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This one was a whopper and most of us knew it instantly.

President Trump stared into the camera with steadfast earnestness - the way he once stared into the camera for a mugshot - and spun a yarn so fantastical, so outrageously unbelievable that if this was one of our elderly relatives, we would seek guidance from a psychological professional.

They were terrorists, Trump insisted.

“Radical Left Lunatics, most likely Dumocats,” Trump communicated as only he can on social media.

Armed with sharp objects, they cut through hundreds of feet of the newly installed reflecting pool liner to make Trump look bad and tarnish the image of America, the president claimed.

These were serious crimes, he wrote, then pledged the culprits would spend years in jail.

Trump orders up indictments these days the way most of us do takeout.

That’s where this story stops being amusing.

Those of you who have been following Trump’s serial untruths for the past 10 years know that The Washington Post - the one that had that Watergate reputation - chronicled 30,573 false or misleading claims by the president during his first term.

While the Post stopped counting after its fact-checker retired, Trump kept going. It’s not unreasonable to assume the untruths might be twice that now.

Sure, politicians have always had an uncomfortable relationship with the truth. Most can spin and twist the truth into unrecognizable pretzel shapes. But this reflecting pool fantasy is something else, and when regular people get hurt by it, then we all should be really concerned.

Poor David Hearn, an Olympic canoeists who was on a cycling trip through the District of Columbia, was the latest casualty when he stuck his hand into the reflecting pool water to touch pieces of the loose new liner.

He never got back on the bike.

“I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn told Washington Post reporters. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”

Jeanine Pirro, the D.C. prosecutor who once shared Trump’s lies on Fox News, looked into the cameras and announced the 67-year-old former Olympian had been indicted on felony vandalism charges for “trashing” sacred government property. If convicted, he faced 10 years in prison.

“This is not only a priority for the president, but for myself,” said Pirro “We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property.”

She did not do that.

Pirro’s office reversed course Friday with a 20-page filing that explained how her D.C. office had been misled by U.S. Park Police and the Department of Interior. It was a joke that the canoeist was even charged.

But none of this is funny.

Certainly not for Hearn.

Imagine not only being arrested on totally false pretenses and being dragged off in handcuffs, but then hearing the president of the United States had labeled you part of an un-American terrorist organization.

That’s not supposed to happen in America.

At least, not the America where I grew up.

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” Pirro said in the filing while asking the judge to dismiss the case.

Hearn’s lawyers told the judge the Department of Justice cannot be trusted to bring credible cases to the grand jury and that the Justice Department committed a far worse crime than the one Hearn was accused of.

The D.C. office also announced it was dropping the charges against three other defendants accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. Pirro’s office found the Department of Interior was to blame for shoddy workmanship on the Reflecting Pool and not vandals and that the “tremendous evidence” she said existed did not actually exist.

Announce first, investigate later was Pirro’s mantra in this case.

“The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim,” Hearn’s lawyers said on Friday. “The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

Ultimately, none of what Trump said was even remotely true about this case, but despite’s Pirro’s admission there was no evidence, Trump remained steadfast in his believe it was vandalism.

Politifact did an extensive fact check on the Reflecting Pool terrorism and found Trump’s statements “False.” But we knew that from the beginning.

I doubt many were surprised by that either, because we knew from the beginning this was another Trump fantasy.

It is a daily ritual.

He stated the war with Iran was over or a deal was about to be made more than 40 times in the past six months.

This past week he announced that his “Board of Peace” - he needed something to balance the “Department of War” - had gotten Hamas to give up its arms. The one condition was Israel must stop shooting missiles at them.

Israel responded by shooting missiles at them.

It is doubtful many of us opened champagne over the end of Mideast hostilities.

When national security experts laid the blame for a cyberattack on Iran, Trump responded, “I think Minnesota is behind it.”

Nobody blinked.

Nobody believed it either.

Federal officials privately told the New York Times that Iran remained the top suspect.

These are no longer lies being spun by the president, these are fantasies.

This is no longer “spin” as it used to be called in polite political circles, this is malfeasance.

It raises the question: Is the president ill-informed, or just ill?

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Film event

When Diane Collins approached me about moderating a discussion about the film “Orwell 2 + 2 = 5,” I reached out to my colleague Will Doolittle to see if he would join me.

The film tells the story of 1984 author George Orwell and his concerns about how the Nazis rose to power using propaganda and censorship, surveillance and manipulation of the language of truth.

Damn, if it didn’t sound a little bit like our own country in the past decade.

Collins is on the social justice committee for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Glens Falls that has scheduled a viewing of the film, “Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5,” on Monday, August 17 at Crandall Public Library, followed by a discussion.

The film builds on the discussion last month, when the room was filled at Crandall Public Library to hear Mary Miller’s “Fact-checking for all” presentation.

Her handouts will be available at this presentation as well.

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10 Commandments

The states of Louisiana and Texas both have laws to display the 10 Commandments in school classrooms.

A new lawsuit in Texas contends that posting the commandments in classrooms “substantially interferes with plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion, religious development, and rights to raise their children free of state-sponsored religion.”

Those lawsuits have been filed before, but this one takes advantage of a Republican-sponsored state constitutional amendment that guarantees parents the right to direct their children’s upbringing.

“I never intended to talk to my children this young about the Ten Commandments,” one of the plaintiffs told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “It’s not the set of moral absolutes that our family is run on.”

The state has defended the displays as being part of U.S. history instruction, rather than religion.

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Monty Python fans

For those Monty Python fans out there, Eric Idle will be coming to Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m. to discuss his new memoir.

Tickets are now on sale and include getting a copy of Idle’s book.

Eric Idle Tickets

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Read a good book

While the adaption into a play of my book, “The Last American Newspaper,” is getting some attention these days, I still urge readers to get the whole story by reading the book.

I just restocked Battenkill Books in Cambridge - if you have not been, it’s a great little bookstore - while Ace Hardware in Queensbury and the Chapman Museum in Glen Falls both have the book.

Pick up a copy today.

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Free speech

Free speech is a foundational principle of our country as long as it is not disruptive. What constitutes “disruption” is open to interpretation.

A Kansas school teacher is finding that out.

The Freedom Forum reported that Lux Claridge, a teacher, clapped for speakers opposing a data center during an Emporia City Commission meeting.

Commissioners warned that the clapping was disruptive. When Claridge continued to clap in support of the speakers, he was arrested by the police.

“The incident highlights the balance between First Amendment-protected speech and petition and disruptive conduct at public meetings,” the Freedom Forum wrote. “Under the First Amendment, people can express their views at public meetings, but officials may enforce reasonable rules to prevent disruptive conduct and apply those rules consistently, regardless of someone’s viewpoint.”

The question is whether it is “reasonable” that clapping is disruptive.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

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What makes our democracy strong is the belief in a set of principles - what is right and wrong - that we all generally share.

Those principles take many forms, starting with the rule of law, but at the grassroots levels of our cities, towns and villages is a demand for moral responsibility by our leaders.

We want to trust them.

We want to believe they will always do the right thing for the benefit of the citizens they represent.

But that has not alway been the case.

There are a multitude of cases where elected officials have done the wrong thing to benefit themselves, family members, friends or their political party.

Even here in Queensbury.

The town had a policy against letting its lawyers serve on political committees, but in November 2016, Councilman Doug Irish proposed the town replace its law firm with one run by the vice chairman of the Queensbury Republican Committee. Three of Queensbury’s councilmen also served as past or present officers on the Queensbury Republican Committee.

Councilman Anthony Metivier - he still represents Ward 1 - said there was a “huge conflict of interest” and voted against the measure, despite being threatened politically if he did not vote for it.

So it does happen.

Right here.

One of those councilmen who voted to replace the law firm was William Van Ness, who is running for Queensbury town supervisor this year.

The point is the code of ethics is important and voters should be concerned if it is being flouted. Even if it is just a little bit. It’s why the town of Queensbury smartly says in its ethics code that town employees “should avoid even the appearance of conflict.”

The current chairman of the Warren County Republican Committee, Tim McNulty, is also a Queensbury town councilman.

He is serving the people of Ward 4 on one hand and his political party on the other.

Two masters with two different missions.

There is already too much politics in our government, and it often seems like it’s who you know that matters if you want to land a good job or a big contract.

I addressed the Town Board in November 2024 and told them of my concerns.

They did not say or do anything to alleviate my concerns.

So I filed an ethics complaint with the town Ethics Board on Nov. 20, 2024. Last February, the Ethics Board ruled there was an “appearance of a conflict of interest.”

The board wrote in its ruling:

There appears to be an inherent appearance of a conflict of interest when a Queensbury Town Board member also serves as the chairman of a local political party. It provides an opportunity for that Queensbury Board member to further or make personal gains, in status and power and influence as the leader of a local political party. It also provides those same possibilities of gains to the political party that he is the prime member of, similar to his “family” or “tribe.”

In our opinion it is obvious that holding these positions simultaneously provides the opportunity to make decisions that benefit that person and his group/family/tribe rather than the citizens of Queensbury. We conclude that this creates the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Furthermore, holding both positions creates an open channel for unethical actions. Regardless of whether there has been a particular action that has raised concerns, the situation in and of itself may create a propensity for impropriety or at the very least the appearance of such. Much that occurs within the closed meetings of various political parties has little or no public transparency. The presence of this dynamic and the inherent lack of transparency could undermine public trust and confidence in our town board.

The ruling from this nonpartisan board was clear, but it did not lead to action.

It has been 18 months since that ruling. I have made multiple appearances before the Town Board, without action by the board.

So during the open forum at the town meeting Monday night, I brought it to their attention - AGAIN - and said this:

Eighteen months ago, the town of Queensbury Ethics Board found that Councilman Tim McNulty was in violation of the town’s ethics policy because McNulty has a duty to more than one organization.

This is a clear conflict of interest and the Ethics Board’s ruling states that clearly.

This Town Board has done nothing.

That is an embarrassment.

Each and every one of you should be ashamed.

A year ago, I spoke to this board, asking when it would act. Councilman Scott Gushlaw told me to be patient. That these things take time.

Eighteen months is clearly enough time. What are you waiting for?

More importantly, the town’s ethics policy is a set of principles to be abided by in your service to the community, and since one of you is in clear conflict, it raises questions about whether each and every one of you believes in those principles.

Election season is upon us and I will continue to spread the word of your failures as a board and your inability to act on this issue.

Each and every one of you should be voted out of office.

Because of their inability to act during this past year and a half, I’ve turned my attention to the voters of Queensbury and asked them to make this right, to drive politics out of town government because it is obvious the politicians have no intention of doing it.

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Brownell honor

Greg Brownell, the former sports editor of The Post-Star (he succeeded me in 1999,) will be inducted into the New York State High School Softball Hall of Fame next year.

I still see Greg from time to time - including last week at the “Fact-checking for all” event - and he never mentions little bits of news like this.

That’s Greg.

Greg was my assistant sports editor at the newspaper for 11 years, then my sports editor for 21 years. Definitely, one of the unsung heroes at The Post-Star for always going the extra mile.

From the very beginning, Greg was an enthusiastic supporter of girls high school sports at a time when they were often an afterthought at many papers.

The induction ceremony is set for Herkimer on June 19, 2027 at the Mudville Sports Complex. Greg will be inducted alongside former Fort Ann pitching star, Jamie (Graves) Culligan.

