New York still doesn’t have a new state budget. Instead, Governor Hochul and the Democrat-led State Legislature are running state government on a series of emergency extender measures, ten in total as of this writing.
It’s no way to run a government. It produces uncertainty, concern, and a lack of confidence, rightly so, about where the state is headed.
Governor Hochul went solo early last week, like she did last year, and announced a “general agreement” on what she claimed will be a $
Today, while riding with my wife, she told me that an employee of McDonald's stormed out of one of their fast-food restaurants because he could not manage the pressure when managers asked them to do what their job is about, “Service.”
I immediately had a flashback to my home in Brooklyn sometime in 1946. Two brothers-in-law, one a general practitioner and the other a worker in the Manhattan garment district who worked for a manufacturer of fur coats. Also present, two brothers, both were me
by Annie Holmquist
Gallup just released its World Happiness Report and found – for the second year in a row – that the U.S. did not make the list of the top 20 happiest nations.
Not many of us will be surprised by that result. In fact, we may even raise our hands and admit, “Yes, that’s me, I’m part of the unhappiness problem in America.”
Discontentment and unhappiness hit even the most cheerful of us occasionally. We look at our jobs, our marriages, our houses, our social lives,
photo courtesy of NormanyBattlefields.com
by Rachel Dworkin
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, just as the sun was setting, two waves of Douglas C-47s towing Horsa and Waco CG-4A gliders flew east over Utah Beach in Normandy, France. They were headed for Ste-Mére-Eglise, just a few miles in from the coast. Loaded aboard the 176 gliders were 1,190 troops, 59 vehicles, 25 anti-tank guns, and 131 tons of ammunition. It was Operation Elmira and they were flying into trouble.
The first glider com
Note - Sean and his wife Jamie are currently on a pilgrimage in Spain, walking the El Camino de Santiago. You can keep up with their travels on Sean's Facebook page and website. In the meantime, here's a post from January 2025:
Dear Lynn,
It’s weird. Weird knowing that you won’t be reading this today. You always read my stuff. It’s how we met. Which only raises questions about your taste in literature.
Directly after you’d read my stuff, you’d email me. You did this nearly every
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about how I became the person I am today. There was a time when parents did not have to worry about where their children were, no matter the time of day, and it was then that I learned about small potatoes. We were about twelve years of age. We called the small potatoes Mickey's, and there were potatoes we would take (steal) from our mother's bin, believing their mother wouldn't notice the missing potato. One of us would then search for a discarded crate,
The word on the street out of Albany is that Governor Hochul and the Democrat-led State Legislature could be on the doorstep of enacting a new state budget that’s already a month behind schedule.
Yet that’s the point. It remains just a word on the street. Which means that whenever the governor and legislative leaders get around to finalizing a new budget, New Yorkers are still going to be left with a broken budget adoption process.
It’s a process that every step of the way keeps the pu
There’s beauty all around us in even the simplest of things… if we just take the time to truly see.
Sometimes when the days were hectic and I’d get overwhelmed, just sitting in my gardens would help wash away the stress, like a cleansing of the soul, with time to ponder and pray. But in the depths of a cold winter, I’d set out sunflower seeds, peanuts in the shell, and suet… to quietly watch the birds descend on the dining bounty. Whether sitting in a summer garden surrounded by blooming
He was tall, lean, and young. When he approached me, he hugged me. Then, his mother hugged us both. A three-person club sandwich.
He must’ve been a foot taller than I was. His voice squeaked with adolescence. His skin was freckled. He had a long neck. He recognized me.
“I liked your books, sir,” he said, through a nervous stutter.
Sir? No way. Such titles are reserved for men who wear penny loafers when fishing.
“I read them all when I was in the hospital,” the boy went on. “
“If I ever saw blessing in the air, I see it now in the still-early day…..” are words from poet, William Blake. *April days can be varied; turbulent and fierce, as refreshing as a cold drink of good water or as peaceful as a benediction. Early, when the sun is about to rise, the air is fresh and awash with colors, mistily gaining depth of hue as the sky grows lighter. Sometimes a veil of snow sweeps over the landscape. Spring is here with all its ups and downs.
This is Holy Week for wester
I continue to watch and listen to the Fox Business News channel. Yes, to a great extent, they (Fox Business hosts) continue to ignore the strategy of Dip Buying. Still, their guests, such as David Bahnsen of the Bahnsen Group and Kenny Polcari, who also manages an investment portfolio, continue to stress the importance of Dip Buying. And yes, others share the same strategy.
So, when I say listen but ignore, I mean listen to the guests, not the show hosts. Dip buying is a proven strategy bas
Local volunteer fire departments across the region and statewide are once highlighting one of New York’s most daunting challenges: the recruitment and retention of local volunteer firefighters and EMTs.
