For weeks I have been ignoring a series of near-daily, annoying text messages from my pharmacy saying the new Covid-19 vaccine is in.

This Saturday marks the end of Banned Books Week, an annual national event examining efforts to censor books and ideas.

A driving trip last week took me from my floating home in a bucolic area of the Pacific Northwest deep into ultra-urban Northern California.

The New York Times and the Washington Post are taking a justified pounding from media critics over hypercritical analysis of the Democratic Party candidates for president and vice president.

Seneca Meadows Inc. is hot to get a state permit to expand and continue its landfill operations until 2040.

The national spotlight shined brightly last week on Democratic Vice President candidate Tim Walz of Minnesota, particularly after he gave a barn-burner of a speech the third night of the Democratic National Party convention in Chicago.

On my third day as a beginning reporter at the daily Napa Register newspaper, my editor handed me a copy of a competitor’s paper. A story was circled in red on the front page. Two Napa residents had been injured in a boating accident on a nearby lake, the article said.

It’s the season for weddings and parties in the Finger Lakes. And like most people, I have favorite songs — particularly if dancing is part of the celebration. Some songs get my toes lightly tapping. Some launch me out of my seat to hit the dance floor. Some put my feet to sleep.

Last Sunday my phone blew up with alerts from the Seneca Lakes Pure Waters Association that harmful algal blooms were being reported up and down Seneca Lake. From north to south and east to west, reports were delivered to people who have signed up to receive warnings.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation last week telegraphed it likely will approve a permit application that would allow for a major expansion of a gravel-mining operation from 14 to more than 75 acres in the Village of Watkins Glen.

The deck of my friend’s house in the woods overlooking the south end of Seneca Lake was ideal, a nature-filled setting to sip my Sunday-morning tea and quietly meditate, well away from the crowded, noisy touristy hubbub in Watkins Glen and Watkins Glen State Park down the hill.

After two jet flights last week from Portland, Ore., to Elmira, N.Y., I was exhausted and ready to get to a cousin’s guest room in Hector. It was already midnight after a 12-hour-plus cross-country sojourn.

The thermometer at my Lakewood, N.Y., home was just outside the back door when I was growing up, easily checked to see how hot — or cold — the day was.

The combination of now-roiling national political turmoils, coupled with the recent sudden death of a family member, pushed me this week to travel into a Northern California wilderness blanketed with a natural quiet and steeped in history. It was so quiet this morning I could hear a young ra…

I cannot imagine the Town of Hector without Roger Beardslee.

Last week, I attended a troubling national media teleconference about former U.S. President Trump’s proposed immigration plan, a plan breathtaking in scope, potential impacts on people, and threats to the national economy.

This Father’s Day, hazy memories of my long-deceased Dad flood my thoughts.

Controlling children’s cell phone use in schools is an excellent, long-overdue idea.

Merle Butler. That name leaps into my thoughts every Memorial Day. This year it happened as I hoisted the Stars and Stripes on the flagpole on my deck.

Newspapers have enough problems these days without shooting themselves in the foot.

A person’s private library tells you a lot about who they are.

Opponents of the continued operation of the Seneca Meadows Inc. landfill should put on their best reading glasses and study the scoping document released in early April by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

A few weeks ago, Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley was speeding home — literally — when a Webster police officer observed her doing 55 mph in a 35 mph zone, prompting him to hit the lights and siren for her to pull over.

American author Mark Twain once said, “Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

Public opposition and outrage over a proposal to expand a Watkins Glen gravel mining operation from its present 14 acres to a whopping 75 acres are well justified. The gravel mine is on the edge of the village, and the expansion would pose a clear threat to the village and Watkins Glen State Park.

The recent wailing by four Finger Lakes state legislators about the passage of a bill that effectively halts proposed efforts to “frack” for natural gas using liquid carbon dioxide instead of water was predictable. The complaining legislative quartet in general favors fracking for natural gas.

When major newspaper chains Gannett and McClatchy announced in March they would no longer run Associated Press stories in their publications, there was a collective gasp of disbelief in newspaper newsrooms across the nation.

During the Covid-19 crisis, the air quality in the San Francisco Bay Area went from foul to clean almost overnight. Automobiles, trucks and many diesel-exhaust spouting buses were parked while people stayed home, hunkered down to protect against viral infection. It clearly identified a major…

The biggest winner in the recent election whether to dissolve the Wayne County Village of Wolcott was the community itself.

One year ago I decided I would read — or reread — the 50 books published by my favorite American author, Jack London, whose life story and works figure prominently in my life. But, several months and a half-dozen books into that reading-fest, my dedication slowed … then stopped.

In the spring of 1970, Jamestown’s weather shifted almost daily from balmy to harsh sleet and snow. Then back to balmy.

One of the most haunting of fears for any parent is their child might die before them.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s current, less-than-helpful attitude toward the public in Schuyler County is coming to a head over the DEC’s unwillingness to extend the public comment period for a controversial project.

The debate in my college dormitory at Villanova University in Philadelphia was heated for months before the first Super Bowl was played Jan. 15, 1967.

When friends have recently retired, or made radical shifts in how they spend their days, I have been detecting tinges of regret mixed with excitement about what lies ahead.

Last week’s column about journalism movies drew a small avalanche of comments, all of which are appreciated.

Many people are uber-critical of films made about their industries or jobs.

When teaching about media law and courts to journalism undergraduates, I always emphasized two cautionary caveats about judges. First, inside the walls of a courtroom, the judge is the law. The second is: Don’t forget it.

Some news stories hit closer to home than others — literally.

Residents of the Village of Wolcott will go to the polls March 12 to vote on a single measure: Dissolve the village government vs. keep it and its municipal infrastructure.

Hygge is my new favorite word — and aspiration — for 2024.

This holiday season my gift to others will be time.

I plead guilty to being a late adopter of most new, whiz-bang technology.

I heard an intriguing term — “technical arrogance” — this past week while watching “The Day After Trinity,” a 1981 documentary film about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the team of scientists, mathematicians, chemists and others who worked to develop the first atomic weapon at the end of World War II.

Reading news about the Israeli-Hamas war has been excruciating. Even the news reports about the ceasefire were difficult to peruse. But, last Sunday, New York Times columnist and foreign affairs editor Thomas Friedman published a long analysis and explanatory report that presented a possible…

Reading the avalanche of news stories and commentary this past week about the next U.S. Presidential election, “Not the odds, but the stakes” jumped out at me. It came in an article quoting noted New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen.

As long as there is oil and gas in the ground in upstate NY, some enterprising out-of-state corporation will want to wrestle it out of the earth.

Last week I met my newest grandchild, a healthy 8-pound girl born just 10 days before.

The expression “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” is attributed equally to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and to 19th-century Spanish American writer and philosopher George Santayana.

People’s health should always be a higher priority than corporate profits.