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The return of the natives

I like to write about the annual robins who nest on my back porch. I enjoy watching their month-long odyssey from the home building to the final fledgling fly-off. Last year’s model must have liked the neighborhood, because Rosie Robin (as I had named her) is back. And she has brought along two friends. I don’t know whether she is the same momma robin for sure, but she certainly looks like last year’s model … same red breast, same yellow bill, same black, beady, watchful eyes – amazingly just like the picture in my bird book. And her two sidekicks look identical, enough to ...

‘Violations’ right before our eyes

I am responding to the commentary “Rallies prove many unfazed by big spending” (April 12). The article is filled with misleading information, accusations that cannot be substantiated, and far right radical interpretations of data. First point, Social Security is no ponzi scheme. It is money we paid into our entire working lives, trusting it will then be there for us when we retire. It became law in 1935 in part to keep seniors out of poverty. It has expanded to include benefits to other groups, such as widows and individuals with disabilities. For nearly 90 years, it has ...

We’re slowly already losing freedom

I am GenX, the forgotten generation remembered by memes saying we drank from garden hoses and weren’t allowed home until the streetlights came on. Like most of my ilk it is what I prefer. Never in a million years would I have thought I would be writing something like this but here goes. I grew up in Iowa in a largely German and very Christian community where factories were the main employer. Much like Western New York, blue-collar with hard working families barely getting by during the ‘80s recession. My single mother taught me to believe that if you work hard, are true to your ...

Editor, OBSERVER: A recent column by one of the many pro-Trumpers around here offered up "pragmatism" as the reason so many Democrats hate President Donald Trump. Here are just a few of the real reasons. Trump has repeatedly disrespected our men and women in the Armed Forces, a service he himself avoided back in the day. Trump lied profusely during the campaign about immigrants in Ohio eating neighborhood pets, even after the facts proved otherwise. Trump is a felon convicted of 34 counts of financial fraud. Trump is a civilly convicted of sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll. Trump ...

The home of state champions

This has been quite a year for sports in our county. Several schools won at the sectional level, we have had state championships in wrestling and swimming, and recently the Frewsburg Girls Basketball team and the Panama Boys Basketball team brought home state championships. Sometimes we get overly obsessed with our smallness and remoteness as a community. When we are out-of-town and asked about where we live we often say: “Oh, a few miles south of Buffalo...” thinking that the inquirer may assume that we are from New York City and that Buffalo is the only upstate place that ...

Wind industry keeps preying on region

The industrial wind grifters are back. This time their targets are the towns of Ellery, Stockton, North Harmony, Sherman, Westfield, and Ripley. The snake-oil salesmen are busy signing up landowners — promising them lots of taxpayer-provided money to lease their land to Bedrock Renewables (Golden, Colo.) which is looking to erect 600-foot industrial wind turbines across the western portion of Chautauqua County. The Wind Target Zone stretches across the fourth most important migrating bird flyway in North America on the Lake Erie escarpment where flocks of birds seek the updrafts ...