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It’s not a secret that we all live on stolen lands

At the 2026 Grammy Awards, the very dour Billie Eilish shamed Americans for living on stolen land. What a wonderful way to signal her humanitarian virtue. Then reality struck: Somebody noted that Eilish’s multi-million dollar mansion sits on the same stolen land as the mansions of all those Woke elitists who applauded her mindless proclamation. Oops! But the Woke elitists are not giving the stolen land back, in spite of their self-righteous virtue signaling. They did not bring it up at the Oscars! But Woke Leftists are not the only ones spouting the stolen land narrative. The ...

County airport panel stays grounded

Members of the Chautauqua County Airport Commission have the right approach on the pending Essential Air Services, or EAS, application to the federal government to resume commercial-air service at the Chautauqua County Jamestown airport. Patience. Patience. Patience. Their patience was evident at their March 11 meeting. The commission, as part of Chautauqua County government, supported a well-thought-out EAS application that includes everything it could reasonably be expected to include. The application was submitted in 2025. We all but knew this: It would take not many weeks ...

U.S. has long history of trouble with Iran

Since the 1979 revolution the U.S. has been described as the “Great Satan” often followed by “Death to America” by Iran’s leadership. During the last 47 years Iran has been the greatest state sponsor of terrorism with the U.S. often the target. The U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, was attacked and seized on November 4, 1979, by a group of Iranian college students supporting the Iranian Revolution with 55 American staff held hostage for 444 days. In 1984 after the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed 241 U.S. military personnel at the ...

Anchors Aweigh — and all that jazz

When the Fredonia Opera House announced this concert, I closed my laptop and picked up the phone. The U.S. Navy Band’s Sea Chanters were at the Opera House for an evening concert last Friday and I wasn’t going to miss it. It seemed a shame for just Richard and me to enjoy it, so we invited two musician friends to join us. No, we weren’t generous big spenders. All tickets to all military band events are complimentary. Our four tickets arrived in the mail two days later. My friend Ann grew up playing the piano. These days she makes music mostly at church in both the choir and ...

America’s wins are always golden

Sitting in the living room fixed on the TV as the clock ticked down and the game between the USA and Canada Men’s Hockey teams was advancing to overtime, brought my memories full circle to 1980 as a group of us stood on tippy toes as the clock counted down during a game that represented so much more than just an amateur hockey game, or even the fact that it was at an Olympics held closer to home than I had ever witnessed. It was a contest of world domination. It was a contest of democracy versus communism. Much like the times of the late 1970s, portions of American life were ...

Mother Nature interferes with warfare

Sometimes we think that, as humans, with all of our technology, we can conquer anything. It just takes a hurricane or a flood to remind us of who really is in charge. The same is true in warfare. You can have all of the fancy software and technology in the world—but war still takes place over real terrain in real places. I was thinking of this recently when the war news came out that some 200 oil tankers were trapped, stuck in the Persian Gulf because of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Through that strait runs 20% of the world’s oil, so with its closing, oil prices jumped ...