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Opinion

Loss of seeds is food for thought

Commentary

The world of commercial seeds has reached the point in a Monopoly game when one person owns everything and everyone else is paying rent. To understand how we got here we have to understand the relationship between humans and plants through the millennia. At first, 100,000 years ago, people were just eating what they could find. Then around 10,000 years ago the Earth entered a steady state with regular seasons and people started deliberately planting things and eating what they had planted. At first, some settled down and formed little communities while others traveled with the ...

Unpredictable Iran keeps U.S. on defensive

Editor's corner

Nothing is ever a certainty when dealing with Iran. Despite more than a week of waiting for an agreement with the Middle East power and nemesis, President Donald Trump’s team led by Vice President JD Vance, were in gridlock earlier this week. Iran is a master of deception. Even when it ...

Subversion exploits openness, generosity

Commentary

CHAUTAUQUA—Chautauqua Institution’s 2026 season kicks off this weekend. Among the first speakers is Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, who addresses Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua, or ABC, at 3 p.m. Monday in the Athenaeum Hotel. * * * Before getting to that, let’s salute ABC’s hundreds of supporters, without whose encouragement—both moral and financial—ABC couldn’t have enjoyed the success that it has enjoyed and which needs to continue. You, faithful reader of this column, already understand that their effective persistence ...

Two decades of madness raging on

Commentary

Most weeks, I like to write about personal experiences that other people can relate to, and imbue them with humor, snide comments, or everyday frustrations. This week is different. I’m mad. It is an anger still festering after 20 years Tom O’Brien, my late husband, died of esophageal ...

The OBSERVER’s View: Voicing concerns on public comment

The OBSERVER’s View

Public comment is making the news in the north county following concerns in both the town of Arkwright and the village of Fredonia. Within the last month, the municipalities — for better or worse — have addressed the issue. Fredonia took the most drastic step. For at least three months, trustees and Mayor Michael Ferguson have said they will still allow comment through written statements, but no longer for speakers in a 3-2 vote Monday. “Our thin skinned mayor doesn’t like being corrected, fact checked or criticized for his missteps. He especially does not like being ...

There’s no fine line between right, wrong

Commentary

The anti-ICE protests continue outside the Delaney Hall ICE facility in New Jersey. Protesters are now mostly out of state professionals. It all began on May 22, after detainees at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark launched a hunger and labor strike over alleged poor living ...