The Columbia Paper

EDITORIAL: Post should say more

November 25, 2020 by PARRY TEASDALE

THE DATE THAT MATTERS is December 4. Nothing much out of the ordinary is likely to show up earlier, though how we and our neighbors behave on November 26 may give us a clue.

Eight days is an estimate of when the symptoms may begin to appear. At least some of people exposed to the coronavirus on Thanksgiving Day will test positive for Covid-19 by the first week of December. It can happen sooner or later by a week or more. The number of people exposed determines how many new cases we’ll see. That grim number will be followed by a rise in the number of hospitalizations. Then come the deaths.

Governor Andrew Cuomo thinks the public doesn’t appreciate the number of cases of Covid-19 we will see all across New York State in the weeks after Thanksgiving. So last week he signed an executive order that restricts Thanksgiving gatherings to no more than 10 people. Read more…

EDITORIAL: Choose freedom, not virus

November 19, 2020 by PARRY TEASDALE

WHAT DOES IT MEAN if there are over 55 million cases of this damn virus worldwide? Exactly how does it affect our lives that the number of Covid-19 cases is 11.3 million and rising in the U.S.?

It’s easier to pick a day. How about Tuesday, November 17? At that point we had 93 “active cases” of Covid-19 in Columbia County. You probably could have seen that many people in Walmart that day if you were shopping there or getting your annual flu vaccine shot, not that the store has a connection to the pandemic.

Now multiply the active cases by 5 to account for the people who are under mandatory quarantine and you get a total of over 450 people who have temporarily “disappeared” from life as we know it in Columbia County. Read more…

EDITORIAL: Can we talk?

November 12, 2020 by PARRY TEASDALE

THE DUST HASN’T SETTLED. Instead it swirls faster. What’s troubling so many of us now shows no signs of improvement. What chance do we have that things will get better when the situation seems so dire?

Good question. Should we accept this anxiety as inevitable? Dismiss calls for reconnection with a shrug and a sigh. The problems are too big. The gulf between us and our neighbors too wide. They’re still wrong; we’re still right. There’s no reason to bridge the gap between us. And why would we want to?

Start with that last question: Why try? One answer is that no matter whose side we’re on, we share a desire to to survive. And there’s more to survival than food and water, clothing, a job and a place to live. We’re social creatures and wherever we live, we tend to connect with each other through groups, even when a pandemic stalks us all. Read more…

EDITORIAL: There’s no fraud

November 5, 2020 by PARRY TEASDALE

IF WE’RE GOING TO BE CALLED “the enemy of the people” for another four years, I’d prefer that the person making that remark was a legitimately elected president.

What we do know right now is that we don’t know who the next president will be, no matter what the current president says.

What we also know that we have county elections officials who are doing a good job at making sure our votes get counted and the public knows the results. The unofficial results were available not long after the polls closed, which is how it should be in our digital age. The numbers have to be unofficial because absentee ballots have not yet been counted.

The next steps include “reconciliation” of ballots. What election officials do is to make sure nobody ends up voting twice. What? Fraud? Rigged Election? No! Anyone eligible to vote in New York state can send in an absentee ballot and then change his or her mind and vote in person. The county elections board staff checks all absentee ballots to be sure there is not also a voting machine ballot from the same person. If there is, the absentee ballot is discarded. That takes time. Read more…

EDITORIAL: Barrett for Assembly

October 29, 2020 by PARRY TEASDALE

DIDI BARRETT HAS REPRESENTED THE 106^TH DISTRICT in the state Assembly for eight years. She is running on the Democratic, Working Families and Independence ballot lines. Her opponent is Dean Michael, who appears on the Republican, Conservative and Libertarian lines.

The district includes: the City of Hudson; the Columbia County towns of Ancram, Claverack, Clermont, Copake, Gallatin, Germantown, Ghent, Greenport, Livingston, Taghkanic; and parts of Northern Dutchess County.

One place to start in describing the impact Ms. Barrett has had on Columbia County is with her committee assignments in the Assembly: Agriculture; Environmental Conservation; Mental Health; Veterans’ Affairs; and Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports Development. She is the county’s go-to person and our indispensable ally in Albany. Read more…