Is penmanship becoming a lost art? In many states, it may very well be lost forever. A growing trend to eliminate cursive from elementary school curriculum or make it optional seems to be taking shape across the nation.
As the Coalition notes on its website (“Feed 4 People for Just a Buck”), the donation of just $1 can help provide four meals. For every dollar donated, in fact, the Coalition puts 95 cents towards processing donated venison. For more information, visit the Venison Donation Coalition online at www.venisondonation.com, or call 866-862-DEER (3337).
For the fifth straight year, my wife Heather and I will again spend Thanksgiving on our own, away from our families who live on the other side of the country.
Some may look at our lack of family at the holidays as a dire situation, but it is not and I will explain.
Although it is not the end of the year it is my family’s first full year in Hornell, and over the last week I have reflected on the last 12 months and about what I’m thankful for.
It is truly a momentous and dangerous time in world history, and so our annual tribute to America’s veterans was especially meaningful. In local ceremonies and observances around the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions, so many citizens came together to honor the sacrifices and the victories of our soldiers – past, present and future.
Here on the eve of Election Day, first and foremost our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to our fellow New Yorkers, especially to the families who have lost loved ones, but as well to everyone throughout the downstate region and on Long Island who continue to work to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stirred up some ill will around the state last week — and since it’s not going away anytime soon, it’s worth a closer look. It’s worth digging beneath the headlines to try to see where we may be headed.
The birth control issue came up again in the latest presidential debate, with Gov. Mitt Romney fudging his previously stated opposition to requirements under the Affordable Care Act that employers include contraceptives in employee insurance plans.
It’s the sign of the times. One news report sends out a ray of positive economic news, and then a headline the very next day arrives as yet another dark cloud on the jobs front. We’ve certainly seen and felt this economic roller coaster take its emotional and financial toll here at home – up, down and all around for nearly four years now. And it just continues its excruciating twists and turns.
Both guys took off the gloves from the get-go in a spirited vice presidential debate Thursday night in Kentucky. A Joe Biden who never went off offense landed more punches throughout the evening, but this was no knockout, as Ryan held his own.
Here are a few words worth recalling for the week of Columbus Day, directly from the journal of Columbus’ first voyage to the New World, “I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent.”
The September jobs report is in, and for the first time in the Obama presidency, unemployment has dipped below 8 percent.
The other day I was looking out of my office window and observed a town of North Dansville vehicle rolling by. It dawned on me that I had been remiss in my last column about acknowledging the contributions of town personnel in various village projects.
Trustee Griffith and I were blindsided by the events of the evening. The partisan crowd, the prepared statements, the swift motions, the absence of any board or community discussions of the proposal, and the sudden demise of the LCWSA proposal made it apparent that everything was prearranged by three members of the board and the special interest group.
The Census Bureau reported late last week that the nation’s median household income declined last year to its lowest level in 16 years. This news about yet another hit on America’s households, especially middle class households, comes on the heels of a federal jobs report in August that fell far below the expectations of most economists and signaled, at best, a disturbingly weak economic recovery.
One piece of legislation I sponsored earlier this year, as chairman of the Senate Elections Committee, was a measure to change the date of this week’s Primary Day from Tuesday, Sept. 11, to Thursday, Sept. 13, in order to recognize and fully respect the significance of this year’s anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attacks on America. Not surprisingly, it was overwhelmingly approved by the Legislature and swiftly signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It’s just one more example of our nation’s deep-rooted desire to forever honor the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. That’s as it should be.
On the 11th anniversary of the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., we all remember the way America changed. This Patriots Day, we collected a few thoughts from around the Web to share with you. The first is a comment from one of our regular contributors to this page, cartoonist Ethan Keister. The other two are from politicians, one state and one national, and either from opposing parties.
As time passes, it's easy to forget the impact of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. But we will not, we cannot, forget what happened that day and the way it changed the course of American history.
Two sure signs that yet another summer has slipped by arrive this week with our annual Labor Day observance and when students locally and all across New York start heading back to school. But these two events have more in common than just marking the end of summer because whether we’re talking about today’s workforce or education in the 21st century, the discussion sooner or later gets around to the overriding importance of technology.
Beware, there is no democracy in the town of Dansville, Steuben County. At the Aug. 9 Town Board meeting, Robert Mahany acted as chairman in Michael Willis’s absence. He ran the meeting like a dictator would. He was very resentful of the large group of residents in attendance, who had huge concerns about the board passing a pro-fracking resolution without public knowledge.
Dansville Board of Education is mulling a proposal from the district’s shared decision making team to rename the former high school, now a combined middle and high school building, to Dansville Academy.