Graves was a four-time first team all-state selection and helped the Cardinals win the 1998 Class D state championship.

Brownell was chosen for the Hall of Fame as a “contributor” who covered high school softball for four decades at The Post-Star and still volunteers his time to cover state and sectionals playoffs in retirement. He also assisted in making all-state selections for more than 20 years.

Like I said, Greg always went the extra mile.

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Focus on mental health

New York Focus took a look at the use of “mental health court” around the state this week.

Those arrested and suffering from mental health challenges can get access to community-based health treatment in exchange for a guilty plea. If they complete the court-supervised program, their charges are reduced or dismissed. Graduation rates range from 73 to 87 percent and the program helps many get a handle on their mental health and reduces the chances of re-arrest.

But here’s the problem that New York Focus found: According to the Center for Justice Innovation, more than half of New York’s counties do not have “mental health court,” including Saratoga, Warren and Washington counties.

It’s a growing trend to provide alternatives to jail but there are still approximately only 1,700 participants.

New York Focus reported that “unlike drug courts, which serve people with substance use issues, mental health courts aren’t required by state law.”

“You walk over an invisible line that divides two counties, and the legal outcomes are completely different,” Leanne Lapp, the public defender in Ontario County, near Rochester, told New York Focus.

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Capital Rep tickets

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the ticket sales to The Last American Newspaper play at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany.

The theater has 315 seats and two-thirds of the seats for the first week of shows have already been sold. It is exciting to have that kind of interest.

Rehearsals begin on Sept. 1 with previews scheduled for Sept. 25-27.

Capital Rep: Tickets to TLAN

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Ban robots

Now that the state Education Department has killed the experimental classroom robot in western New York, state senators are taking things a step farther.

New York Focus reported a bill was introduced Thursday to ban New York school districts from using humanoid robots in classroom instruction.

Salamanca City Central School District planned on experimenting with a robot this coming year. The robot and an accompanying digital avatar was to be powered by artificial intelligence.

The bill would require school districts to use caution before employing a robot, with a written policy that would prohibit robots from performing the responsibilities of a teacher.

Sen. Shelley Mayer, Senate education chair, introduced the legislation and told New York Focus that Salamanca’s plans were a “glaring mistake of judgment.”

“As someone who cares about kids and education and how we learn — not just academically, but socially — that all requires human interaction,” Mayer told New York Focus. “This is absolutely replacing a human being with a machine for instruction and other functions of education, and it shouldn’t be marketed to any school in the United States.”

The robot company responded by saying, “What concerns us about [the bill] is that it appears to have been introduced without anyone involved having seen the technology in action or evaluated a live pilot. The Salamanca project that prompted this bill has not even been deployed. Making a sweeping statewide prohibition on that basis, before any facts or evidence exists, is a premature step.”

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60 Minutes leak

Nick Bilton, the new executive producer of 60 Minutes who has no television experience, apparently welcomed back the staff this week and warned them about leaking things to the press.

Status reported that message was immediately leaked to it.

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60 Minutes, Part 2

Fired 60 Minutes correspondents Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi have landed gigs at Columbia University as Journalists in Residence for the coming year.

“Their distinguished track records in investigative reporting highlight the amazing opportunity our students will have to learn from them, and we look forward to having Sharyn and Scott with us this year,” said the dean of the Columbia Journalism school, Jelani Cobb, in a statement.

Pelley added, “This is a critical time for a free press. Columbia is leading the way in training the next generation of great journalists and I am honored to join Sharyn in that vital cause.”

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

My garage sale had been up and running for just a few minutes, but it had already been overrun.

As I unloaded the the last few items from my car, the images of vultures danced in my head.

The vultures who visited me this weekend should not be insulted, because the reality is that garage-sale patrons - like the birds of prey consuming road kill - perform an essential task in the chain of life as they pick through a lifetime of belongings - better known as “our stuff” - before we drown in it.

Most of us are not very good at parting with our belongings.

At least in one in three people poking around through the remnants of my past life this weekend mentioned they really have too much stuff and they should have their own garage sale. Others said they recently had a garage sale, but needed to do another one.

That’s a sign you are a hoarder.

I believe that anyone who has a storage shed in their backyard has a problem with throwing out stuff.

Here’s my advice: You don’t need a storage shed, you need to clean out your basement.

The thing I realized early on in my garage-sale career was that the vultures are generally cheap, and anything priced above $5 is exorbitant and won’t move.

I also learned early that people love free stuff.

I put a “FREE” pile at the entrance to my garage sale where the vultures get the pick of photo frames, Christmas wrapping paper, office supplies, candles and kitchen gadgets most of us have no idea how to use. Not surprisingly, kitchen stuff does not sell well. I suspect this is because most people don’t like to cook and would rather get takeout.

Men love tools.

Older couples love lawn ornaments.

Halloween and Christmas stuff moves fast, but there is little interest in cute little Easter bunnies. I had a five-foot tall stuffed bunny that did not sell. I was shocked.

Business was outstanding Friday morning, but Saturday morning was a disaster.

I wondered if everyone in Queensbury had a hangover.

One woman informed me Fridays are always better than Saturdays. I was sure it was the other way around.

Finally, with just two hours to go, we had a rush. I was saved by one woman who loved dried flowers and craft stuff. She bought so much stuff, she had to go back home to get more money.

If all my customers could be like that.

By 11 a.m., I realized the kitchen stuff was not going to sell. I contacted a woman I met at previous garage sale about donating the kitchen stuff to a shelter for abused women starting a new life.

That felt good.

It’s what you need to remember most about your garage sale. It’s not about the money, it’s about unloading the burden of all those possessions.

If it’s priced for $5 and someone offers $3 - Sold.

As I got closer and closer to the end of my sale Saturday, more and more stuff was moved into the “FREE” pile. I told everyone if it wasn’t sold, it was going to the dump.

I was mostly serious, but ultimately I couldn’t part with that cute 5-foot-tall bunny with the floppy ears - Anyone need one? - and loaded him back into the car.

I filled up one barrel of debris from my long life, then another.

I put a wooden cabinet out by the road with a “Free” sign on it. It was still there Sunday.

I evaluated what was left, making a judgment on what could be donated or possibly sold on Facebook Marketplace while trying to limit what went back into my house.

As I went through the last of the stuff, I tossed my high school kicking tee into the trash, but put aside a little stained glass figure - Winnie the Pooh bear holding balloons - that I’m pretty sure my wife must have purchased.

As I packed up my car, a young couple came down the driveway.

They had to be in their 20s.

I imagined they were just starting out like I was 50 years ago.

I heard them talking in a. low voice, but I did not pay much attention. I saw the man run out to the car. When he came back, he told the woman he had found $2 in change in the car.

The woman approached, holding the Winnie the Pooh stained glass bear.

They had apparently scooped it out of the basket I was going to take back to the car.

I smiled and told them to keep the money.

“I’m just glad the bear found a new home,” I said. It might have been the best moment of the whole weekend. Sometimes our stuff has a longer life than we do.

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More Miller

My goal for Mary Miller’s “Fact-checking for all” presentation last week was that it would be a beginning; that Mary’s phone would be ringing off the hook with other groups hoping to schedule their own events to help people with fact-checking and misinformation.

On the day afterward, Mary received queries for two events in the Plattsburgh area.

I hope there are more to come.

Warren County Administrator John Taflan and Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty were both in attendance Wednesday along with former Post-Star reporter Don Lehman who now works at the county.

I forgot to mentionDon was there in an earlier post. That made made six former Post-Star newspaper people there. Unfortunately, none from the current staff.

As for me, I’ve changed my search browser to Duck Duck Go from Google after hearing Duck Duck Go does not allow algorithms to target me with ads.

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No response

I last texted congressional candidate Anthony Constantino on July 22 about what he was going to do about the closing of the birthing center in Ogdensburg. There has been no response to my last three questions.

I texted him this message on Sunday:

Anthony, I haven’t given up on you. Still waiting to hear about how you are going to help constituents on 1. Losing health care because of One Big Beautiful bill. 2. Closing of Ogdensburg hospital birthing center. 3. Businesses hurt by Canadian boycotts because of tariffs. (I gave you a contact from the NCPR article). I’ve got so many more questions.

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No football

It should not have been shocking to see that Cambridge Central School will not field a varsity football team this year because it doesn’t have enough players.

The Times Union said Cambridge did not have enough”interested” players but I think that is a little unfair. Small schools like Cambridge - it merged its football program with Salem a few years ago - have been struggling for some time like so many schools across the region. Even arch-rivals Whitehall and Granville merged. It’s not players are not interested, there just are not enough of them.

Fewer and fewer players means players will be playing varsity football younger and younger, and considering all the evidence about the damage football can do on the human body, these program cancellations may be for the best.

I played football in high school, but I was glad my son never did.

Cambridge has a rich and very successful history that its town is rightfully proud of. In light of the World Cup popularity, maybe it’s time the town got behind the soccer team and let football go.

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Great idea

Here’s another great idea from the state of Vermont that our local state representatives should get behind.

Editor & Publisher reported last week that Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, signed an executive order “directing state agencies to give preference to local print, digital, radio and television outlets when placing advertising.”

Vermont became the second state in the nation where a governor prioritized local news for state advertising spending.

The other 48 states - and especially New York - should line up to be next.

What a great project for state Sen. Dan Stec and Assembly members Carrie Woerner and Matt Simpson.

“I’ve always been a supporter of ‘buying local’ and that’s just as important for local newspapers and stations, as it is for our local hardware stores or farms,” said Gov. Scott in a press release. “We’re fortunate in Vermont to have regional newspapers and broadcasters who still serve their communities and play a vital role in reaching Vermonters – especially in our rural towns. It’s important that we don’t forget these channels as we’re trying to reach all Vermonters.”

New York still has many, many local new outlets as well. It’s time for the state to get behind them. Other states considering the measure are California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.

Last year, Vermont spent approximately $7.5 million on advertising. I’m sure New York spends a lot more.

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More cuts

The New York Times reported last week that the Trump administration is eliminating measures that reduced the cost of prescription drugs for millions of Americans on Medicare.

During the Biden administration, the federal government gave health insurers billions of dollars in subsidies to keep down drug premiums for those on Medicare. Eliminating those subsidies will raise drug prices for those on Medicare.

The Times reported that Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, “said in a post on social media on Tuesday that the subsidies had been ended because the insurers no longer needed them. He said every Medicare beneficiary would still have options for low-cost plans.”

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Look out above

You may have missed this story, but apparently more space debris is raining down on the Earth than ever before.

The New York Times reported that the U.S. Space Force - yes, that is a thing - issued alerts for 820 objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere last year. A decade ago, it was just 110.

This may shock you, but apparently huge objects weighing as much as a metric ton or more come crashing down on us about once a week.

Sure, most incinerate or land in the ocean, but there is no way to control when or where that will happen.

The Times reported more than 300 rockets were launched into space last year. That’s more than four times the number of a decade ago.

That has led to more incidents. A Florida home was hit by a space object discarded from the International Space Station in 2024, part of a SpaceX rocket landed near a busy shopping mall in Poland in 2025 and a defunct Chinese satellite almost made close contact with the Canary Islands but burnt up in the atmosphere.

Maybe we all should wear helmets.

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Look out, Part 2

NASA has been rushing to save one of its telescopes with an unmanned rescue craft to make repairs.

