(letters from June 22, 2006)


Dear Editor,
I am in total agreement with your editorial of June 13, 2006. It is clear from the information provided by the Pratt Center for Community development that Governor Pataki is not a “compassionate Republican-Conservative,” which leaves us all to conclude that New York State housing policy is no longer funding new affordable housing for the low or middle income working families and the Governor’s policies deliberately contributed towards the development of the current crisis for affordable accessible housing not only in Ulster County but for the entire state. The fact that Ulster County for the past several years has had a zero-vacancy-rate as reported by the Ulster County Planning Department’s Housing Consortium annual report illustrates why we have over 139 individuals. (See 2000 census figures) with disabilities whom would like to leave the nursing home but however, cannot due to the lack of available affordable housing costing the taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary Medicaid expenses. These Medicaid expenses are directly a burden to the local county government and its taxpaying citizens.
The Hon. Senator John J. Bonacic is the majority leader of the New York State Senate’s Housing Committee. It is no wonder with policies like this why he cannot get the rest of the state Republican leadership to support legislation for an accessible affordable statewide housing trust for people with disabilities.
This fall we all need to ask both the candidates for Governor whether or not they are going to change these current policies because the people are getting tired of all the talk and lies that only enrich those already well off and places our Seniors Citizens and people with disabilities at risk as far as having a decent, affordable place to live.
Thomas R. Siblo-Landsman
Kingston, NY

Dear Editor,
I would like to make the following suggestions for selecting a new Ulster County Administrator. These recommendations are based on having served a number of years on the UC Legislature and having served on the bipartisan screening committee that selected Cal Cunningham as the first, and very successful, County Administrator. These suggestion are:
A bipartisan screening committee be established consisting of two county legislators and three non-legislators. This committee would screen and interview all candidates and make their recommendations to the legislature.
The County Administrator position should be given additional management authority.
Any potential candidate must have served at least 5 years as a County Administrator or Deputy in a county of comparable size or larger than Ulster County. To avoid political cronyism this experience must have been in a county other than Ulster County. This is a position that needs to be filled with a seasoned, experienced administrator - this not the time nor the place for on the job training. Experience in another county will bring the experience and a new perspective to our county for this very important position.
While there are a number of additional boiler plate qualifications that can be added - these suggestions, if followed, will provide a strong foundation for getting the right person for the job. The right person in this position will make our county legislators more effective, efficient and better able to serve the people of Ulster County.
William R. West
Woodstock, NY

