Copy of a letter to Lee Reimer, CEO of Peck’s Markets

Dear Mr. Reimer:

I am writing this letter on behalf of myself and many other friends and acquaintances who are extremely displeased over the fact that Peck’s Markets has chosen to no longer sell The River Reporter. Many of us have chosen to express our extreme displeasure through action, by greatly curtailing or altogether suspending our shopping at Peck’s Markets until The River Reporter appears back on the shelves.

Just last month, a group of 2,500 activists, educators, policymakers, journalists and concerned citizens from across the country and around the world converged in St. Louis for the annual National Conference for Media Reform. The purpose of this event was to share ideas and debate strategies concerning our media system and the free press–a key concern to many here in our country. The key words here are “free press.” This is what separates a democracy from countries like China, Iran, North Korea and other third-world countries where freedom of speech is not tolerated, where a free press does not exist and where living is often intolerable.

I read the article in The River Reporter that covered the demonstration outside your store in Narrowsburg. I believe it was their job to cover this story for their readers. Both sides seemed fairly represented. If for any reason you felt important facts were distorted or omitted, you could have made a choice to express your point of view in The River Reporter via a letter to the editor, while continuing to sell the newspaper at your stores. This would have been an opportunity for you to change opinions regarding the matter which led to the demonstration. Instead, you chose to boycott a highly valued local media resource and alienate and inconvenience a large number of loyal customers.

Whether or not to sell The River Reporter in your stores is a business decision that you are certainly entitled to make. But I think it is an unfortunate and self-defeating one.

Eldred tax increases

Your article on the Eldred budget re-vote is totally misleading to the voters in the Eldred School District! It states that if the budget is approved, it would prompt a 4.52 percent increase in individual tax bills in September. It also states if not approved would prompt a 4.5 percent decrease in the new tax bills. The numbers above only describe the change in tax rates and not the taxes we will be charged. For your information, the actual tax to be paid is arrived by multiplying your assessment in thousands by the tax rate. The average increase in assessment is 11-13% and the tax rate increased by 4.5 percent, which adds up to a minimum of 15.5 percent increase in your tax bill. I sincerely hope that the voters do not get misled by this article.

(Editor’s note: Mr. Waclaw is correct in saying that the numbers quoted referred to the tax rate on any individual property, not necessarily their overall tax bill and reflects the amount that a tax bill would increase assuming that the assessment remained the same. A clarification also appears on page 2 of this newspaper.)

An alternative education

Decisions by the Sullivan West School Board, the closing of Delaware Valley and Narrowsburg Schools, and the busing issue suggest some may want to consider an alternative education. For $7.95/day ($2,900/year) a student can attend Glory to God Christian High School in Liberty.

Of course, the parents must be willing to allow their children to learn about the Ten Commandments and to pray in school. Discipline, respect for authority and others, hard work and individual attention are the norm. The public school tries, but in our “pluralistic postmodern” society it is difficult to teach some important principles of life. In 1940, talking out of turn, chewing gum, making noise, running in the hall, cutting in line, and dress code infractions were the top problems in public schools; by 1990 drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery and assault were on top. Has it improved?

Below are excerpts from, “America’s Failing Public School System” by Ashley Anderson, 16 years old, concerning her experience in public school. Her parents chose to send her to a Christian School.

“They were manipulating my compassionate feelings and using them against me to make me want what they call ‘equality.’

“Most kids in public schools are uncontrollable. How can any learning actually take place? Respect for authority, integrity, and honor are not virtues generally practiced by students who attend public school.

“What is the most important thing? Is it more important to play football or be a cheerleader...or to actually learn something that will be valuable to you the rest of your life?”

Consider reading “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America” by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former senior policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Education. What if the Bible is true?

What so proudly we hail

Every year on June 14, we observe Flag Day. On May 30, 1916 President Woodrow Wilson in his proclamation established Flag Day as an annual national celebration. It is not an official national holiday, but every year the president proclaims a public observation of our national flag on June 14.

The flag is a symbol that has a special meaning for people. It brings joy and courage and in some instances sacrifice. To protect our flag from disgrace, many men and women have died. Our national flag has few popular names: the Stars and Stripes, the Star-Spangled Banner or Old Glory. The national flag stands for our country’s land, its people, its government and its ideas. So it is our duty to protect and honor our flag. That is why June 14 is established as a Flag Day, when we should proudly display our national flag.