It reported on Saturday that the craft headed to the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory unexpectedly started tumbling, putting the rescue mission in jeopardy.

Engineers are looking to slow down the spinning of Link, a refrigerator-sized craft. NASA is still hopeful that even with the spinning, the craft can push the observatory into a higher orbit.

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Hospital update

After the hospital in Ogdensburg announced it was closing its birthing center last month, some 300 community members gathered in front of Ogdensburg Free Academy to protest the move.

North Country Public Radio reported that Ogdensburg resident Cynthia Small came to the event to get answers.

“I’d like to know if any more programs are going to be cut,” Long said. “Hospitals have to be run efficiently and have to make a dime, or they can’t provide services, but nobody wants to have to drive half an hour or an hour away.”

The birthing unit cannot close without state approval.

“I know when a baby’s having complications or mama’s bleeding, there can be an immediate threat to life if she has to travel more than half an hour to a hospital,” labor nurse Elise Henja told NCPR. “So for patients without rides or patients who have to drive over an hour for maternal care, this can mean life or death for mom and baby.”

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

It’s Friday, July 31, a misty morning after a couple of days of rain. I’m upstairs in my home office, sitting next to the open window.

Ringo is looking out through the screen, ears up, head moving back and forth as he listens to a couple of birds. The stems of the false sunflowers, which will bloom soon, are straight and strong now because of the rain.

The sun coming over the trees penetrates the mist and lights up the spiders’ webs on the evergreen bushes by the gate.

I’m writing about my drive to Lake Pleasant a week and a half ago, when I visited a roadside stand where a husband and wife sell fresh-laid eggs, $5 a dozen; firewood the man splits; loaves of bread the woman bakes; and, in a plastic cabinet, small anti Donald Trump stickers for $1 each.

“We can’t keep those in stock,” said the man, who runs his own log-sawing and board-selling business and is himself quite treelike — tall and sturdy and mild-mannered.

He told me his name, but I’m not going to use it at the request of his wife.

Their side business, called “Our Little Adirondack Farmstand,” stands along the road into Speculator and operates on the honor system. Pick what you want and leave the money in the cashbox.

The Facebook page for Our Little Adirondack Farmstand has drawn attention since last summer, when they put a “No Kings” sign next to the stand.

It now has several other hand-painted signs on display, including “Impeach” and “Stars & Stripes and Human Rights.”

Early in July, a couple of young men flying an American flag from the back of their SUV pulled in, stole about $80 in goods and money and left the following message in the guest book: “July 5th Let’s Go Brandon Happy 250 I Love Trump,” followed by a heart, in red marker.

The theft was captured on video, police were alerted and one of the young men returned with a family member, apologized and paid for what he stole.

I probably don’t need to point out how fitting it is that avid Trump supporters violated the honor system and broke the law.

Other men from who knows where make angry comments on the farm stand’s Facebook page. Some have threatened arson.

The wife, who manages the page, wants a measure of anonymity, and I don’t blame her. She says she and her husband are not looking for attention, and the attention they are getting has become “a bit overwhelming.”

I believe she isn’t an attention-seeker, despite her colorful signs and spirited rejoinders to stupid comments on Facebook.

A belief in right and wrong and revulsion with the Trump administration are driving her and her husband to make their feelings known.

Look at their signs. One board is covered with pink and blue and purple hearts, and even though some of the hearts say “Impeach” and “FDT,” others say “Love.”

They’re lashing out in the nicest way they can.

They enjoy their pastoral privacy, deep in Hamilton County, where 100 hens congregate for shade under a tree on their property and the air fills with the aroma of fresh bread and freshly sawn boards.

It would be so much easier for them to keep quiet about their discontent, sell their products and enjoy life in the quiet and beauty of the woods.

But they choose otherwise.

“You just feel you have to say something. Nobody seems to say a word. In my opinion, we’re in trouble. Not us, the country. Somebody’s gotta step up and say something,” the husband said.

The wife wasn’t feeling well the day I drove out, and stayed in the house, but she explained herself in a Facebook message.

“We are a middle aged couple who sells eggs & camp wood. I occasionally put out crafts &/or baked goods. But I would prefer you just focus on our eggs & camp wood,” she wrote.

“We put up signs to voice our opinions while at the same time showing others it’s ok to be brave & speak up. It’s more than ok, it’s necessary.”

No matter how confident we are in our separateness from Washington, D.C., the corruption of the Trump administration touches us, because, in a government of the people, we are responsible for what is happening.

They are looting our national accounts, imprisoning innocents and shooting people without cause. They are committing crimes in our name. We must say no.

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Speculator

While I was way out in Hamilton County, I drove through Speculator and stopped at their Thursday afternoon farmers market, which sets up in a big parking lot across from the lake (Lake Pleasant). The market includes handcrafts along with fresh vegetables and meat from local farms. I indulged in the chicken on a stick being grilled in one of the tent pavilions, and it was fresh and delicious.

The farmers market is held from noon to 4 p.m. every Thursday in the Speculator Pavilion and Sacandaga River Park.

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Poem

Here is a poem from Hudson Falls poet Richard Carella:

Mythic Figure

If Fate existed she, too,                                                                                                         might try to break-free of

herself– which is to say,

she might try to break-free                                                                                                          of her fate of being Fate.

Or, say Fate, once, was...

and that she did break-free:                                                                                                        and nobody knows who

(or what) she is, now.

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Parwana soars

I know I’ve said it before, but Mike Parwana’s Substack newsletter, Under Occupation, is really good, and this week’s offering is especially clever, insightful, funny and correct.

Here it is:

Parwana's latest

Friday sightings

Later in the day, I was watching one of the many dragonflies that flit about in Cole’s Woods and decided to creep up on this one and see how close I could get (pretty close, as it turns out):

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By AARON WOOLF

The worst speech I ever gave began with a joke that was not funny.

The day was bright and cool. I was engaged but not yet married, and I had been invited to lead some kind of program in the theater at the New School for Social Research in New York City. The room was full. I was the keynote speaker.

Who had invited me? What was I doing there?

I had an idea that I would begin by describing the peculiar authority conferred upon documentary filmmakers. You spend several years researching a subject—immigration, sports, agriculture, to name a few recent examples—traveling to locations and talking to people who know far more about it than you do. Then you spend months in a dark editing room, poring over what you have harvested. By the end, you have accumulated something resembling an advanced degree.

Except you haven’t.

In truth, I explained, you are not an expert at all. You are more like the actor in the old television commercial who recommends a prescription medication before admitting, without apparent irony, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”

So I had begun my keynote address by telling an audience of actual experts, professionals and graduate students that, although I appeared to be qualified to speak to them, I wasn’t.

I think I thought this was funny.

The silence that followed induced something close to an out-of-body experience. I felt the blood rush into my face. After that, I remember almost nothing—not what I said next, nor how long I went on. I was supposed to speak for half an hour. Perhaps eight minutes in, I heard myself say, “…and that’s all I have to say,” words that at least had the virtue of being true.

An author I recognized—was it Fran Lebowitz?—saw me reeling, practically swimming toward the wings of the auditorium. I must have resembled an excessive drinker trying to walk a straight line for a state trooper, my path describing a broad and hopeless arc.

“That looked rough,” she said.

I stumbled out of the theater into the dazzling afternoon and began to walk. I walked for miles, without any clear sense of where I was going, until I found myself stepping onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Long before I became a filmmaker, I had written a long undergraduate paper about that bridge. Perhaps there was some destiny in returning to it. Or perhaps it was simply there.

Nothing felt entirely conscious as I climbed toward the gothic tower, the light almost blinding in its intensity. I was numb, disembodied, still adjusting to the strangely brilliant day. I felt as if I were floating.

“Aaron?”

At the crest of the bridge, a voice broke through my stupor.

It was Keith, an old friend, appearing so unexpectedly that for a moment I could not quite place him.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You look weird.”

I told him I had flubbed a speech.

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“What? No.”

“Did anyone die?”

“No, of course not.”

No one had died. This was useful perspective, if not exactly the kind I had been looking for.

Several years later, sometime around 2012, I was invited to speak at an outdoor food festival outside Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For a while after King Corn was released, I appeared regularly at gatherings associated with the rising good-food movement, nowhere more often, it seemed, than in the Corn Belt and its midwestern periphery.

I had grown more comfortable with public speaking, but I still preferred the crutch of a screening. When I showed a film, I could riff on its themes or, in a pinch, ask the audience what they thought of a given moment. That allowed me to turn the spotlight around.

At Oshkosh there would be no screening. For reasons that now escape me, I decided I would speak about heaven.

The first time I tried to picture heaven, I was in Iowa.

I arrived there in 1990 on a motorcycle. I had been living in Mexico City and applied to graduate school at the University of Iowa on the advice of one of my undergraduate professors.

“They have a cool program there,” he told me. “I think you’ll like it. You might even like Iowa.”

The ride had been smooth for most of the journey, but somewhere in Missouri I encountered a series of thunderstorms I could not outrun. Before I found an overpass to hide beneath, everything—the motorcycle, the saddlebags, my clothing—was soaked. I waited for the storm to pass, dripping beside the bike, then gave up and rode north through the rain.

Not long after I crossed the Iowa line, the clouds opened and the low western sun poured through.

I was entering a landscape for which I had no reference. It looked nothing like the Adirondacks. The flatness I had expected was a long sequence of rolling hills, the drying corn stalks lit amber by the late-summer sun. Great round bales of hay cast shadows across the fields. The country seemed to widen and deepen all the way to the horizon. Wet, chilled and entirely alone, I could not quite believe what I was seeing.

Then I began to notice the bumper stickers.

Is this heaven?

Iowa’s answer to the I Love New York campaign came from “Field of Dreams,” the recent hit movie in which Shoeless Joe Jackson and a team of long-dead ballplayers emerge from a cornfield. Joe asks Kevin Costner’s character whether he has arrived in heaven.

No, he says. It’s Iowa.

Somehow the question became attached to my own experience of Iowa, and later to the making of King Corn. I wondered whether Shoeless Joe Jackson’s heaven would resemble anyone else’s.

My own heaven, I felt fairly certain, was not an Iowa cornfield composed like a Grant Wood painting. Mine was a snowfield with a glacial cirque rising behind it: a cold, dry, blue-sky day in a landscape of untrammeled alpine white.

The argument I planned to make in Oshkosh was that heaven must be subjective, its contours shaped to the desires of each new arrival. I was still developing this theology when the festival organizers, having run out of drivers, asked me to pick up another speaker at the airport.

Joel Salatin was a hero of the food movement—a champion of regenerative polyculture farming and an evangelical Christian who found spiritual meaning in the wholeness of the natural world. As we drove back toward the festival, I told Joel about my theory—that heaven might look different to each of us.

Joel explained, with measured forcefulness, that heaven was not customizable.

“I’m a biblical literalist,” he said.

For Joel, heaven could be known only through scripture. It was the dwelling place of God and the angels, a realm of eternal rest and reward, culminating in a restored physical world where God would live among humanity and suffering, pain and death would end.

I realized that I had been thinking mostly about the scenery.

“That’s covered too,” he said.

Scripture, it turned out, contained specifications. The Book of Revelation describes a vast city, equal in length, width and height, with streets of gold and gates of pearl. There is no night, and the city has no need of the sun or moon. Of all this, only the crystal-clear river seemed as though it might belong in my heaven, perhaps fed by meltwater from the glacial cirque.

