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The OBSERVER’s View

The OBSERVER’s View

America is still in the midst of its 250th birthday celebration. In Chautauqua County, one community always remembers its history during the early weeks of September. On Saturday, the 27th annual Sinclairville History Fair takes place starting at 7 a.m. with a breakfast prepared by the Sinclairville 76ers. In the later hours is a grand parade, chicken barbecue, street dance, fireworks, craft show, farmers' market, music, horse drawn wagon rides, bounce houses, and more. One of the more fascinating pieces to the event is the 200th anniversary of the Sinclairville Baptist Church. ...

Commentary

After being rerouted from a standard Pacific patrol in January, the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sailed to the Persian Gulf. It had originally been scheduled to return to the U.S. in May, but the rest of the U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier fleet was locked into fixed schedules of required ...

People's column

Commentary

Reason for worry over U.S., Israel military merger Editor, OBSERVER: Recently the House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which merges the US military industrial complex with Israel’s. The vote had to be disturbing, if not shocking, to the Israel Lobby which has counted on passage of the merger by a pliant Congress. The vote was 209 in favor, to 205 against. Though the Democrats, like the Republicans, are almost all recipients of AIPAC money, they voted as a bloc against passage of the $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027, with only six ...

Name has strong connection to city hospital

The OBSERVER’s View

A visit to the Brooks-TLC web site offers some history regarding the hospital’s name. It notes, “Horatio G. and Julia A. Brooks never wanted their names on a building. In fact, they were both deceased when that moment came to pass and Brooks Memorial Hospital was created. “It was their two children that saw an opportunity to model honor for us,” the website says. “They saw it first-hand in the way their father and mother cared for their staff at the Brooks Locomotive Co. for so many years. They were deeply involved and attached to the health, safety and continued well-being ...

Pieces of personal history bring wealth of happiness

Commentary

Heirlooms are wonderful things. If you’re lucky you may find that Grandma’s brooch is worth $100,000 on Antiques Roadshow. Or maybe it’s just a keepsake that was passed down through the generations, with no value beyond sentiment. I have a number of keepsakes passed down to me from my ...

Thinking about the downside of bigness

Commentary

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 ...