Readers’ Column for the week of November 21, 2021

You may call The Owego Pennysaver Readers’ Column at (607) 687-2378 24-hours a day, or email comments to readerscolumn@stny.rr.com. We reserve the right to revise or reject any message.

 

I understand to help allergic reactions you are supposed to eat honey that is produced in your area or state. I just bought some honey and it comes from Argentina, Ukraine, and Vietnam. It’s a product of those three countries. It tastes awful and I’m going to take it back to the store. 

~

A recent book, titled “2084 Report,” tells a story of what it might be like in 2084. It’s not a good report. It’s only a book; who knows how much of it would come true. Pay attention here, the future you are approaching.

~

Is it unconstitutional for a New York State governor to force and coerce a landlord to rent to someone who refuses to pay rent or leave the premises? And yet, the landlord has no way to remedy the situation. Who’s going to make up for the landlord’s financial loss, the governor of New York? I think not.

~

Keeping Sunday is the mark of the beast. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it rolling Saturday.

~

According to New York State, if I were to go to a local store and steal a loaf of bread and get caught, I am going to jail. A tenant can mooch off his landlord for months, not pay a dime in rent, and that’s fine. You call that justice for all? Open your eyes people! We’ve got to change these laws in New York State. It is so geared against the landlord. Not fair, not at all.

~

I don’t know why everybody says there are two classes of people. There are three classes of people: rich, middle class, and poor. There are probably more poor people in Tioga County than the other two classes combined.

~

To the person who hit my car at the Dollar General in Berkshire on Tuesday, Nov. 16 between 10 and 11 a.m., since when is it acceptable to hit someone’s car and not even leave a note? You caused significant damage to my car. Not only totally crushed in the fender, you also left a six-inch strip of white paint from your vehicle. How could you not know that you hit my car? Why didn’t you either leave a note on my windshield or go into the store to report what you did? You need to step up and do the right thing by contacting Dollar General to leave your contact information. 

~

I’m wondering if there is any organization or anyone out there who can help seniors that don’t have computers get appointments for their COVID boosters. All phone numbers I have called lead me to a website, and I do not have a computer. We are really concerned that we should have our booster and is it going to take months again?

~

Thank you to The Red Door for your work in the Lockwood church area. It does my heart good. I do want to thank you 100%. Please continue, it does my heart good.

~

Looking for someone to come to my home to repair a computer. If you can help, please respond to this column.

~

Now we have a wonderful dog warden, and she’s doing a good job! So now we need a code enforcement officer who can do a good job. I guess we have one, I don’t know, there are an awful lot of codes being broken. 

~

Thank you to all who came out to our Veterans Community Breakfast Honoring our Veterans on Nov. 13 at Allen Memorial Baptist Church. We hope the veterans who came were blessed as we were in serving them. Our hope is that you all will return next year and bring neighbors and friends. We also wish to give a big shout out to McKenzie Methodist Church for their ongoing support of our community through their weekly meals, and especially for their great Harvest Dinner put out annually.

~

I want to give a big thank you to the Catholic Church in Newark Valley for providing a free turkey dinner to the community. It was delicious and I really appreciated it.

~

Make of it what you will, active COVID-19 cases in Broome County on Nov. 18, 2020 were 514; active COVID-19 cases in Broome County on Nov. 18 were 929, nearly double. This is where we’re at with the so-called “progressives” in charge. This kind of “progress” (active COVID-19 cases doubling in one year) is not what we need. I will be interested in reading how these abysmal numbers are excused. It should be entertaining.

~

This is in regards to last week’s Pennysaver, and “Tioga County Cares” about teachers, public health, racial justice, lesbian and gay students, and educational equity. Is there anyone who wants other than the best for all their fellow human beings in Tioga County? Love thy neighbor as thyself. Has America not been on a continual quest to pursue life, liberty, and happiness for all during its existence? Why do social justice warriors redefine the elements of fraternity and equality? We want good teachers. We do not need the NYS teachers’ union labor monopoly. Notice traditional American history teaches us to be proud and optimistic, despite our past sins. Notice CRT is theory and should only be subject matter for college students having a master’s degree in American and World history, not K-12. They have stopped teaching American Rugged Individualism, which is wrong. 