Dear Editor,
Maybe it isn’t the right time for me to write this letter, but by writing now maybe other readers will have time to reflect on it when deer-hunting season rolls around again in the fall.
I moved to Mount Tremper last November. I always enjoyed your paper with its quirky mix of Comfort Stories, folk wisdom/old-timey tidbits and Realpolitik
reporting on the local scene. However, as fall went on, I began to feel only revulsion while reading your light-hearted, cheery toned stories on deer-hunting. Maybe I haven’t been in the community long enough to have seen your paper’s coverage of the other side of the hunting debate as well. Maybe I’m wrong, but it
was my impression that your paper consistently ran ’pro’ hunting articles.
You always seemed to have your finger on the pulse of this community and all the happenings and goings on
in it - with the singular exception when it came to hunting. Since moving here, I’ve informally tried to feel out where many of my neighbors and local acquaintances stood on this issue and discovered that
quite a few of them shared my abhorrence for this ’normalized’ seasonal blood lust. There are strong feelings on both sides of this issue and emotions run
high.
Because hunting is such a controversial issue, I was more than a little surprised at your paper’s seeming lack of awareness or sensitivity to the strong
feelings on both sides. Like abortion rights and gay marriage, this is a subject that most folks have strong opinions about - either pro or con. Because of the wide spectrum of deeply held moral positions (pro and con)on these other two issues for example; I doubt if you’d run a ‘local gala event’ type story about two gay men or lesbians who held their wedding at a local eatery, focusing your coverage on ‘who wore what’ and where the happy couple were going on their honeymoon.
Similarly, if an abortion clinic opened on Rte. 28 opposite the High School, I seriously doubt that you’d
run a light-hearted article focusing on the clinic’s enhancement of local services. Nor would you one-sidedly interview a High School girl who availed herself of this clinic’s service and quote her on how convenient the location was, or what a positive experience the whole ‘abortion thing’ was.
In both of the above instances, I’m sure any stories you ran about a local gay wedding or the opening of an abortion clinic in the community would decidedly not be light-hearted, or cheery in tone. I
think you’d instead maintain an editorially neutral position, acknowledging both sides of the issue by giving each side some space.
Why then, do you write stories during deer-hunting season that perpetuate the ‘normalization’ of this horror? stories that many people find so incomprehensively offensive? Your deer-hunting stories usually have the same cheery tone as your stories on hiking one of the local trails, or a festive fund-raiser held for a local charity.
The absolute worst deer-hunting article you ran ast winter was the one concerning the two companion
deer. When one of them was killed by a hunter, the other refused to leave his/her mate’s side and was also mindlessly slaughtered. A line or two even went so far as to say that this beautiful, loyal creature DESERVED to be killed because it lacked the intelligence to run away to save itself. The ’journalist’ who wrote this drivel must have the sensitivity of a tapeworm. This story only brought tears to my eyes, as I’m sure it did to others. It
didn’t fill us with delight at the ‘joy of hunting’ - but only with revulsion and sorrow.
When hunting season comes around again this fall, I hope you’ll be a little more even-handed and sensitive
to the wide spectrum of opinion on this issue. I understand that many long-time residents grew up in it, see nothing wrong with the hunting culture, and don’t question its morality. This kind of ’enculturated’ violence is usually not reflected on. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the most difficult kinds of violence to overcome are those that have been institutionalized.
Through my informal survey, I’ve found that the hunting culture is NOT monolithic in this community. If you assume that it is, and that most of your readers are hunters, I ask you to reconsider this assumption and try to see the community through ‘fresh eyes’ so to speak, like through say a relative newcomer to the area such as myself. Maybe that assumption was true 20 years ago - but I don’t think it’s true today. I suspect there are just as many people here who are opposed to hunting as there are those who have an entrenched pro-hunting mindset.
In my informal survey of where people stand on this issue, I’ve come across quite a few otherwise traditionally-minded long-time residents who, like myself, oppose hunting. These people would never go hunting themselves, but tend to shrug with a sigh of resignation and say “It’s just the culture around here” when asked about it. Not everyone who opposes
hunting is a newcomer/interloper/property tax rasing vegetarian/vegan former urbanite Bush hater. Many of us don’t fit this stereotype. Many conservatives and
fundamentalist Christians also feel an aversion to hunting, though they tend not to be as outspoken about their feelings.
To your readers who are pre-hunting, I would only say, isn’t there ENOUGH violence in the world, without adding to it? Personally, I feel the ‘suffering load’ on our beautiful Earth is already way too high and
more of us need to start practicing what Hindus call ’Ahimsa” - harmlessness to all living beings - as much as we can in our daily lives.
There’s also a dark, murky underside to hunting just as there is in that other form of socially sanctioned killing - military combat. It is a dark underside that few are willing to openly acknowledge. In his fascinating book, On Killing, War College psychologist Lt. Col. Dave Grossman explores this dark side of human/human killing during war. He writes of the fairly consistent 20% of military combatants who hae psychopathological tendencies that make them actually enjoy killing. If you’ve read the book jarhead by ex-Marine sniper/sharpshooter Anthony Swofford, you get a glimpse inside the mind of such an individual. In this regard, when it comes to hunting maybe you already have an inkling that Uncle Harry enjoys going out with his deer-hunting rifle a little TOO much, and suspect that it’s not ALL about sportsmanship or putting food on the table.
But even beyond this overtly sadistic 20% who enjoy blood shedding and killing, Lt. Col. Grossman also recounts in his book the experiences of a significantly larger number of ex-soldiers who carried a lifelong burden of guilt, or were otherwise scarred emotionally by their combat experiences. When it comes to taking a life, to a child it can be equally traumatizing to pre-meditatedly take the life of an animal, as it is for a grown man to take the life of an enemy soldier during war.
I’d ask those mothers who harbor doubts, but uncomfortably acquiesce to their young son’s initiation into this ‘sport’ because “It’s just the culture around here” to reconsider, and think about the possible psychic and spiritual mangling that might
result in a young child as a consequence.
It might be taboo to raise these questions, but I feel that it this aspect of the debate must be brought out into the open in regard to hunting, just as it is now being talked about on the subject of war in books like ‘On Killing”, or war correspondent Chris Hedges ’What Every Person Should Know About War” Opposing
hunting is not only about animal rights, but is concerned with the rights of children not to be emotionally damaged by what for many is an extremely confusing and traumatic experience. We need to take an
ethical stand and oppose hunting for them as well.
I hope in the future some writer somewhere will bring to light the damage done to mostly boys by this practice of socially-sanctioned brutality and killing, just as Grossman’s book helped validate the emotional damage of combat on many veterans and helped them see that they were not alone in their response to the violence they got caught up in.
Especially for young boys of a very sensitive nature, who have an inborn love of all animals, who are more interested in art than sports or who otherwise don’t fit the cultural stereotype of ’masculinity’ the hunting experience can be traumatic. They are often pressured by pro-hunting family members into this activity to ‘toughen them up’ or ‘make a man’ out of them, as if they weren’t ‘OK’ just as they
are. I really hope some future writer will chronicle their hunting stories to help educate future generations of parents.
And for those hunters who feel they’re saving money by not having to buy meat at the supermarket, I’d say, you don’t HAVE to continue eating a meat-based diet. Read John Robbin’s Diet for a New America. You’ll be a lot healthier as a result, and just as someone who quits smoking eventually stops thinking about
cigarettes altogether, once you ‘go vegetarian’ soon you’ll stop thinking about meat. It will come to have about as much appeal as chopping off your pinky finger, putting it in a stew pot and eating it. Before long you’ll acclimate to a tasty diet of healthy, violence-free vegetarian alternatives. You’ll soon start getting yens for your favorite veggie treat - and NOT a Big Mac.
I’d also tell your hunting readers that the few dollars you’re saving by eating parasite-riddled venison rather than $3 a pound hamburger meat might not even BEGIN to compensate for the spiritual and emotional damage you might be causing yourself and your children... At least consider the possibility of this risk - and whether it’s worth taking.
Maureen O'Sullivan
Mount Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
One of my earliest memories has me seated at the dinner table, desperate to know what my parents were discussing in a secret code which seemed impossible to decipher. As I grew older, and my spelling skills improved, I began to understand their stilted banter, and eventually, the innocence afforded by their seemingly innovative dialogue was relinquished to a dinner table free of disjointed letters. Topics deemed undesirable faded from conversation altogether, and were relegated to hurried whispers behind closed doors.
These conversations were often centered on family gossip, "adult" topics, and the avoidance of buzzwords that could lead to tantrums - all relatively meaningless subjects. However, I never expected that information would be withheld that could jeopardize my safety and health. Unfortunately, this is often the case when dealing with sex education.
Many families feel that sex education should be the responsibility of the school, as schools will have access to the most current information and relevant technologies. Children and parents alike generally feel that discussing a cumbersome topic elsewhere makes the home environment easier to endure. Yet many children are not receiving this education either at home or at school, putting them at risk for unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted infection.
The Healthy Teens Act is slowly working its way through the New York State Senate with only a few weeks of session remaining. If passed, this legislation will provide funding for schools and organizations to develop and implement age appropriate, medically accurate sex education. I believe very strongly that our schools, communities, families and government ought to refrain from dealing with these issues in muted tones, and instead afford them the voice they deserve.
The safety and lives of young people must not be jeopardized, especially when certain levels of autonomy begin to be realized. It is imperative that we take proactive steps towards combating potentially life-threatening behavior, and provide young people with the information and resources needed to protect themselves. This is one issue that cannot afford to be sequestered only to whispers.
Brittany Turner
Saugerties, NY