FASNY is launching a “Light Up NY Red” campaign this week, from April 21-27, coinciding with the start of the annual RecruitNY weekend on Saturday and Sunday, April 26-27, when volunteer fire departments statewide open their doors to raise public awareness.
“We’re working with state and
Impetuous Peter… the disciple like so many of us if we’re honest. I tend to speak quickly, not always giving as much thought to my answer as I should. My husband, on the other hand, would take time to formulate his reply. And I so often realized the depth of wisdom he shared in what he’d mulled over.
Then, there’s the side of us which is a bit miffed at someone’s denials of wrongs to protect themself. Does their conscience ever pierce their heart? Is there a snippet of guilt or shame
We’ve all heard the old adage that there are two sides to every story, and a classic trial brings that point out vividly. I’ve served on three juries in the past – one guilty, one given a lesser settlement than desired, and one not guilty. It’s an honor to be selected to sit with peers to carefully review and ponder the facts of the case as presented by the respective attorneys, and to be responsible for the right verdict. Certainly, some have abused the trial-by-jury system and condemned tru
Wake up early. Saturday morning. Leap out of bed. Oh, the bliss.
You sprint to the television set, racing your sister. Last one’s a rotten egg.
You are still wearing Superman pajamas. Beneath your Man-of-Steel PJs, you’re wearing Batman skivvies, which is a slight conflict of interest, but you make it work.
You slap the power button on TV. The old Zenith console warms up. The television is cased in a faux wooden cabinet, with warped oak-grain veneer from a bygone Dr. Pepper som
It’s a movie about a soul band. They’re from Ireland.
When it comes to describing the movie The Commitments, that’s a good place to start. The 1991 film is about a young Irishman’s dream of forming the best band soul band to ever come out of Ireland. An Irish soul band might not sound right, but in young Jimmy Rabbitte’s eyes, it makes perfect sense. If soul music is a product of the disenfranchised, then who better than the Irish to take a crack at it.
Or in his words:
With
Governor Hochul and the Legislature’s all-Democrat majorities still can’t agree on a new state budget, but they’ve shown where they’re headed time after time over the past several years.
Back in April 2021, when former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat-led Legislature were putting the finishing touches on their new, massive $212-billion state spending plan, it was a budget, we now know, that accelerated the irresponsible fiscal actions that have brought this state to where we are tod
Once upon a time, when I was still a paramedic and we’d just finished a particularly unusual call, I remarked to the E.R. doctor that someday I was going to write a book about what it’s like in that world.
“Honey, they’ll never believe it,” she said. And I know now that she was right.
Between my time on the streets and later when I worked in the emergency department, I spent sixteen years of my life, from age nineteen to my mid-thirties, seeing and dealing with the worst
I haven’t always been a morning person. God knows. When I was a young man I was anti-morning-people. Morning people were insane. My mother was a morning person.
As a boy, I’d awake to find my mother already in the living room, snuggled beneath a lamp, where she’d been reading for hours. The cat in her lap would just stare at me with moral disapproval.
“There will come a day,” Mama would say, “when you won’t sleep as good as you do now.”
My mother evidently put a curse on me. Be
“A light exists in Spring, not present in the year at any other period……” Emily Dickenson*
And this is true, there is a different light, along with a faint but discernable fresh aroma, and a friendly feel to the air when spring is easing in. The added light in the evening probably helps with that feeling. At least I do not find myself wanting to head for bed at 7 PM anymore, or not as often. There is so much out there to see, pussy willow’s gray fur will soon be covered with yellow po
Albany’s leaders left the Capitol late last week after shrugging off the enactment of a new state budget that’s already a week late.
The holdup remains over several public policy discussions, including discovery reform, involuntary commitment of the severe mentally ill, and maybe a few others. In other words, non-budget policy discussions.
Not the desperately needed economic and fiscal discussions that should be dominating this budget process.
No discussions over high taxes, even
I started a small business in 1977 with my nephew under the name Candor Specialty Packaging, and when we incorporated, it was with two hundred shares. I held fifty shares, and my partner holding the other fifty shares. We withheld one hundred shares in case we wanted to take in another partner later. But corporations listed on the NYSE typically incorporate with millions of shares because they never know how many investors they are going to need to get their business up and running. Sometimes th
There is One who walked this earth long ago, who shared this life, and who felt the same emotions we do… the One who walks this road beside us still. One who understands our fears and anxieties, telling us to come and bring all our cares to Him, to rest in His peace.
I suspect we tend to think of our Lord’s journey on this earth as one which was just as perfect as He was. We have the ability to look backward with Scripture in hand and see that Jesus’ three years of ministry were anyth