On June 14 I drove though the main roads of our Town of Lumberland to ascertain how our residents observed that day. To my disappointment only few houses were decorated with our Old Glory. But, on the other hand, I have to compliment our town government for beautifully decorated town hall building on that occasion.

It would be really nice and patriotic if we, the citizens of Town of Lumberland, next year on June 14 proudly display and decorate every house and establishment in our town with our national flag, the highest symbol of our country.

An unsuspected windfall

The virtual abandonment of the Norfolk Southern Corporation's railroad operations in the Upper Delaware region is raising serious questions about the status of the right of way and who will ultimately own it.

Some time ago, a local resident contacted me after conducting a survey and an informal title search of her property. It seems that her surveyor found an 1848 deed which indicated that in the event the railroad was ever abandoned, the right of way would go back to the landowners who granted the original easement to the railroad, or their heirs or assignees.

Lawyers refer to such stipulations as, “reversionary rights.” A good source of information on this subject is the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners (NARPO). You can access their tremendously valuable website on your home computer using the Google search engine.

A June 1, 2003 reference on the NARPO website says, "Two California property owners get $360,000 rails-to-trails settlement from (the) federal government." This worked out to six hundred dollars a foot for adjoining property owners.

Given the size of that particular settlement, my guess is that much of the Norfolk Southern right of way would be worth thousands of dollars per foot today, especially where it abuts the Upper Delaware River and is essentially prime waterfront property with great views.

I urge all property owners adjoining the Norfolk Southern railroad line to begin researching their deeds now just in case the Central New York Railroad's attempt to function here as a short line fails. If the circa 1848 deed to your property contains the necessary language which extinguishes the easement creating the original right of way when the railroad is ultimately abandoned, it could prove to be essential in establishing your claim to this valuable resource.
Noel Van Swol
Long Eddy, NY

Divine wrong

With all the corporate-friendly actions the Bush Administration has taken favoring the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries, the drug companies and HMOs, the investment houses of Wall Street, the aerospace and weapons industries, and the special favors for Halliburton and Bechtel, some critics are saying that the White House, Inc. is trying to turn the clock back to the days of the robber barons in the early years of the 20th century.

If President Bush's detractors were to research the matter more thoroughly, they would find his ambitions extend beyond a mere 100-year time frame. According to the Israeli press, George said that God spoke to him and told him "to strike al Qaeda ... then to strike at Saddam ... and to solve the problems in the Middle East." [Recorded conversation with Mahoud Abbas]. He has also declared that God wanted him to be president. John Ashcroft, in another context, said George didn't need constitutional authority because "we have a mandate from God."

The American Psychiatric Association, in its manual of mental disorders, lists such beliefs under its diagnostic code 297.1 as the “grandiose” type.

It is clear that George II wants to restore the divine right of kings, perhaps in the tradition of Henry VIII or Louis XIV, and is already acting like an absolute monarch. Heaven help us if he hears (George doesn't read) about the rulers of the ancient world. The Sumerian king Gilgamesh, the Egyptian Pharoahs, and Alexander the Great considered themselves as half human and half deity.

Expressions of life

I am what one would call a “blues music nut.” Since I first heard the sound in 1955, at the tender age of 16, I have loved both the music and the message that pours out of it. It expresses life in its most basic condition, with things like lost love, cheating wives, husbands and girlfriends, lost jobs, trying to make ends meet, gambling, drinking, revenge, and doting on happier times in the past. Often the primary message is that no matter how bad one’s life has been, there is always hope for things to get better in the future.

My favorite lyrical expression of one wanting revenge, for whatever reason, is “I asked the girl for water and she brought me gasoline, that is about the meanest women I’ve ever seen.” Sometimes what goes into the words of a song is a very basic expression of human nature. One such song line states; “everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.” The best of good blues singing comes from the black race, many of whom have lived the hard times they express in blues music. Being alone and segregated with no friends, or a lover, or money, or even a place to live, are common themes.

People often ask why I listen to what they perceive to be very depressing expressions of the human condition. For me it’s a continual reminder that my own life, no matter what happens, is pretty good when compared to that of those who sing the blues from their own personal experiences. There is a feeling of optimism that comes from both the words and the music that is commonly found in one phrase of numerous blues lyrics, “Yea, I’m down, but I won’t be down always, You know the sun gonna shine in my back door someday.”