Dear Editor,
The overwhelming community opposition to a merger between Kingston and Benedictine hospitals in 1997 was not just about abortion ("Talking the Talk," June 8). One of the most important issues was tubal ligation, especially after a caesarean birth. This is a common procedure, a simple way to prevent pregnancy after one's family is complete, and standard practice in most community hospitals. But it is a form of contraception, and is therefore prohibited by the Ethical and Moral Directives for Catholic Health Care Facilities.
It doesn't matter how well the members of our two hospital boards might get along. All Catholic hospitals are bound by the strictures of that document, and cannot even cooperate in a substantial way with a hospital that permits contraception.
"Reproductive rights" is a phrase that many feel is merely a euphemism for abortion. While we as a community must be vigilant in preserving access to legal abortion, we must also remember that many other issues are involved in reproductive freedom. Our local hospital or hospitals have the obligation to provide full reproductive hospital services, including tubal ligation (especially at the same time as caesarean birth), vasectomy (when hospitalization is required), abortion (when hospitalization is required), hospital back-up services to clinical abortion providers, emergency contraception for rape victims and others, and birth control counseling for hospital patients (such as those on chemotherapy).
It is essential that these services remain available to the Kingston community. We need both of our hospitals to remain open. Or, if there can only be one hospital, it must be a secular hospital, providing full services.
Miriam Berg
Woodstock, NY

