Breaking News

Local Commentaries

The matter of population decline

The facts are clear and not much in dispute that Chautauqua County has over the past few decades been experiencing population decline. Some of this is related to government policies (or lack thereof,) and some of it by the fact that we are not in a growth area of the country. Since World War II, the air conditioner has made living and working in the South a viable option. Southern states also tend to have lower regulatory standards, and, as “right to work” states, employers in these states do not have as many labor issues to deal with. The result has been a shift in population ...

When cutting red tape puts patients at risk

I was three years old when I was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, called juvenile rheumatoid or “little people’s arthritis” back in 1985. My parents were floored by the diagnosis because I did not look like my grandparents’ arthritis. I looked like a 3‑year‑old who did not like to be touched and then stopped walking. Before I even learned to read, I learned what it meant to live in a body that could suddenly turn on itself, and what it meant to depend on powerful medicines, often at adult doses, just to get through the day. Biologic drugs have transformed ...

Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)

**Note – Today’s narrative from the Bullpen is a rewritten version of one printed in the second week of September 11, 2011, ten years after the tragic occurrences which happened on September 11, 2001, twenty-five years ago yesterday. The title words above were penned by Country singer ...

Thoughts on Lakewood’s sidewalks, taxes, rentals

LAKEWOOD SIDEWALKS Jamestown just celebrated a great week with the hosting of the annual Lucille Ball Comedy Festival at the Comedy Center. It surprises me that during the comedy fest nothing was mentioned about the sidewalk installation in Lakewood. Because the sidewalk issue is a comedy. In a recent NYSDOT letter to the mayor of Lakewood it said and I quote "Installing sidewalk segments between Chautauqua Ave and Green St are not currently included in the preferred alternative." Since that letter was sent I have heard two different things that make me say, "What is the state doing"? ...

Sept. 11 events are firmly in memories

CHAUTAUQUA—If you’re more than, say, 35 years old, you’ll recall where you were when you heard the first news bulletins of 25 years ago today. Maybe you were in school or college. Maybe you were at work. Maybe you were running errands. Maybe you were with relatives or ...

Thinking about the downside of bigness

We have had a tradition in America, not always but mostly, of trying to avoid the perils of businesses that get too big. The most prominent example in our history was likely the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act which became law in 1890. Though its primary target, twenty years later, became John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company—its original passage resulted from a growing public concern about the concentration of power in big business, the elimination of competition and the resultant driving up of costs to everyone else. Today, we are seeing big business on a new and ...