THE BEST THING YOU COULD say about the sign is that it was made from recycled garbage, literally.

It was stuck in the ground in the middle of the night in front of a home in the Town of Ghent. It’s not clear why that particular home was targeted except that in the past the homeowners have placed lawn signs supporting Democrats. Some of those earlier signs were ripped up or thrown away.

A similar sign appeared at another Ghent home the same night.

As this political season grinds toward an off-year election in November, it looks like our local political sign snatcher has returned. Or maybe a new generation of political vandals has emerged. Whoever it is, he (or she or they) decided to craft a new sign from pieces of an old one—so the snatcher gets credit for recycling. And this time around he’s adding a sign to the roadside rather than stealing the signs that belong to somebody else. But this is an escalation that no one should ignore or applaud. It’s not a prank. This is a threat to one of our neighbors. Read more…

IT’S RELATIVELY EASY to rev up a crowd of like minded people with speeches condemning hot button problems. It’s a lot harder to stun a crowd into near silence. But late last Saturday morning that’s exactly what Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson did at the pro-choice rally at Seventh Street Park, when he labeled the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade “an act of terrorism.”

It was not that demonstrators had lost interest in the mayor or in the politicians and others who spoke. Nor, apparently, did they reject his characterization of the Court’s decision. It looked to me as if the crowd was thinking through the mayor’s words and found them true.

It’s not as if heated language is new in the struggle over abortion rights. Anti-abortion supporters often tar abortion providers as “murderers” while not applying the same description to the men (as far as we know it’s only men) who have murdered doctors who made the termination of an unwanted pregnancy medically safe. What made the mayor’s description so striking was the target—the six Republican justices who make up the super majority on the Supreme Court.

Regardless of the rhetoric, it’s not clear yet how far the high court and anti-abortion groups want to go in order to force states like New York to ban all abortions. This state had strong laws protecting abortion rights before Roe v. Wade. Earlier this year, when the draft of court’s decision was leaked to the press, Chelly Hegan, president of Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, said New York was gearing up to provide abortions for women from states where abortion would be outlawed. Read more…

(Alert: This is a 2-paragraph rant followed by the editorial.—The Publisher) WITH ALL THE THINGS to worry about, why add poison ivy? It’s not even an invasive species. It’s an all-American menace. It produces an oil that causes prolonged, painful itching so intense that it could be weaponized.

Some lucky people aren’t allergic to the poison ivy oil, which is called urushiol. It’s also produced by poison oak and poison sumac. Those of us who believe we break out in a rash just looking at these creepy plants could easily believe there’s a secret government facility in the desert stacked with barrels full of urushiol.

The above reflects a personal phobia. But there are critters and plants, large and small, that do pose threats of various kinds. Some of the latest were reported last week in Diane Valden’s story on the ninth Invasive Species Awareness Week (“Who invited them to our place?” June 9, Page 1). The observance ended June 12. It turns out that the invasive insect making state Department of Environmental Conservation experts most worried is the brightly colored spotted lanternfly. This bug has bad manners. Like the ability to destroy crops like grapes, hops, apples, blueberries and more, including ornamental and woody trees.

After the spotted lanternflies picnic on fruit and leave damaged crops behind, then they poop in such volume that it leads to the growth of mold, which leads to more ruined crops and lost revenues. The state reports the yearly grape crop has a value $150 million. Read more…