Dear Editor,
I am writing as a concerned parent in the Onteora School District. I am not surprised that the Onteora Board of Education didn't look into Interim Superintendent Peter J. Ferrara's background. Why would they worry about his employment history when the current OCS administration is practicing the same ethics (specifically with the speech and hearing impaired children in the district)?
Recent articles stated that the Department of Civil Rights cited the Ellenville School District for violations involving special education. Services for students with disabilities were granted based on fair hearings, but Ellenville was in trouble for prohibiting dissention or discussion. Special needs students were given inappropriate assistance while others had services taken away because of budget concerns. This sound very much like the current state of special education in the Onteora District.
I hope that the board of education can see that there is another lesson to learn heare besides checking on someone's employment history.
Valerie T. Hill
Woodstock, NY

Dear Editor,
I received a letter from our wonderful government's Department of Veterans Affairs telling me that the V.A. is sorry and unhappy that personal data on me and 27 million other vets was stolen. The letter hopes that nothing bad will happen as a result of their failure to protect that information, and advises us to carefully audit our resources, and, while the "V.A. is taking all possible steps to protect" us veterans, they are not going to do diddly beyond the warning.
Surprised? Is that how our grateful government takes care of its veterans?
Join me in contacting all our congressional representatives to demand that the V.A. protect us from financial ruin, or have all the tax cuts made that impossible?
Jay Wenk
Woodstock, NY

Dear Editor,
Due to the large volume of water coming out of the portal each time that there is a large rain, the land of the owners of The Blue Barn and Copperhood Inn lose a lot of their land. However, there is a solution. Before the flood of 1980 the portal water went straight out to the mountain against a rock ledge where no harm could happen, then the water broke through at a sharp left and destroyed a lot of good flat land. The solution is to dig out the land where the water used to go then place large boulders to the left with pace to permit a small volumeof water to follow the present course.
Ed Ocker
Shandaken, NY

Dear Editor,
Clearly, it was censorship that you did not publish my letter about the local art scene, the lack of meaningful content and poking fun at the landscape painters. It did not agree with your rosy eyed view of what pretends to be art. This reminds me of another incidence of editorial power tripping. Some time ago I submitted a letter raising the issue of a conflict of interest by a certain person in the Shandaken Republican Party. I changed my mind and left a message not to print it. Because it was in agreement with how you view things you disregarded my request not to publish it. I let that one go. It is easy to get the impression that editors on small newspapers are on ego driven power trip.
My respect for the Phoenicia Times has been diminished.
Robert Jacobson
Mount Tremper, NY

