ALBANY ON THE MARCH With Domestic Terrorism Act, New York State Leads Nation Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Governor Cuomo’s Thursday, Aug. 14, speech to the New York City Bar Association, where he proposed the nation’s first Hate Crimes Domestic Terrorism Act. We must begin by recognizing the crisis for what it is because you will never solve a problem in life you are unwilling to admit, and today New York State acknowledges the ugly truth: that…