We arrived before I could ask what one saw when one looked up toward the heavens—in heaven.

Of course, I had already experienced the starless void, the sensation of leaving my body, an ascent toward a gothic tower, a disembodied voice and a blinding white light. Unfortunately, all of them belonged to the worst afternoon of my speaking career.

I had considered seminary more than once when I was younger, but something about eternal bliss had always troubled me. Bliss seemed to require an end to striving, an end to surprise, perhaps even an end to time. What did perfection leave to hope for?

David Byrne imagined heaven as a place where nothing ever happens. The perfect moment ends and begins again. Nothing changes. Nothing is lost.

It sounds seductive, and faintly horrifying.

There was something about Byrne’s heaven that made it closer to the city Joel described than either of them might have wished. Both were complete. Nothing remained to be discovered. No one needed to wonder what happened next.

Oddly, my understanding of the afterlife has been shaped as much by the great secularists I admire as by spiritual thinkers. Carl Sagan once wrote, “I would love to believe that when I die I will live again.” But he knew of no evidence that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of him would continue.

What followed was not a cold dismissal of heaven so much as an aching inventory of everything he hated to leave. He wanted to grow old with Annie, to see his children become themselves, to meet grandchildren not yet conceived. He wanted to know what we would discover on other worlds and how the unresolved story of humanity would turn out.

Sagan did not want eternal rest. He wanted eternal wonder. He wanted to know what happened next.

And here I was, years after his death, reading him. Sagan had not lived to see the future he longed for, but something of his wonder had. It had reached me. His attention had survived him and entered my own.

The dead may not continue to watch the world, at least not in any way I can claim to understand. But their way of watching can remain with us.

This very afternoon, I ran into my friend Cynthia at the bike shop in Elizabethtown. She told me that her partner, Rusty, had died last year. I had not known. I responded, somewhat ham-handedly, that I was on my way home to write about heaven.

“Well, I’m an atheist,” she said.

Then she told me that a few weeks after Rusty died, a milkweed pod had burst open in the living room they had shared. Its seeds drifted down and settled over a photograph of him.

My sister Sara—an atheist—and I, a quasi-Christian of uncertain standing, have often talked about the days after our parents died. Everywhere we went, it seemed, animals stopped in their paths and looked knowingly at us. But they seemed to pause for longer than animals had any reason to pause, fixing us with the unnerving attention of creatures that knew something we did not.

I don’t think it occurred to either of us that they were simply animals pausing. Nor did we stop to reconcile their behavior with our respective theologies. We accepted without question that they were communicating on behalf of our parents—or, quite possibly, that they were our parents.

I cannot prove any of this—not that Rusty opened the milkweed pod, or that our parents inhabited those animals, or that anything waits for us after death. But uncertainty does not empty such moments of meaning. It may be what allows the meaning to enter.

After life comes death. After death comes memory.

Memory is imperfect and persistent. It attaches itself to words, to landscapes, to photographs, to the gaze of an animal standing motionless on a path. We keep looking for the dead and, every once in a while, their world seems to look back.

These moments do not erase the boundary between presence and absence. For an instant, they make it permeable. Memory, coincidence and longing fall into alignment, and some ordinarily invisible strand becomes not only visible but almost knowable.

I do not know if that is heaven.

But it may be the closest I have come to seeing it.

Aaron Woolf is a filmmaker and community developer based in Elizabethtown, New York. Best known for directing the Peabody Award–winning documentary King Corn, he has also been deeply involved in local projects that strengthen Adirondack communities. His work includes reopening the historic Deer’s Head Inn, serving on the town planning board, helping to found the Adirondack Community Recreation Alliance, and leading the redevelopment of Elizabethtown’s historic pharmacy building into a multi-use center promoting small businesses and community life.

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The people filled the community room at Crandall Public Library Wednesday night with an unusual energy.

They weren’t there so much to be entertained as to be enlightened.

They were looking for answers.

No, they needed answers.

Maybe they weren’t at the end of their rope, but the rope was certainly frayed.

Too many of us have been lost for too long with daily questions about what and who to believe.

The fact that nearly 100 people showed up - after a daylong monsoon - was heartening to me, and a confirmation that many of us are looking for answers.

It was a crash course in news literacy given by Mary Miller of the New York News Publishers Association.

She called it “Fact-checking for everyone.”

I think she was there to throw us all a lifeline.

While the people in the room were older, they were obviously still engaged and maybe struggling a little bit more than their younger counterparts.

Mary delivered her slide-show presentation and allowed the audience time to not only take it all in, but to push back when they didn’t believe or understand what she was saying.

When talking about fact-checking, Mary recommended Politifact, only to have one audience member scoff at its accuracy.

Mary said he was entitled to his opinion.

The questions came repeatedly, not so much interrupting the presentation as seeking more information and confirmation and wanting to know more.

Assemblyman Matt Simpson was there.

So was the chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, Kevin Geraghty.

And Bob Henke, chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors.

And Glens Falls Councilman Sean Palladino.

That was heartening, too.

By the time the Q&A portion of the program began, Mary was bouncing around the room and passing off the microphone in Phil Donahue fashion.

This went on for 90 minutes and very few left early.

A half-dozen people crowded around Mary when the program was over, then two women approached me.

They told me that four of them had come all the way down from Thurman just for this presentation.

That’s commitment.

That’s citizenship.

There were a lot of questions about artificial intelligence.

This was the type of small-town gathering you don’t hear about much anymore. Regular people exchanging information, trying to understand a problem they can’t quite wrap their arms around.

At the end of the program, I told everyone to share what they learned.

Spread the word.

I asked the political leaders to bring Mary’s program to their own communities as well and broaden the reach of this important information.

Nothing was solved Wednesday night, but we were all talking and finding common ground about things we don’t understand.

Taking the first step is often the hardest. I think we did that Wednesday.

If you would like to talk to Mary Miller about bringing a fact-checking-for-all program to your group, she can be reached at mmiller@nynpa.com.

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Post-Star reunion

There were five former employees of The Post-Star at the fact-checking event Wednesday night.

At one point, we had three former sports editors together - Greg Luckenbaugh, me and Greg Brownell - covering more than 50 years of sports coverage.

Also in attendance were former copy editors Shannon MacCue and Tom Kerr.

Leave a comment

Strough update

Queensbury Supervisor John Strough has been again hospitalized lately as he continues to battle cancer.

His wife, Chris, said she is hopeful he will be home in the coming days, but he is relinquishing his supervisor responsibilities to Deputy Supervisor Jean Lapper until he is healthy enough to go back to work.

Leave a comment

Spanish Voice

Earlier this year, I did a story on Glens Falls’ Kirsti Blow after her appearance on the Spanish version of “The Voice.”

The 2015 Glens Falls graduate is back visiting her folks and will be performing at The Strand Theater in Hudson Falls on Friday, August 7 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Blow appeared on three episodes of “La Voz” in Spain earlier this year.

Blow moved to the south of Spain in 2020 and was married, but her husband died tragically last year just before her appearance in “La Voz.”

“It was a completely surreal experience from start to finish. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from some of Spain’s most celebrated artists,” said Blow of her time on the show.  “But the best part for me was befriending the other incredible musicians and having so much fun singing together, both onstage and just in the hotel between shooting. We still have a group chat and keep in touch. We’re always rooting for each other.”

While in Spain, Blow released two albums - “Loose Ends” in 2023 and “Ephemera” in 2025, but she got her start playing gigs all around the Glens Falls region.

The Aug. 7 show will also feature original songs from Strand Theater Executive Director Jonathan Newell, his son Brandon Newell and musician Marc Vincent.

Tickets are $15 and $10 for seniors, students and veterans and are available at the Strand Theater Box office or at the door the night of the event.

For more information, contact Kirsti Blow at kirstiblow@gmail.com.

Leave a comment

More GF media

I’ve heard some interesting news for Glens Falls from the media world.

North Country Public Radio News Director David Sommerstein told me he is in the process of hiring a reporter who will be based in Glens Falls.

NCPR has become the go-to media outlet in the North Country, and having another reporter in Glens Falls will only enhance that reputation and provide another avenue for local residents to get their news.

Leave a comment

Qby Ethics Board

The Town Board in Queensbury recently interviewed three candidates for a vacant position on its Ethics Board.

The applicants include Martin Seeley, Jeffrey Kilbern and Gary Fishlock.

Leave a comment

60 Minutes

The CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes has a reputation of doing some of the best broadcast journalism ever.

The firing of three of its correspondents in recent months has made it unclear whether it can meet that standard again in the future.

60 Minutes announced this week the hiring of several correspondents, including The New York Times’ conservative columnist Ross Douthat.

While Douthat is an accomplished opinion writer, he has no experience in broadcast journalism.

“Can the good folks at 60 Minutes coach him up, so to speak, to turn him into a good TV journalist? Maybe,” writes the Poynter Institute’s Tom Jones.

When I think of 60 Minutes I think of the great correspondents like Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley and Morley Safer. It’s a high bar.

Oliver Darcy of Status reported, “Suffice to say, I’m told that staffers inside 60 Minutes were not exactly thrilled to hear about Douthat’s appointment. Indeed, beyond quibbling with (new executive producer Nicholas) Bilton’s glowing description of him as a generational ‘thinker,’ there was already concern that even seasoned television correspondents would face a steep learning curve producing the show’s signature 13-minute investigative pieces. For an opinion columnist with no television news background, the climb will be even steeper.”

Darcy wrote that a longtime TV executive texted him to say, “The idea that Ross (Douthat) can be a ‘60’ correspondent is a joke.”

Leave a comment

Lake Champlain dive

North Country Public Radio recently did an update on the Valcour Bay Research Project on Lake Champlain that has been going on for eight years.

According to a recent post on the Clinton County Historical Association website, scores of artifacts from sunken ships have been found, including a piece of a cannon that was first located in 1999 by a New York State Police diver.

The final piece of the cannon remained buried under four feet of clay on the lake bottom until recently. Some 90 percent of the cannon has now been recovered.

Video of the recovery showed it being brought to the Peru Boat Launch.

Leave a comment

Trump playbook

Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for governor in New York, is following the Trump playbook by predicting Democrats will “steal” the election in order to win.

Sound familiar?

Blakeman told reporters Wednesday that Democrats “consistently tried to cheat” during the current campaign. Blakeman cited a denial to obtain matching funds - since reversed - as one example and being blocked from speaking at a recent Dominican Day Parade as another.

“Do I think they’re going to try and cheat?” Blakeman said. “Yeah, but we’ll stop them.”

Leave a comment

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

The people filled the community room at Crandall Public Library Wednesday night with an unusual energy.

They weren’t there so much to be entertained as to be enlightened.

They were looking for answers.

No, they needed answers.

Maybe they weren’t at the end of their rope, but the rope was certainly frayed.

Too many of us have been lost for too long with daily questions about what and who to believe.

The fact that nearly 100 people showed up - after a daylong monsoon - was heartening to me, and a confirmation that many of us are looking for answers.

It was a crash course in news literacy given by Mary Miller of the New York News Publishers Association.

She called it “Fact-checking for everyone.”

I think she was there to throw us all a lifeline.

While the people in the room were older, they were obviously still engaged and maybe struggling a little bit more than their younger counterparts.

