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Antisemitism brings darkness to Hanukkah

On Saturday night, we went to bed after learning of the tragic attack resulting in the deaths of two students and the wounding of nine others at Brown University in Providence, R.I. We awoke on Sunday morning to learn of the vicious attack on Australian Jews resulting in at least 15 dead and 40 wounded as they celebrated the first night of Hanukkah at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Hanukkah, the Jewish “Festival of Lights,” is the eight-day holiday that commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after a rebel group led by Judah Maccabee defeated the Syrian Greeks and ...

One person can make a difference

In 1971, the Art Metal plant in Ashville closed. What was to be done with it? There were not many companies interested in taking over a 1 million square foot manufacturing facility in Upstate New York. The county had taken over the responsibility for the building through its Industrial Development Agency (IDA,) but for three years this shell of a huge manufacturing facility remained empty. Then, one day, a faraway company from the State of Indiana called and expressed interest in taking a look at it. On the day that a person from Cummins Engine came to take a look at the plant, a ...

Allowing Ukraine to stand alone

On December 1, 1991, the people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly 92% to 8% to be an independent country, no longer a part of the Soviet Union (which soon dissolved on December 26, 1991). From December 2, 1991, onwards countries around the world recognized Ukraine as an independent state. For over 30 years the world recognized Ukraine (which had been the second largest Republic in the USSR) as an independent and sovereign nation before Russian President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Putin alleged that Ukraine, in fact, was not a nation but an historic ...

Making the case for taxing the Left

Internal Revenue Service data indicate that the top 1% of taxpayers pay about 45% of all income taxes in the United States. The same data indicate that 49% of the U.S. population contributes absolutely nothing. Yet we still hear the nonsensical “Tax the rich!” mantra on infinite replay (yawn). It started with Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848. Marx – the quintessential socialist who mooched off others all his life — thought that confiscating the earnings of productive people would be fun. Socialist movements always start with “Tax the rich!” and always end in ...

Parishioners work with Holy Spirit

JAMESTOWN — Oh, Happy Day. Or maybe we can—under these special circumstances — take the liberty of putting that another way: “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum.” Those are the words — “I announce to you a great joy” — with which a cardinal standing on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City heralds the election of a new pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Such words also apply to the Dec. 6 announcement that Jamestown’s Holy Apostles parish — which includes Saint John Roman Catholic Church and Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church—will not ...

Jackson understood balance of power

Many people in Western New York, the United States and in fact the World are familiar with Robert H. Jackson. Mr. Jackson was born in Spring Creek Township, Pa., in 1892 and moved to Jamestown when he was quite young. There, when he was only 18, he joined a general practice law firm. In 1932, he was initially called by President Franklin Roosevelt to move to Washington, D.C. for a series of increasingly responsible positions including the U.S. Solicitor General, U.S. Attorney General, Associate Justice on the U.S Supreme Court, as well as the position that he is perhaps best known ...