~

Have you ever seen a person with polio, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, mumps, chicken pox, smallpox, or whooping cough? Do you ever wonder why you haven’t seen anyone with these diseases? I’ll give you a clue, “V”. 

~

What a complete and total embarrassment, the awful state of these village streets. North Avenue was already atrocious, but now things are infinitely worse and a washboard has been made out of Main Street, Talcott Street, and West Avenue.

~

Psalm 100: Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

~

To the people complaining about “items being removed” from the Hope Cemetery in Newark Valley, the cemetery is not a catchall. The cemetery is in poor condition with overgrowth, which volunteers have been clearing alone with all the stuff people keep leaving behind. Thank you to those who have been cleaning up the cemetery.

~

I see Tioga County ASAP has watched “Reefer Madness” and stopped there.

~

Medicare premiums are in income-based brackets. It is very easy to look up. A person making $150,000 pays 2.6 times what a person in the lowest bracket pays.

~

Someone was complaining last week that Medicare rates were the same for people earning $15,000 a year as people earning $156,000 a year. Not true! Monthly premiums are more for individuals making $88,000, and additional increases for people with even higher incomes. There is a chart on Medicare.gov explaining all of this. In addition, individuals with higher incomes pay more for Medicare Part D coverage.

~

The Village of Newark Valley is overstaffed, and it starts right in the office. We need three full time staff in an office for a community of about 920? Between the payroll and benefits, what’s left? Apparently nothing. I think the Village board and mayor need to take a hard look at the high payroll that’s taxing the Village to death. Municipalities aren’t meant to be “employers,” they’re meant to do what’s needed for the community. Creating work and jobs for people just isn’t effective. If the situation doesn’t change soon, we will have to just dissolve the Village. Either way works, so the board and mayor need to pick a path. The board can either be the solution or the doom. 

~

“Among the evidence that contemporary technological advancements can be harnessed to ensure that all are supplied with the necessities of life, it is clear that, too often, technology winds up supplying its users with new luxuries that eventually become new necessities. Where once access to a computer and the Internet were amenities, for many people today they have become essential.” (From Zachary Loeb’s commentary on Lewis Mumford.)

~

My Friends, with all that is going on in our world today, I thought I would share with you a devotion written by Corrie Ten Boom. Corrie was a Holocaust survivor, evangelist, and author who had urgency in her heart for those who needed to hear the “Good News” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “If you truly love your fellow man, you must warn him of the danger of losing eternal life. Tell everyone you can reach the glorious story of Jesus that they may be saved in time. The world is full of people who need salvation. It is our job to find them and deliver the message. ‘There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’ (Acts 4:12 RSV)

~

Just to clarify, the cemetery that my wife and I cleaned up is Settle Cemetery. It has been abandoned for 25 to 30 years. Sadly the only things that were next to the headstones were briars and pricker bushes that were four to five feet tall. Seventy graves are in this cemetery and the stones were not visible because of the downed trees, branches, and pricker bushes. We are very proud and satisfied with how it looks now and appreciate the thank you.

~

What is being done in Tioga County to install electric vehicle charging stations all over the county? 

~

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the Candor McKendree Methodist Church workers on the fabulous Harvest Supper they provided.

~

I received a call a couple nights ago from “Spectrum” offering a savings promotion. He asked for my zip code and how much I was paying. He offered me $40 savings for 24 months. When he told me how much I would be paying it was actually a $50 savings (his math was wrong), then he gave me a code I could enter into my Spectrum account and it was supposed to give me my discount. Then he wanted my credit card number. My credit card is not attached to the account and I told him so. He insisted it was so I hung up. I called Spectrum and they assured me they were NOT offering any promotion like this. So, be aware and beware!