Mary delivered her slide-show presentation and allowed the audience time to not only take it all in, but to push back when they didn’t believe or understand what she was saying.

When talking about fact-checking, Mary recommended Politifact, only to have one audience member scoff at its accuracy.

Mary said he was entitled to his opinion.

The questions came repeatedly, not so much interrupting the presentation as seeking more information and confirmation and wanting to know more.

Assemblyman Matt Simpson was there.

So was the chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, Kevin Geraghty.

And Bob Henke, chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors.

And Glens Falls Councilman Sean Palladino.

That was heartening, too.

By the time the Q&A portion of the program began, Mary was bouncing around the room and passing off the microphone in Phil Donahue fashion.

This went on for 90 minutes and very few left early.

A half-dozen people crowded around Mary when the program was over, then two women approached me.

They told me that four of them had come all the way down from Thurman just for this presentation.

That’s commitment.

That’s citizenship.

There were a lot of questions about artificial intelligence.

This was the type of small-town gathering you don’t hear about much anymore. Regular people exchanging information, trying to understand a problem they can’t quite wrap their arms around.

At the end of the program, I told everyone to share what they learned.

Spread the word.

I asked the political leaders to bring Mary’s program to their own communities as well and broaden the reach of this important information.

Nothing was solved Wednesday night, but we were all talking and finding common ground about things we don’t understand.

Taking the first step is often the hardest. I think we did that Wednesday.

If you would like to talk to Mary Miller about bringing a fact-checking-for-all program to your group, she can be reached at mmiller@nynpa.com.

Leave a comment

Share

Post-Star reunion

There were five former employees of The Post-Star at the fact-checking event Wednesday night.

At one point, we had three former sports editors together - Greg Luckenbaugh, me and Greg Brownell - covering more than 50 years of sports coverage.

Also in attendance were former copy editors Shannon MacCue and Tom Kerr.

Leave a comment

Strough update

Queensbury Supervisor John Strough has been again hospitalized lately as he continues to battle cancer.

His wife, Chris, said she is hopeful he will be home in the coming days, but he is relinquishing his supervisor responsibilities to Deputy Supervisor Jean Lapper until he is healthy enough to go back to work.

Leave a comment

Spanish Voice

Earlier this year, I did a story on Glens Falls’ Kirsti Blow after her appearance on the Spanish version of “The Voice.”

The 2015 Glens Falls graduate is back visiting her folks and will be performing at The Strand Theater in Hudson Falls on Friday, August 7 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Blow appeared on three episodes of “La Voz” in Spain earlier this year.

Blow moved to the south of Spain in 2020 and was married, but her husband died tragically last year just before her appearance in “La Voz.”

“It was a completely surreal experience from start to finish. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from some of Spain’s most celebrated artists,” said Blow of her time on the show.  “But the best part for me was befriending the other incredible musicians and having so much fun singing together, both onstage and just in the hotel between shooting. We still have a group chat and keep in touch. We’re always rooting for each other.”

While in Spain, Blow released two albums - “Loose Ends” in 2023 and “Ephemera” in 2025, but she got her start playing gigs all around the Glens Falls region.

The Aug. 7 show will also feature original songs from Strand Theater Executive Director Jonathan Newell, his son Brandon Newell and musician Marc Vincent.

Tickets are $15 and $10 for seniors, students and veterans and are available at the Strand Theater Box office or at the door the night of the event.

For more information, contact Kirsti Blow at kirstiblow@gmail.com.

Leave a comment

More GF media

I’ve heard some interesting news for Glens Falls from the media world.

North Country Public Radio News Director David Sommerstein told me he is in the process of hiring a reporter who will be based in Glens Falls.

NCPR has become the go-to media outlet in the North Country, and having another reporter in Glens Falls will only enhance that reputation and provide another avenue for local residents to get their news.

Leave a comment

Qby Ethics Board

The Town Board in Queensbury recently interviewed three candidates for a vacant position on its Ethics Board.

The applicants include Martin Seeley, Jeffrey Kilbern and Gary Fishlock.

Leave a comment

60 Minutes

The CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes has a reputation of doing some of the best broadcast journalism ever.

The firing of three of its correspondents in recent months has made it unclear whether it can meet that standard again in the future.

60 Minutes announced this week the hiring of several correspondents, including The New York Times’ conservative columnist Ross Douthat.

While Douthat is an accomplished opinion writer, he has no experience in broadcast journalism.

“Can the good folks at 60 Minutes coach him up, so to speak, to turn him into a good TV journalist? Maybe,” writes the Poynter Institute’s Tom Jones.

When I think of 60 Minutes I think of the great correspondents like Mike Wallace, Ed Bradley and Morley Safer. It’s a high bar.

Oliver Darcy of Status reported, “Suffice to say, I’m told that staffers inside 60 Minutes were not exactly thrilled to hear about Douthat’s appointment. Indeed, beyond quibbling with (new executive producer Nicholas) Bilton’s glowing description of him as a generational ‘thinker,’ there was already concern that even seasoned television correspondents would face a steep learning curve producing the show’s signature 13-minute investigative pieces. For an opinion columnist with no television news background, the climb will be even steeper.”

Darcy wrote that a longtime TV executive texted him to say, “The idea that Ross (Douthat) can be a ‘60’ correspondent is a joke.”

Leave a comment

Lake Champlain dive

North Country Public Radio recently did an update on the Valcour Bay Research Project on Lake Champlain that has been going on for eight years.

According to a recent post on the Clinton County Historical Association website, scores of artifacts from sunken ships have been found, including a piece of a cannon that was first located in 1999 by a New York State Police diver.

The final piece of the cannon remained buried under four feet of clay on the lake bottom until recently. Some 90 percent of the cannon has now been recovered.

Video of the recovery showed it being brought to the Peru Boat Launch.

Leave a comment

Trump playbook

Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for governor in New York, is following the Trump playbook by predicting Democrats will “steal” the election in order to win.

Sound familiar?

Blakeman told reporters Wednesday that Democrats “consistently tried to cheat” during the current campaign. Blakeman cited a denial to obtain matching funds - since reversed - as one example and being blocked from speaking at a recent Dominican Day Parade as another.

“Do I think they’re going to try and cheat?” Blakeman said. “Yeah, but we’ll stop them.”

Leave a comment

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

After making the following videos, in which I drive through downtown on Tuesday afternoon and park, I watched Tuesday night’s Common Council discussion (on video) about a new proposal to make three small city lots permit-only.

Commenters raised some important issues, in particular the necessity of having easily accessible spots for Adirondack Theatre Festival, so patrons with mobility issues can get to and from their cars.

Also, business owners talked about needing spots for customers who stay for hours — getting tattoos, for example — and are unfamiliar with the city so require easy-to-reach parking.

Other business owners and downtown residents said the proposed increases in permit fees are too much.

The Common Council decided to table the plan to consider the public input, and I don’t intend to denigrate the importance of any of the comments with my videos. But I do have a point to make, as you’ll see.

I began my brief excursion in search of parking at the edge of the downtown core, on South Street, next to the new apartment building going up on the former Rite-Aid site:

I cruised around the corner to Ridge Street, forgetting that I’m supposed to be showing the street, not my face:

I finished by circling City Park:

Common Council meeting on parking

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Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

If your boss gave you an unfair performance review and threatened to fire you, would you extend an invitation to your family barbecue?

Would you give your superior the chance to give a toast even though you thought he might be critical of you in front of your family and friends?

Probably not.

But that’s what the White House Correspondents Association did on Friday night when it invited President Trump to a fancy soiree at a ritzy Washington D.C. hotel to help honor journalists and celebrate the First Amendment.

That was a mistake.

Trump told them everything that was wrong with them - again - and their profession without any specific examples.

The Poynter Institute’s media writer Tom Jones wrote, “No president in the history of this country has devoted more energy and resources to trying to weaken the free press than President Donald Trump. He has sued, threatened, insulted and tried to intimidate the press, and has been successful in undermining the trust Americans have in one of the cornerstones of our democracy.”

During his first term in office, I saw that criticism trickle down into local politics. One Queensbury Town Board member said Post-Star stories were “akin to fiction.” Moreau Town Board members claimed they did not say what was reported in the newspaper until the reporter reminded them the meetings were recorded.

Presidents have a large megaphone, so despite President Trump’s well-chronicled disregard for the truth, the White House Correspondents Association handed him a microphone.

Journalism is an imperfect profession, but after spending 41 years at small community newspapers I can attest that the men and women I worked with are honorable people who set their standards high and always tried to get the facts right.

As editor, I stood up to readers who unfairly criticized them, to politicians who often lied they were misquoted and to government officials who refused to give them the information they were entitled to by law.

And over those 41 years, I had to write my share of corrections, too. Even when we failed, we took responsibility for it.

So when I heard some of President Trump’s speech, when I read the accounts by other journalists, I took offense.

We’re not fake news.

We’re not enemies of the people.

Our determination to hold elected officials accountable at all levels of government is critical to a functioning democracy.

So I want an apology from President Trump and the White House Correspondents Association.

Margaret Sullivan, the one-time Buffalo News editor who went on to work at various big-time print newspapers at the highest level, asked the question for so many of us in her Substack newsletter: “Why did the association allow such a shameful thing to happen?”

Politicians and journalists have always had an uneasy relationship.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

That’s why the First Amendment protects freedom of the press.

The men and women who are still practicing journalism, holding politicians and government officials accountable, are on the people’s side.

Never forget that.

It was a quaint notion that Washington journalists and D.C. politicians could bury the hatchet for one night because they respected the work that had to be done and the role each played in it. But there was no sign of that respect Friday night.

Not from this president.

Here’s what I loved most about Sullivan’s take on Trump’s speech at the correspondents dinner: She wanted to know why the journalists dressed in their ballgowns and black ties “did not rise in unison” during Trump’s speech “and walk out.”

Sullivan wrote they should have.

She is right.

Sullivan’s rebuke went even further. She chastised the new president of the White House Correspondents Association - Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News - for embracing Trump after his speech.

“That’s an embarrassment — a stain — that should haunt the rest of her career,” Sullivan wrote. “I don’t care how much her colleagues in the press personally like her or how many nice things she has to say about the First Amendment.”

Then Sullivan turned her attention to Heinrich’s predecessor, CBS News’s Weijia Jiang, who invited President Trump to speak.

“If she were a real leader, she would not have let this happen on her watch,” Sullivan wrote. “She (and her colleagues in the organization’s leadership) could have called off the rescheduled dinner; they could have re-envisioned it in a way that actually serves the free press. They could have simply decided not to include Trump or anyone of any party whose disdain for the press is so blatant. At the very least, they could have followed the urging of hundreds of prominent journalists and former journalists who were calling for a strong, unified statement at the dinner that clearly rejected Trump’s attacks on the press — in real time.

None of that happened. Yes, Jiang and others made a few remarks defending the press against attacks. It was pretty weak sauce.”

Trump didn’t just make a few remarks. He spoke for an uncomfortable hour, attacking the press and making bad jokes.

Peter Baker, the longtime New York Times reporter, wrote on social media Saturday he had been a member of the association since the 1990s.

“Our mission is to defend the First Amendment rights of White House correspondents to report on the president without fear or favor,” Baker wrote. “Unfortunately last night did not advance that cause. Time to rethink the dinner.”

