Nations gain when leaders push ground-breaking ideas

Thanks to today’s twenty-four-hour-a-day news bombardment, it’s hard not to notice all the media speculation about one particular job. The Presidency.

What type of person makes for a good president? Someone highly educated or one in touch with regular Americans? Where should a president put his focus? What kind of ideas should he (she) have?

Questions like this are asked everyday, and answered in several ways, in newspapers, on radio, in social media, and on television.

One thing our president needs to be has nothing to do with policy or party affiliation.

Today’s president needs to be an innovator.

A friend recently offered this observation: Someone knowledgable of the past would seem best able to improve the future.

Although we often learn from our mistakes, we probably don’t want our president getting too much education of this kind while in office. Continue reading →

Search of self often finds with ideas that are good for all

Our ability to choose representatives and have a say in government policies is one of our great privileges in this country, and it’s rooted in the right we have to form our own opinions based on our own conclusions.

We debate, proclaim, and protest freely, sometimes wildly. But when all is said and done, hopefully common ground has been found and we can move forward together.

Still it seems our views have become more polarized, as the events around us inspire different thoughts and reactions.

We generally break down into Democrats and Republicans, liberals or conservatives.

This idea seems alarming—that a person’s entire range of thought can be reduced so precisely to one of two labels, Democrat or Republican. Not to mention the party loyalties that accompany, for better or worse.

Doesn’t a person’s conscience ever wander from that of the establishment? Still, most of us succumb to our sense of party loyalty.

This polarization is very dangerous, especially in our tiny community.

Some issues have much more weight in the Central Adirondacks. Since our towns are so small in population, citizens feel local issues and policies are much more of their business than the national debates, due to the immediate impact our town’s policies have on our everyday life.

Time should be taken to understand these problems, instead of rushing to a conclusion and ignoring the opposing opinion.

In spite of this view, there are many issues that cause divisions.

An example of such an issue is the annual debate over the school budget.

Our community takes sides: some are determined to save public tax dollars no matter what the consequences are to athletic teams or art classes, and others are constantly pushing for more “extras” for the kids, regardless of price.

Both stances are shortsighted because of the lack of compromise. Continue reading →

Adirondackers been known to take luge-run around difficulties

A big issue in the lives of Central Adirondackers, along with everyone else, is the economy; and who among us doesn’t have an opinion about it, especially local business owners and wage-earners.

We all wonder where the economy’s headed next and what we can do to fix it.

However, there are times when we in the Adirondacks can feel disconnected from the turbulance around us.

This “financial isolation” happened in 1932.

While the rest of the country tried to figure a way out of the Great Depression, Adirondackers welcomed skiers and skaters to Lake Placid to enjoy its luxurious mountain setting and compete for chunks of gold. Continue reading →

This election year, ya gotta believe—and participate

Voting puts the ‘you’ in U.S.A.

The United States has led the world for over a century as its foremost industrialized democracy, and most Americans—who look upon the distinction with pride—expect it to stay that way well into the future.

Recently, however, interest in our government has waned both nationally and locally, and certainly to our nation’s detriment.

I know from firsthand local encounters that too many view our government as someone else’s business.

They are content to sit back and deal with daily life in our small community.

People who consider themselves politically active generally try to make it to the voting booth, but wouldn’t sweat missing a vote much more than they would the morning weather report. There will be other chances, they say, and besides, my vote most likely won’t swing the results. Continue reading →