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Opinion

Nuclear fusion ignored at moment in U.S.

Commentary

At a time when our need for electricity is growing rapidly, why are we creating a system based on intermittent wind and solar generated power? In 2025 U.S. spending on renewable energy generation primarily wind and solar was $108.7 billion.  Unfortunately in the same period the U.S. spent a paltry $2.64 billion on power generation by nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion is the same process that powers the sun and all other stars. It is a process where two light hydrogen atoms under extreme temperatures and pressure combine to form a single helium atom releasing massive amounts of ...

The OBSERVER’s View: City’s piddly action in midst of firestorm

The OBSERVER’s View

As has been well documented for more than two years, the city of Dunkirk is facing real troubles. Finances are in shambles. Morale, of course, is at all time lows in City Hall. How is the Common Council responding to the big problems through the first five months of the year? It does not. Instead, it takes on another meaningless issue. It creates a resolution — that it approved — that would not allow the public to be served with paperwork during a council meeting. “The service of legal papers upon individuals during the course of a public meeting may create a chilling effect ...

Tech advances not moral progress

Commentary

A threat lurks in our world. It is bigger than our culture. It is bigger than our economy, but will include them both. From the beginning, humans have used technology to replace us: human labor cut short by a machine that did the job. It was convenient. It was economical. By this means, humans created civilization, but we have never been in control of this process, and it was an illusion that humans ever were. Technology is a thing that happens to us. The machine will use us up, and we will expend bodies and resources. So long as the progress continues, no cost will appear too high. ...

Comments keep village accountable

Commentary

The OBSERVER that at the last Fredonia Board of Trustees workshop session this past Wednesday (May 20) that the Mayor and Trustee Esperson intend to impose as soon as possible a suspension of the public comment period at Village Board meetings. The allegation made by the mayor was Fredonia citizens were threatening the mayor and board members. Not true. I observe or attend most Village Board meetings and this allegation of threats or harm to Village officials are not true. There is nothing that has happened at Village Board meetings to justify the claim it’s unsafe to the ...

President Trump’s trip to China

Commentary

We have had a year of confrontations under Donald Trump — the humiliation of the President of Ukraine in the Oval Office, the put-down of the Prime Minister of Canada, threats against our ally Denmark to take over Greenland...I could go on. Thus, it was with a sigh of relief that we watched the unfolding of the President’s recent visit to China. The White House played down having any great expectations about issues like access to rare earth metals, tariff relief, the status of Taiwan, and even of the Iran War—and there were no major breakthroughs announced on these ...

People’s column

Peoples column

Art teacher was ‘influential’ Editor, OBSERVER I read the article that was published 5/14 to honor Gary Worosz and Michele Dolce from Forestville Elementary. I had Mr. Worosz in second grade, and Mrs. Dolce as a fifth grade teacher. Although I had a lovely experience with Mr. Worosz, and he deserves recognition for his outstanding teaching career. I would like to add that Kristin Britz is by far the most influential person mentioned in that article without any recognition. She was my elementary art teacher and in my senior year of high school, Mrs. Beth Runkel had retired ...