The dinner can only take place if the president of the United States respects the First Amendment, and that is clearly not the case now.

“It remains a mystery to me why this assortment of White House journalists agreed to play the role of passive targets in Trump’s crude performance,” journalist Jem Bartholomew wrote in Columbia Journalism Review. “But perhaps something positive can come from this absurd evening. Trump said he planned to attend next year’s event, teeing up another embarrassment. A proposal: Why not make 2026 the last White House correspondents’ dinner of all, and banish that sickening feeling for good?”

I second that, while waiting for an apology for the insults to an honorable profession.

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Museum warning

Four days ago, President Trump signed Executive Order 1453 to try to make U.S. history less complicated.

The order states that temporary signs will be installed along National Park Service-maintained sidewalks and walkways to warn the public that the Smithsonian Institution is not reporting American history accurately.

It recommended they say:

Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.

The president of the United States was warning people visiting one of the world’s premier museums that its content cannot be believed.

A recent 162-page report accused the museum’s leadership of “radical activist ideology” and that the museum undermines “faith in American institutions.”

Heather Cox Richardson, a historian and professor at Boston College, wrote that the report “is a nakedly political document.”

During a congressional hearing on July 21, the Smithsonian executive director told the committee that the report was inaccurate.

“We unwaveringly attest that it does not accurately or fairly characterize the full range of work at the museum,” Anthea Hartig said.

Cox Richardson went on to report that the questioning of Hartig didn’t revolve around American history.

Rep. Nancy Mace told Hartig she strives to “represent queer pedophiles, indoctrination and grooming of kids at the American history museum,” then asked, “Do you know how many kids get raped by adults every year in this country?”

Hartig should have told her to release the Epstein Report and they both could find out, but that is another matter.

Rep. Lauren Boebert then asked Hartig where the exhibits honoring “50 million aborted babies” are?

Finally, Rep. Eric Burlison asked, “Do you love America?”

“I love this country unconditionally,” she answered.

The hearing didn’t seem to be about history at all.

The only institution Americans have lost faith in is the presidency.

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Counting deaths

Twenty-six years ago, the United States declared that measles had been eradicated in the U.S.

The New York Times reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday there have already been more cases of measles in 2026 than in any year since 2020.

There have been 2,318 confirmed cases of measles so far this year, topping last year’s total of 2,200 and we are only halfway through the year. Two unvaccinated children died last year.

More measles cases have been reported in the U.S. in the past two years than in all the years from 2000 through 2024 combined.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has halted vaccine hesitancy research and downplayed the risks of measles.

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Fact checking for all

Mary Miller, an educator at the New York News Publishers Association, will give a presentation “fact-checking for all” tonight (Wednesday) at 6 p.m. at Crandall Public Library.

The first 100 people will be allowed in for this unique program to give citizens a toolkit on how to decipher fact from fiction on social media and in their news reports.

Here is a short interview Mary Miller did with Susan Arbetter on Capital Tonight on Monday:

Capital Tonight: Mary Miller

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Tickets for TLAN

Tickets are now on sale for The Last American Newspaper’s world premiere at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany.

The play was adapted from my memoir of the same name and chronicles the exploits of the reporters and editors who worked at The Post-Star between 1999 and 2020.

There were four sold-out public readings last year at the Adirondack Theatre Festival and a New York City reading earlier this year.

The show will include 26 performances between Sept. 25 and Oct 18.

Ticket prices range from $31 to $101.

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Enck to speak

Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Judith Enck will be speaking about her new book “The Problem with Plastic: How we can save ourselves and our planet before it’s too late” on Saturday, Aug. 17 at Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs.

Enck will have a conversation with Sarah LaDuke, executive director of Folk Alley Radio and former senior producer of WAMC’s The Roundtable.

The event is free and open to the public.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

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When Sen. Mitch McConnell stopped making public appearances and voting in the Senate, people wanted to know what was up.

Conspiracy theories flourished that McConnell was dead, or incapacitated.

Finally, his office posted a photo on Facebook of McConnell, with a goofy smile, sitting in a hospital bed besides his standing wife. He posted that he had taken a fall but he was on the mend.

More conspiracy theories flourished about whether the photo was real or not.

That’s where Mary Miller, an educator for the New York News Publishers Association, will kick off her presentation at Crandall library on Wednesday night (6 to 7:30 p.m.).

For some time, I’ve realized that the general public needs help in recognizing what is real, what is fake on social media and how to tell the difference.

Miller has a program perfect for this. She has given it to children as young as the third grade and adults of all ages up to senior citizens. The most important thing to remember is that this is a seminar to help you be a better citizen, to help you discern fact from fiction, because the political reality is that both sides do it and that it is nonpartisan.

When I was organizing this event I was hoping to get a cross section of people to hear the message. I reach out to my old friend Bob Henke - I hired him to write the outdoors column in The Post-Star when I was sports editor years ago - and asked him to invite some of his fellow supervisors in Washington County and ask them to come.

I did the same in Warren County where Kevin Geraghty, chairman of the Board of Supervisors there, said he is also coming.

So is Republican Assemblyman Matt Simpson.

And Glens Falls’ Democratic Mayor Diana Palmer.

What I’m most hoping is that this is the first step toward addressing this problem. I’m hoping Henke, Geraghty, Simpson and Palmer will come away from this event and schedule their own events to their own tribes and constituents in the interest of journalism and democracy.

I announced the event in a press release to The Post-Star and told its editor that her staff needs to see this as well.

It is one of the most important issues facing our community, our country.

I want this to be the beginning of the conversation on misinformation.

For others in the audience, I hope they contact Miller and schedule a presentation at their church, senior citizen or local service club.

I want Miller’s phone to be ringing off the hook.

The first step is to realize there is a problem and Miller can show us how we begin to address it.

Hope to see you Wednesday night.

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Capital Tonight

Mary Miller will be appearing on Spectrum TV’s Capital Tonight at 8 p.m. Monday to be interviewed by Susan Arbetter.

If you want to preview what Miller will be talking about, tune in then.

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Shopify sales

My three books are all still for sale at Ace Hardware in Queensbury and the Chapman Museum in Glens Falls. You can also order all the books directly through me at Ken Tingley Books on Shopify.

The Last American Newspaper is for sale for $39.95 while my two collections of columns - The Last American Editor ($18.95) and The Last American Editor, Vol. 2 ($24.95) are also for sale.

Ken Tingley Books

Congress sucks

I hate using that word, but here is a classic example of why Congress never gets anything done.

A bill proposed that prohibited members of Congress from trading stocks because they are privy to inside information seemed to have bipartisan support.

But the bill was easily defeated last week because at the last minute Republicans added a provision that added Voter ID provisions to the law. Voter ID and stock trading with insider information have nothing to do with each other, but it assured the bill’s demise.

Even the bill’s author, Rep. Josh Riley, voted against the bill.

“Instead of passing my bipartisan bill to crack down on insider trading, Washington Republicans used it as a ploy to stop senior citizens from voting,” Riley said in a statement to Politico. “These people aren’t interested in taking on corruption, only scoring political points. No wonder everyone hates this place. I’ll work with anyone from either party who’s serious about draining the swamp, but I won’t play stupid partisan games.”

That sounds about right, but both sides do it.

Politico reported that other Democrats voted against the bill because it was too watered down and allowed members to keep and sell stocks they already own.

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Counting deaths

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the official death toll in the war in Iran has been reduced.

No, there was no miraculous recovery, but the 18 service members killed was reduced to 14 when the Trump administration dropped four of the deaths in Jordan and Iraq, because they occurred during the ceasefire in April.

Apparently, it wasn’t a very good ceasefire and the service members are still dead.

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Bridge battle

The new Gordie Howe Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario was officially opened last week with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the bridge.

But after President Trump dropped a new 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods, Canadian officials rescinded an invitation for American officials to take part in the ceremony and moved the ceremony from the middle of the bridge to the Canadian side of the bridge.

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Attacking GOP

Heather Cox Richardson, the popular Substack columnist who is also a historian, really let the Republican Party have it on Thursday.

Here is part of what she wrote:

Let’s talk about the Republican Party. A party that worships one man above the Constitution in a cult of personality. A party that demonizes immigrants and says they poison the blood of our country. A party that calls the free press the enemy of the people and sics the Justice Department on journalists who they don’t like. A party that says their political opponents are internal enemies and calls them, quote, the enemy within. A party that is okay with invading our allies, including other democracies, a party that punishes their political opponents, that has deployed troops on our own streets, that wants to use the American military on the American people. A party that believes any unhinged lie, fantasy, and conspiracy theory as long as it comes from one man. A party that tries to lock up members of Congress for exercising their free speech rights. And a party that has tried to violently overthrow the results of a free and fair election in the United States of America. A party that, in fact, pardoned everyone who invaded this building on January 6, 2021, and tried to throw out the votes of millions of Americans because the president couldn’t accept that he lost.

“How dare that party lecture anyone? How dare they talk about communism when their own party has totally lost touch, not just with the founding ideals of this country, but lost touch with reality itself. So if we’re gonna start assigning political labels based on conduct, then let’s call things by their proper names. The Republican Party has become the party of fascism, full stop. You know, they have become a party of far right fascists who are hell-bent on destroying our country and our way of life. And every single time they call us communists, it is nothing more than a projection of their own… radicalization.

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Lee chairman resigns

If you follow the media corporate world, you will know the name Mary Junck. She served as CEO and then chairman of the board at Lee Enterprises, which owns The Post-Star here in Glens Falls.

Junck made several visits to Glens Falls when I was editor of the newspaper and was always supportive of local community journalism.

Junck, who is 78, finally resigned from the Lee Board of Directors last week effective July 31 to complete a changing of the guard after David Hoffmann took over control of the company and became chairman.

For those of us who worked under Junck, she also supported local journalism, but among the rank and file she was also roundly criticized for taking large bonuses while front line reporters were struggling along with $10 or $15 a week raises.

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Robot out

The State Education Department has halted plans by the Salamanca City Central School District to use a humanoid robot in the classroom after an enormous public outcry.

The move came after New York Focus first reported on the plan. After the report, local parents complained.

It moved into the hysterical realm when it was discovered the company producing the robot also makes sex dolls.

“Many parents, teachers and stakeholders are understandably concerned about the presence of artificial intelligence technology in classrooms, particularly when it involves robots that resemble humans,” Betty A. Rosa, the state education commissioner, wrote in a letter to the superintendent obtained by The New York Times.

The robot, which cost the district $58,000, was clad in pale silicone flesh, long dark hair and thin eyebrows and was nicknamed Sally, a play on the district’s name.

“I know people thought that we were getting the Terminator,” Superintendent Mark Beehler said at a school board meeting last week. “We are getting a lot of heat on this. Some of it is good, but there is a lot of misunderstanding.”

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Correspondents dinner

The White House Correspondents Dinner went on for a second time Friday night and few laughed at President Trump’s jokes.

At one point during the dinner, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer presented an award to reporters of the Wall Street Journal for their “courageous reporting on President Trump’s past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein” that “triggered the release of the so-called Epstein files.”

Trump was sitting nearby at the stage.

Blitzer went on to say that Trump had filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the Journal and had revealed the home address of one of the reporters.

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Internet coming

The Adirondack Explorer is reporting that many of the 11,430 North Country households waiting for high speed internet will begin receiving it under Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network.