Dear Editor,
It was refteshing to read the perspective within a recent editorial piece by Dr. John Neumaier published in The Daily Frreeman and be reminded how the forces of government on a daily basis, subliminally subvert our personal fteedoms ,all in the name of preserving social stability. The American people need to read and understand that they are less free today then at any other time since our Constitution was founded.
Once the media is sanctioned and people are no longer free to state their minds, in fear of being fired or chastised, we can watch the first ten amendments of our constitution be compromised. The Patriot Act, which so limits our personal freedoms, is a misnomer. There is nothing patriotic about being able to inspect personal information via wiring taping, peruse e-mails or intercept phone messages. It’s misleading and just another hop on the bandwagon tactic that our current administration hopes the public will buy and overlook, all in the name of frenetic chatter about terrorism and being protected. Any educated person knows all too well the hype behind these tactics. It allows the elite to control and mold the society, with all the appearances of concern for the citizenry, while the elite group seizes the press, free information and personal rights.
Dr. Neumaier points to his great concern regarding the apathy surrounding health care & health insurance. He's right America should be alerted! Suspect! UPSET! Most American's don't realize that our legislators have these freedoms granted them, but not their constituents. The inequaliie's of education, both private and public, that make education feasible and attainable is limited today more than ever before in our country's history. Costs have spiraled and caused many to look at service areas for jobs rather than seek higher education to better their social class condition, simply because it's NOT within reach. Loans that funded higher education have been compromised or have vanished and added to the decline in college admission applications. It then follows that via the outcome of the social pressures to maintain one's lifestyle, commuting to one's job, parenting and some attempt of activity in public and community affairs we are diverted ftom the reality of our human condition and fall into a complacent pattern of accepting what "is" rather than exhorting changes to protect our human rights and insist that the laws granted by our government remain protected.
It's all been carefully planned for complete and total control by the elite. The current administration has the public in the palm of their hands and they are squeezing for even further controls.
WAKE UP AMERICA! We are busy, yes, but are we too busy to stand up and notice? Are we ready to see our freedom of press, religion and legal systems be manipulated to suit the will of the elite? Are the people held in Cuba hoping we give up and let them remain in custody of the United States without legal representation, without due process rights? What are we thinking and why are we NOT thinking? This is our country! Have we forgotten how long it took to garner these freedoms and what drove us toward Democracy? It was oppression! Let's hope that this reality helps us to overcome and demand the rights we fought deliberately to win. We are being oppressed again. We need to know this and react. With people like Dr. J. Neumaier, exhorting a voice of reason, I am grateful that there are still some intelligent human beings in our society who are working at restoring the balance we seem to have lost.
Linda Schwab-Edmundson
Shokan, NY

Dear Editor,
I've wanted to write about the open border problem with Mexico for some time. However, I've contained myself, since every time I let my friends know what I think, they call me a bigot. Well, since I know what I've done for the Civil Rights movement back in the 60's, I shouldn't have to defend myself on that score. But, the reason that I've decided to press forward and put out my thoughts, is because lightening struck my house last week. That was indeed a wake up call. Actually it occurred at 1:15AM and the loud explosion did just that. I realized that I might as well speak my mind, since time is short and the country is quickly going to h-ll in a handbasket.
In my opinion, (which of course is usually the truth), the "worker program" is another expression for disenfranchising the lower middle class and replacing them with foreign workers who will work for less than legal minimum wage. Big business and our leaders don't even have the word legal in their vocabulary anyhow. For instance, how about the "rules of engagement" for our troops in Haditha? These include busting down doors, throwing in a bomb and then shooting indiscriminately at anything including babies. Then, when they get caught, they blame the soldiers, instead of the rules. How about mistakenly labeling blacks felons and denying them their right to vote, even when they are innocent? How about taking bribes and kick-backs? How about the greedy rich paying no taxes and raising ours?
How bad can it possibly get? They want cheap labor, and they want us to pay, and pay we will. Do you have any idea how much money goes to non-citizen's welfare? Their education? Their medical care? Do you wonder where that money comes from? It comes from you, not the greedy rich. Don't get me wrong. I know quite a few legal Hispanics from various countries that come here, get their legal status, get good jobs with minimum wage and send their money home to their families. We are, after all a nation of immigrants..... we used to be a nation of legal immigrants. No longer. These days, illegal is a good thing, and legal is for idiots. Look at our leaders and tell me that they follow the law. Well guess what? I still stop for red lights and pay my bills. Don't hold that against me. It's an old habit. I'll just keep trying to remind you that Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport.
Jill Paperno
Glenford, NY

