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POWs survive Soviet imprisonment

IMPERIA, Italy — From the veranda of a couple’s vacation home is a stunningly beautiful view. Brightly painted modest homes dot the high hills along the shore of this city on the Italian Riviera. On a sunny afternoon with nary a cloud in the sky, the Mediterranean Sea is blue all the way to the southern horizon. The couple and others in their generation of Germans were youngsters and perhaps young adults in the 1930s and 1940s, when life in their country was hard. For the then-future husband, who was away from his homeland from 1945 to 1950, life was even harder. That ...

Two old buddies in the leaves and weeds

It’s just past 10:00 a.m. and Old Tom is standing in my backyard. He has been a shoveling, bending, tugging figure out there for almost 20 years. Like me, Tom moves slower today than when he first agreed to help me. Today he is wearing a floppy hat, jacket, Bermudas and work boots, his usual costume for Spring. When he shows up at my house, he’s dressed for work. I first met Tom at church, 40-plus years ago. He and MaryLou were regulars but I never knew them well. Years passed. Tom retired and turned toward his hobby, gardening. Yet when church members needed help, Tom stepped ...

Democrats hate Trump for being a pragmatist

After extended research into the reasons progressives have developed an unreasoning hatred for Donald Trump I think I have discovered the deep seated source of that hate. It’s not that he is a populist looking to return government to the people, nor is it the fact that he is a brash businessman from New York City, nor that he, who was not even a professional politician, had the temerity to defeat the anointed heir apparent to the presidency, Hilary Clinton in 2016. It is simply that President Trump is a pragmatist and Democrats like Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, ...

High costs, troubling test results

As required by the federal government, state testing has once again come upon our schools. Over the next few weeks New York State children in grades three through eight will be sitting for assessments in Mathematics and English Language Arts. Fifth and eighth graders will also be taking a science exam. The New York State Education Department did not make much mention of the 2024 exam results nor did the media print their usual school comparison showing how each area school district fared on these proficiency exams. Could it be that the 2024 statewide results were just as middling as ...

The Great American School Musical

It always amazes me when I attend one of these. That local school kids can put on such an exceptional performance combined with all of the choreography and building of stage sets–is a great testament to our system of public education. As a grandparent of kids so involved, it makes me not a disinterested observer. When I go to one of these performances, I am all in. I keep my handkerchief close by as I know that at some point in the performance, I am going to tear up. One aspect of it is that “musicals,” as we know them, are primarily an American phenomenon. They are a Broadway ...

Region relies on PBS, NPR

This is a letter I sent to U.S. Rep. Nick Langworthy. I cannot believe Congress is considering a bill to defund NPR/PBS (No Partisan Radio Partisan Services Act) Is Congress really going to waste time trying to limit these broadly accessible media outlets that provide preschool children’s programs to children without access to preschools, improve public safety by networking first responders and issuing weather alerts to remote communities (your WARN Act would depend on this service) and for communities without access to cultural events? PBS offers a plethora of cultural ...