The Explorer wrote:

“Prior to 2025, those unserved customers might have expected that most of them would eventually be served either by high quality fiber lines or fixed-wireless towers. Satellite speeds and reliability are inferior to both. When the BEAD program was passed in 2021, it was to only be used as a last resort when alternatives were too expensive.”

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

Monday, I sat with Bella on the couch in the morning and alternated reading a book with playing word games on my phone.

I mowed the lawn, and in the process, lost the hunk of hard rubber I’ve been using for a gas cap since last summer, when the plastic gas cap cracked and fell apart.

The rubber chunk, I learned from looking it up, was a frustum. A paper cup is a frustum. So is a sugar cone, if you chopped off an inch or two at the bottom.

My frustum got dislodged by the scrub that grows around the edges of our yard, especially next to the fences and house where it’s hard to mow. I looked for it in vain.

I used a large piece of folded-up aluminum foil, wrapped over the top of the gas tank filler tube (apparently, there is no single word like frustum for this tube) and snapped a rubber band around the foil, a temporary solution that worked long enough for me to finish mowing.

I took a shower then made turkey burgers with cheddar cheese and a slice of onion. Bella can’t handle cutlery at this stage of her Alzheimer’s, so menus are hands-only.

Back on the couch, she rested her head on my shoulder as I read some more.

Erin, our respite caregiver, came at 2:15, and I went out to meet a friend at Spot Coffee and sat with him on one of the couches and talked for two hours.

Recently, Erin and I completed a process of getting Bella qualified for Medicaid and Erin registered as a Medicaid service provider.

It took eight months, but now instead of having her come for two or three hours twice a week, I can have her here 20 or 25 hours a week. That means I can do yard work or go upstairs and write without fretting over what Bella is doing and go out and meet friends or take Ringo for a walk or wander around downtown by myself.

I went to a yoga class late Monday afternoon, my first ever. I discovered yoga is hard, but I made it through, in a wobbly way, until near the end when the teacher, Durga, had us balancing on our bellies with arms and legs in the air, like the base of a rocking chair. My hips and back demurred.

Then we lay flat on our backs, breathing, staring at the ceiling and relaxing into the floor. That feeling of silently shared bliss at the end of a workout is one of the things I’ve missed for the last several years during cloistered months of caregiving.

Tuesday morning I expected to wake up stiff and sore but instead felt uncommonly alert and pain-free. I walked into the kitchen standing straight, arms swinging. Grabbing the percolator in the dark, I slipped the plug into the outlet on the first try.

I’ve watched Bella move from one phase to another numerous times over the past nine and a half years and adjusted to the deterioration of her memory and language skills and the intensification of her fears to the point she will not leave the house.

Now my habits are changing, as I move back into conversation and communion with other human beings.

I recently read “A Lost Lady” by Willa Cather, whose protagonist in the novel is Marian Forrester, a lively woman married to a wealthy man 25 years her senior. Mr. Forrester suffers setbacks in his health and finances during the course of the story, and since they no longer have the money to hire help, Marian becomes his caregiver.

Talking to her young friend, Niel, she says, “You see, two years, three years more of this, and I could still go back to California—and live again. But after that … Perhaps people think I’ve settled down to grow old gracefully, but I’ve not. I feel such a power to live in me, Niel.”

She tells him about accepting an invitation to stay with her friends, the Dalzells, where she danced and rode horseback and went to dinner parties and drank champagne.

“I accepted the Dalzells’ invitation with a purpose; I wanted to see whether I had anything left worth saving. And I have, I tell you! You would hardly believe it, I could hardly believe it, but I still have!” she says.

“So that’s what I’m struggling for, to get out of this hole, out of it! When I’m alone here for months together, I plan and plot. If it weren’t for that—“

She doesn’t finish the sentence.

I picked up “A Lost Lady” with no idea what the novel was about, because I admire Willa Cather’s work. I was stunned by the description of Marian’s outburst as her frustrated desire to embrace and enjoy life boils over.

Like Marian, I am committed to caring for my spouse, the most important person in my life, whom I love. But like other real life caregivers, and Marian, too, I am frustrated and yearn for this experience to end.

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Poem

Here is a poem by Hudson Falls poet Richard Carella:

Men At Sea

Fate is a fish...                                                                                                                              we can’t help but hook–

even if we never fish.

Or, we are fish                                                                                                                            that fate hooks;

and are born with

its hook in our mouth.                                                                                                               Or, fate is a myth;

and these are just fish

stories: that men at sea                                                                                                               are as liable to tell, as if

telling them were their fate.

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The woods again

Ringo and I finally got out to Cole’s Woods this week, and it was as pleasant and soothing as ever.

Cole’s Woods has lots of colorful little flowers, especially in the swampy spots. I took a photo of some purple ones I hadn’t noticed before:

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Famous owner

I picked up somewhere within the last few years a book called “Upstate: Records and Recollections of Northern New York,” by Edmund Wilson, perhaps at a garage sale or the Crandall library book sale. Recently, while dusting bookshelves and doing some rough book-organizing, I glanced inside the book and noticed it had previously been owned by Orra A. Phelps, who probably received it as a Christmas present, since, above her signature, the date “12-25-71” is written.

Orra Almira Phelps was an accomplished botanist and naturalist who served as the first ranger-naturalist for the Adirondack Mountain Club, setting up a nature museum in a tent and her car to educate visitors to the area. In 1934, she published the first trail guide to the High Peaks region and in 1947 became the 47th person to have climbed all 46 High Peaks.

She studied zoology and geology in college, then received a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1927 and served as a Navy physician during World War II. She taught botany and biology in Saratoga Springs.

Her niece, Mary Arakelian, wrote a book about her, “Doc: Orra A. Phelps, M.D.: Adirondack Naturalist and Mountaineer,” published in 2000 by North Country Books. Arakelian also donated 18 acres in Wilton to the Saratoga Land Conservancy as the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve 10 years after Phelps’ death in 1986.

An article from last year in Adirondack Life by the magazine’s editor, Annie Stoltie, tells more about Orra Phelps.

Felt

Soft Worlds, the current North Country Arts exhibit in the Second Floor Gallery in City Hall, is a charming collection of felt pieces by Bella Zhdanova. It will be up through Sept. 26.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following column ran July 13 and is being running again to remind everyone of this week’s misinformation event at Crandall Library on Wednesday, July 29 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. All should be alerted that the “Take A Bite” event is taking place downtown and Glen Street will be closed to traffic. Parking may be a little more difficult so make sure to leave a little earlier. The presenter, Mary Miller, will be on Susan Arbetter’s show Capital Tonight on Spectrum News at 7 p.m. Monday night.

There was once a world where we all opened our daily community newspaper to start our day. That world no longer exists. We get our news from different channels, different websites and sometimes entirely by accident because we are inundated with too much news.

Welcome to 2026.

But if we still believe in being good neighbors, good friends, informed voters and stand-up citizens, we have to acknowledge we all need to do better.

It starts with knowing what information to trust.

Even the best of us - including retired newspaper editors - find it challenging to know what is true and what is not in news reports, on social media and in random conversations.

Here’s part of the new compact to be a good citizen: It’s not just about voting anymore, it’s about being informed. We need to embrace our civic responsibility to be informed with reliable and truthful information, know how to recognize it and discern it from misinformation.

How to do that can be confusing and time-consuming, but there is an opportunity to get help and enhance your skillset.

Mary Miller, an educator with the New York News Publishers Association, will be giving a presentation at Crandall Public Library on Wednesday, July 29 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on how to tell the difference between authentic news and misinformation.

This has never been more important for our democracy.

Every single one of us needs to be better at recognizing what is factual and what is not, regardless of your political beliefs or affiliations.

You want to be a good citizen? You need to be informed.

Want to be accurately informed? You have to be able to sort through what is real news and what is fake news.

Miller estimated she does 40 or so presentations a year for groups of all ages. Some are as young as third grade, others are senior citizens.

“One of the first things I talk to them about is what is a fact and what is a feeling,” Miller said. “Sometimes, the kids get it better than some adults.”

Miller will go over how to recognize trustworthy news sources and how to spot scams, but she demands we all be open to the possibility that we may not be as good as we think at spotting misinformation.

“I’m totally nonpartisan,” she said. “I’m just looking for them to listen to me.”

For decades, while national new sources struggled with trust issues, local news proved to be an exception. Majorities of Republicans and Democrats in local communities rated their local newspaper and TV stations favorably.

That is changing dramatically.

Where 82 percent said they trusted local news in 2016, just 70 percent do today. It’s still good, but slipping.

Not only is trust dropping in local news outlets, consumers are saying they don’t see local news outlets playing as important a role in their lives.

The Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation - two respected journalism advocates - found that the importance of local media in communities is also slipping.

The number of Americans who say news outlets are “extremely or vey important to their well-being” dropped 10 points to just 34 percent in the past year. Just 26 percent of Republicans believe news outlets are important.

For a retired editor like me that is shocking.

I’m hoping Miller can help restore the faith, at least in this little corner of the world, with this presentation.

As our communities have become more partisan - and divided - Miller told me that her presentations have become less popular, not more.

“People are just afraid of what I’m going to say,” Miller said.

For those of us who peruse social media, it doesn’t take long to come across memes or posts of questionable accuracy. I’ve lashed out at acquaintances and relatives and chastised them for sharing information that is not true.

Then, they do it again.

The research by Pew and Knight found that most U.S. adults say it is extremely or very important for people to avoid sharing inaccurate information and they should always check the news with multiple sources.

The first step is knowing when the information is inaccurate.

The second step, since so many of us don’t have the time to do that, is to find a trustworthy news source and pay for it.

The study found people overwhelmingly believe (94%) it is important for you to do your own research to check the accuracy of the news. Two-thirds said it was “extremely” important.

And most are confident they know what steps to take to fact-check a story, but doubt others can.

“I think ideally you can ... absorb the information and then do your own kind of research into understanding what they’re delivered,” a man in his 30s said. “And it helps you become more informed. I don’t think others do that, though. I think that’s a problem.”

Maybe the bigger problem is that most Americans no longer get their news from a standard daily news source, but more often than not stumble onto the news on social media.

While I was organizing this event, Assemblyman Matt Simpson, Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner and Bob Henke, chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors all showed support for it and planned on encouraging colleagues to attend.

This event is for people who want to be better informed, to be better citizens and I’m hoping we get a good cross-section of our communities.

But Miller says she has had people walk out on her presentations. She said she asks people up front: Are you open to changing your mind if the facts don’t correspond with what you believe?

“If the answer is no, you might as well leave,” she said. “We’re going to have an honest, open discussion. It’s so easy to vehemently disagree with someone online, but when talking to your neighbor across the fence, we’re looking each other eyeball to eyeball, and it’s different. We’re so much better in person than when we hide behind our personas.”

That’s what we need now more than ever.

Face to face dialogue and debate.

Mary Miller will provide the tools to do that on July 29 at Crandall Public Library.

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The Front Page - this Substack newsletter - and Crandall Public Library are sponsoring the event.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

The city of New Orleans opened sandbag distribution sites across the city Monday morning. It was just a precaution, but as a visitor, it gets your attention.

Earlier in the week, the Times-Picayune reported the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board had 87 of its 93 pumps operational and assured residents it had plenty of power to handle the peak rains on the way.

After all, it is hurricane season.

The Big Easy has been watching Bertha all week.