Dear Editor,
I so much wanted and planned to take a "Letter to the Editor" holiday this issue but I must reply to Jill Paperno, who continues to inform us with no evidence. Question: how many members of the fourth estate are whiling away their time in a U.S. prison cell having been assigned there for revealing classified information? What information may I ask?
We are in a conflict to change things around the world; not a war. War is the act of breaking things and killing people [as in Berlin, Cologne, Hiroshima and Nagasaki].
As far as media folks giving their lives for us the media has been warned to stay in or close to the "Green Zone". Nicholas Berg was so intent on being a contractor in Iraq [without any prior experience as such] and sneaked into the country only to be caught by the insurgents. Mr Berg was characterized as "reckless" (AP/NY Times). He certainly didn't deserve death, much less beheading. i must remind all who read or listen that the insurgents are killing far more Iraqis than "invaders". Kind of senseless, eh?
Back to the NY Times where Ms Paperno states we can identify the real criminals by perusing the Times' masthead. Why Ms Paperno, I'm ashamed that you would introduce discrimination into the mix just to toss a few "slings" and "arrows".
Who takes journalists seriously anyway? They have the ability, motive and mechanism to "make the news [as in Grant Park, Chicago]. Ernie Pyle and his contemporaries were first class news reporters and were loved by the "guys". Ernie "went out" as one of us with honor guard and taps [Stars & Stripes].
Glenn T. Anderson
Olivebridge, NY

Dear Editor,
This letter was written to all our county legislators...
Undoubtedly by now, you've heard that I have been terminated as First Deputy Clerk of the Ulster County Legislature. My last day of work is June 30.
This news was related to me on Thursday, June 15 by Clerk Kathleen Carey Mihm which took me by total surprise, because before the transition process, David Donaldson and Peter Loughran asked me to stay on. I find it very distasteful and intentional that after six months into the year, Ms. Mihm found it in her power to terminate me. We never had a previous discussion to iron out what appeared to be problems with the way I conduct myself, nor acknowledge her displeasure with me until 11:10 am that Thursday, June 15.
I find it very troublesome that Ms. Mihm thought I was capable enough to cover the office in her absence when she went on vacation early on into her appointment, went to Clerk's School to try to learn what her responsibilities are and even got called out of town for a family emergency recently and overnight, she is not happy with me. Imagine that!
It deeply saddens me to not be able to continue to provide good government for all of Ulster County, which I have done to the best of my abilities for the past 34 1⁄2 years. To be terminated at a moment's notice is disgraceful and unconscionable. I have been a dedicated, devoted and hard-working employee throughout my service and I don't believe I deserve this unwarranted treatment.
I will leave with my dignity and pride. I will miss each and every one of you because you have been my extended family all these years. It has been a pleasure to have been an Ulster County employee, to have been the first woman in the history of Ulster County to be Clerk of the Ulster County Legislature and my work ethics and experience will be a hard act to follow.
All the best to you. Fondly
Ellen DiFalco
Kingston, NY

Dear Editor,
An Open Letter to the People of Denning...
I am sorry that the work on the bridge over the east branch Of the Neversink River in the Town Of Denning may be put on hold due to a shortage of funding to complete the work. We were prepared to bond for the funds to complete the job through County Resolution 201 of 2006 at the June 14th meeting of the legislature. The bond needed a 2/3 vote as do all bonding resolutions.
Prior to the June 14th meeting, your representatives, Don Gregarious and Brian Shapiro represented the need well and it sailed through committee with a unanimous vote of both Democrats and Republicans. This gave me full expectations that it would pass the legislature the same way. There was no indication of any controversy over the repair or the bond by anyone prior to the start of the meeting.
When the resolution came up for a vote, to my surprise the Minority Leader, Glenn Noonan of Gardiner, stood up and said that all the Republicans were voting against the resolution. When explaining why, he indicated that it was because the Majority Leader, Jeanette Provenzano of Kingston made some negative remarks against him in the press.
As a result the resolution did not have the 2/3 vote needed to pass. To my further suprise, even those Republicans that supported it in committee and were sponsors of the resolution, Legislator Fabiano of Saugerties, Legislator Felicello of Marlboro and Legislator McAfee of Highland blindly followed their leader Glenn Noonan and voted against the bond.
Since I have been unable to bridge the gap between the negative remarks made by the Majority Leader against the Minority leader and how it equates to punishing the people of Denning, you may have better luck by calling any and all of those that voted against County Resolution 201 starting with the Minority Leader and those on the committee I mentioned earlier.
I ask you to try not to say anything negative to Minority Leader Glenn Noonan. He can get quite sensitive and I don’t want him to play politics against other townships.
David Donaldson, Chairman
Ulster County Legislature
Kingston, NY