~

Last week’s Letter regarding the OACSD BOE Regular and Executive (Secret) meetings left much to be desired. The Open Meetings Laws (OML) allows eight subjects to remain secret, and appropriately so. It is not mandatory and strictly limited to such. This privilege is abused. Prior to Superintendent Green, the BOE had five District Goals. These included Goal 1 – [to educate….], Goal 3 – “a. Communicate clearly and frequently to the widest possible audience, using a variety of media [….] c. Be responsive to our public” and “Goal 4 – Manage district resources effectively in support of educational excellence.” These were broadly written for the then Superintendent (the CEO per BOE policy) to achieve these as he saw fit. The prior Superintendent failed 200%. Then the BOE eliminated the broadly stated Goals and replaced them with five detailed academic goals. This contradicts the principles of the BOE Policy Manual. Where was elimination of the prior goals discussed? They went to micromanagement! There remains an as yet undeleted (maybe deleted) and un-posted (secret) Policy Manual sec. 0200 “to strive for maximum efficiency in the use of district resources to meet the goals and objectives of the various programs and services.”

National Political Viewpoints

It’s so sad how the democrats are so afraid of Trump in 2024 because they know they can’t cheat him out of another election, they are too busy concentrating on Jan. 6 and all this other crap that nobody cares about. They avoid talking about Afghanistan, the economy, the inflation, the border; everything that Joe Biden has done to screw up this country. 

~

Newsflash. Turns out the lunatic left democrats would love to see $5 per gallon and even $10 per gallon gasoline to drive us to purchase more electric based cars and even bicycles; at least as Pete Budajudge would like to suggest. (Budajudge, by the way, uses a bike to ride to work after being driven about two blocks from work in a Chevy Suburban.) By the way, guess where 90% of massive electric car batteries are made. You guessed it, China. Joe Biden and his family are laughing all the way to the bank. 

~

So Biden had another propaganda speech today in New Hampshire trying to push one of his socialistic bills, and 12 to 20 people showed up. Twelve to 20 people! And this is the man who got 81 million votes? Give me a break. It is so obvious what went on. If Trump had done that there would have been 20,000 people there. 

~

The Wyoming GOP has censured and expelled Liz Cheney for disloyalty to Trump. Will someone please remind me again why posters claim it’s the Democrats that are stifling dissent?

~

The electric cars made by Elon Musk’s Tesla are not emissions free. According to The Wall Street Journal, building one of his cars actually generates more emissions because of the metals needed for its lithium-ion batteries. These nifty batteries, which are often not recycled by most car producers, are made of rare earth metals like lithium, copper and nickel, create radioactive and toxic waste, and rely on fossil fuels to be created in the first place. This fact alone gives China a global advantage where they possess 80% of the most rare metals required, and where there is little to none oversight on emissions of Fossil fuels. Currently in keeping with Joe Bidens’ plan, our government in Albany has pledged that we in New York are on notice that the state will be 100% Fossil Free in 2050 by generating only electric energy from Solar and Wind for both private and business usage. Inflation today will seem as a nothing-burger compared to what the government has in store for your kids and grandkids in 28 years.

~

Wow, ten dollars and go back? Without the children that the government took from them and sent somewhere – but don’t know where? What a heartless comment. Wouldn’t you want compensation if the government took your kids and sent them to places unknown?

~

For all you democrats and republicans, who call in with your opinions, STOP; JUST PLEASE STOP!

~

I have a question for the person who commented that “the separated families were asylum seekers, thus legal”; intimating they deserve exorbitant funds because they were separated from “their” kids. So is it also your opinion that it is fair for U.S. born citizens who are Vietnam veterans, who were drafted and sent nearly 9,000 miles away from home for months and often years, forcibly separated from THEIR newborns / children, to pay hundreds of thousands to millions of tax dollars to these “asylum seekers”, while they still suffer from the results of government forced separation from their children to this day? Many of these vets ended up divorced, homeless, seriously ill, or committed suicide because they couldn’t / can’t get help. I know of none that are living in luxury with a $450,000 taxpayer funded windfall.

~

As we approach Thanksgiving with inflation making it harder for Americans to have a happy and successful life, I hope you all start to realize that your enemy is not your neighbor. It’s Washington and the super elitist class that runs the media and large companies. These people spread half-truths and propaganda to keep Americans fighting with each other while changing policies that make the working class lives harder. I just hope all working Americans realize before it’s too late that we need to stand together against the political and elitist class. They do not care about us.