So have I.

This was my first hurricane watch.

The storm formed out in the Gulf of Mexico last weekend, skirted the Gulf Coast the past few days and made landfall Wednesday afternoon with a whimper.

Most of my time in New Orleans has been spent before hurricane season, so this week was an eye-opener.

While the TV weather people have been breaking in with breathless updates - same with the Times-Picayune online - the people I’ve been around go about their day-to-day lives without excitement or angst, although it is clear they have one eye on the approaching tropical storm.

They’ve been through it before.

Many times.

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported the Gulf Coast region is in what it called a “turbulent new era that holds enormous consequences for Louisiana and other states along the coast.”

New data showed the Gulf of Mexico has become one of the fastest warming bodies of water in the world because of climate change.

“From sea levels to fisheries, deepwater drilling and storms, every vestige of life in the Gulf will change as the water heats,” the Times reported.

When the hurricanes do come - and they will come - they will occur with lightning speed and be more ferocious than ever before.

“This is a dramatic wake-up call,” said Donald Boesch, a professor of marine science at the University of Maryland.

What is happening along the Gulf Coast is happening in real time. Temperatures in the Gulf region reached record highs early in July and there have been heat advisories here in Louisiana all week.

The Times reported that “as water warms, it expands, speeding sea level rise along the Louisiana coast that is already climbing six times faster than the global average, largely due to land subsidence. The heat is also spreading deeper into the waters, with temperatures rising even at the very bottom of the Gulf.”

Louisiana’s bayou lands are already fading away a little each year. Scientists no longer predict sea-level rise along the Gulf Coast, they say it is “essentially guaranteed” even if fossil fuel emissions are reduced.

It is too late. It is here already.

Over dinner with friends in the Lakeview District of New Orleans Tuesday night, Bertha was no more than a casual curiosity, especially with the forecast predicting its impact on New Orleans proper would be minimal.

After dinner outside their home, Eve and Wayne pointed to the new house being built across the street.

The lot had been vacant for 25 years.

Ever since Katrina.

Eve told us the land had changed hands multiple times, but nobody ever built on it.

This neighborhood had been hit hard by Katrina a quarter century ago. Everyone takes storm warnings seriously.

By Wednesday afternoon, Bertha was no longer a threat to New Orleans and our dinner plans - and lives - would go on as expected.

For now.

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Gator sighting

I’ve been spending my time along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain this week.

While driving along the Tchefuncte River Saturday on a scalding hot day, we came across a boat launch where a stream of small leisure boats were preparing for a day out on the lake.

As we drove toward the mouth of the river, my girlfriend Hollis spied a gator in the river. Only a New Orleans girl could drive and spot a gator at the same time.

We pulled over near the boat launch and climbed out to get a closer look.

On the other side of the river, people were floating around in inner tubes.

While I’ve spent good portion of the past two winters in Louisiana, this was the first time I came across a gator in the wild. It was a curiosity to others on the deck and several passing boats.

We watched it swim toward us on the dock and then retreat. The gator looked to be about six feet long.

Despite the heat, I decided to limit my swimming to the pool.

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One-year anniversary

It was just about a year ago, that the federal government slashed funding to National Public Radio and PBS.

Despite the cuts, most of the community broadcast outlets have survived. WAMC in Albany marked its anniversary with an on-air update last week on how well it was doing.

North Country Public Radio reported that local listeners had stepped up to keep the radio station afloat as it tried to replace $670,000 in lost funding and continue to do the journalism it is known for.

The bad news is that federal funding is not returning and more challenges lie ahead.

“There is a lot of good news, though,” wrote NCPR station manager Mitch Teich. “The best update is that NCPR is still here, and we’re as strong as we’ve ever been. You’ve helped us raise the bar, both in fundraising terms and in the way we play a role in North Country life. Not only that, but there are a lot of things that didn’t happen in the past year. We haven’t reduced our staff size, cut programs, or turned off any of our 34 transmitters. In short, we haven’t taken our foot off the gas pedal.”

The success of public broadcasting should be an inspiration for us all that people depend on local media outlets to get the news.

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Conversation continues

While my conversation with congressional candidate Anthony Constantino hasn’t been as robust lately, he has continued to respond to my questions in text messages. I give him credit for that, although he often does it while insulting me.

That’s his style.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much new to report about his plans if elected to Congress. Instead of answering my questions, he just changes the subject to an attack on his opponent.

That’s politics and I’m interested more in the substance of the candidate.

On Monday, I reminded Anthony he had not answered my question about how he was going to help New Yorkers who have lost their health insurance under the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” I also asked how he was going to help businesses in his district hurt by the 50 percent tariff imposed on Canada by President Trump this week.

The Associated Press wrote: “The move could unleash a new wave of economic chaos, with risks of higher inflation and further fraying of relations between two nations that had been closely woven together before Trump’s return to the White House.”

Constantino responded by saying: “The key word in this entire quote is `could’” and seemed skeptical that tariffs hurt businesses in the North Country. He asked me to give him details of those affected and he would talk to them.

I continue to be surprised that Anthony is not aware of these problems in the district he hopes to represent. I sent him a recent article by North Country Public Radio in which the head of the St. Lawrence Chamber of Commerce said “restaurants, small businesses, healthcare and educational groups, museums and newspapers have all reported negative impacts since the tariffs began.”

I’m waiting to hear from Anthony about how he will help.

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More on tariffs

A recent Pew Poll showed that only 35 percent of Canadians described the U.S. as a “reliable” partner. It was as high as 83 percent in 2022.

Canada’s national statistics agency reports that significantly fewer Canadians have been traveling to the U.S. over the past year.

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Hospital closing

Some of the dire predictions about health care services in the North Country are starting to come true.

North Country Public Radio announced North Star Health Alliance is cutting its labor and delivery services at its Ogdensburg hospital. That means pregnant mothers will have to drive almost an hour to give birth at the next closest hospital.

North Star operates hospitals in Carthage and Ogdensburg. It has declared bankruptcy, cut essential healthcare services and let go nearly 200 employees. New York loaned North Star $60 million to remain open.

“I was so devastated,” Amber Palmer, an obstetrics nurse at the hospital, told NCPR. “I’ve been a labor and delivery nurse for 7 and a half years now. All of that at Claxton Hepburn, and that place has raised me as a nurse. I’m from the area. I’ve spent obviously all of my 28 years of life up here, and I was absolutely crushed hearing that they were going to close, or at least apply to close our unit.”

North Star told NCPR it made its decision because of declining birth rates and the financial losses associated with operating a 24-hour labor and delivery department.

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Dire warning

Because of federal funding cuts, the National Park Services has a dire future, according to Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers.

Bill Wade, a park ranger who is the son of a park ranger, told the Denver Post, “I learned that these extraordinary parks belong to every American and that the people entrusted to care for them carry a sacred responsibility to protect our country’s breathtaking natural resources and key elements of our nation’s history.”

“But never—not once in decades—have I witnessed such systematic degradation, disrespect and dismantling of the National Park Service as I see today under the thumb of President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,” Wade said. “Recovery from these losses is likely to take years, if not decades.”

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Military going broke

Considering the size of the military budget in this country, it seems unimaginable that it could run out of money to pay the men and women in uniform.

The Washington Post reports it was told by two congressional aides the Navy and Air Force will run out of money to conduct military operations in 2026 by the end of the month.

The Post reporters were told the Pentagon is already trying to bridge the gap by diverting money budgeted for equipment and maintenance and canceling training exercises.

Stars and Stripes reported the Army is reducing legal resources available to help soldiers filing for disability.

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Trump rating

Thomas Edsall, writing in a guest essay in the New York Times, asked George Washington University political historian Matthew Dallek for his take on President Trump’s performance in 2026.

Dallek replied by email:

Governing via conspiracy theories, personal whim and wish-casting, Trump has taken his place as the most consistently inept president of this century. At home and abroad, in many cabinet and sub-cabinet agencies, the administration’s culture is dominated by incompetence.

Trump’s infliction of harm is not a result of bad luck or malign interference by foreign and domestic adversaries — the common fate of American presidents. In the overwhelming majority of cases, Trump himself initiated the policies and actions that turned belly-up.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

The man was doing some work at my house and we got talking. Small talk, little things, then he asked me what I thought of Gov. Kathy Hochul releasing 2 million convicted felons from prison.

The question caught me off guard and the number was so large, I immediately suspected it was not true.

“Yeah, she released 2 million convicted felons,” the man said shaking his head. “What do you think about that?”

I felt like I was back in the barber shop with the people who didn’t believe in the Covid-19 vaccine.

We were face-to-face so I felt comfortable telling him what I really think. I told him he needed to get a better news source.

“You don’t think it’s true,” he asked again.

I told him I spent 40 years working at newspapers and after awhile you get a pretty good sense of what is true and what is not.

And this turkey wasn’t true. I didn’t say that, but that’s what I was thinking.

I suggested he attend the “misinformation” workshop that Mary Miller is giving at Crandall Library a week from today (6 to 7:30 p.m.) to learn how to fact-check things he hears on television and sees online.

We all need to know how to do this, I told him.

He listened while doing his work, but my suggestion did not seem to register. We went back to talking about the work he was doing.

When he was gone, I did my own fact check. I wanted to know the root of this misinformation.

I found out that the total number of individuals in New York prisons was between 30,000 and 35,000, so releasing 2 million prisoners - ever - was highly unlikely.

But then I found a reference to the Clean Slate Act.

It was signed into law by Gov. Hochul in November 2023. The goal was to give convicted criminals a better chance of getting a job after release by sealing their conviction records.

Some two million convicted New Yorkers - not active prisoners but those who had already served their time - had their past criminal records sealed after the measure became law.

The law states that those prisoners who have served their time and maintained a clean record for a period of time have their records sealed after eight years (for a felony) and three years (for a misdemeanor), although law enforcement, prosecutors, the Education Department and the courts will still have access to the records.

The law also excluded the most serious crimes like murder, most Class A felonies and sex crimes.

“The best crime-fighting tool is a good-paying job,” Gov. Hochul said at the time.

That made sense to me.

I suspect the workman at my house heard some television talking head blathering on about how Gov. Hochul is soft on crime and gave millions of prisoners a second chance by sealing their conviction records.

That’s the root of misinformation.

It always starts with a grain of truth and the gullibility of the public.

We can be better citizens by fact-checking.

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More on tariffs

Substack columnist and historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote on Tuesday that the reason Trump imposed the tariffs on Canada was that the smoke from wildfires there was drifting over the border into the United States.

She wrote:

Trump has been complaining about the smoke from Canadian wildfires hurting U.S. air quality, and has threatened to impose further tariffs on Canadian produce because “the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air.” Canadians including Ontario premier Doug Ford noted that they sent firefighters, rather than threats, when conditions were reversed.

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Franklin correction

The Chapman Museum’s new exhibit about Ben Franklin’s stop here in 1776 included a reference to Franklin and his party having breakfast in Fort Edward with Ethan Allen. That was an error.

The breakfast was actually with a Colonel Allen, a local officer and not Ethan Allen of the Green Mountain Boys.

The Chapman Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

Celebrate our 250th anniversary by visiting the museum and celebrating local history.

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Misinformation event

Make sure to mark your calendar for Mary Miller’s presentation on misinformation at Crandall library in Glens Falls on July 29.

To clarify, the event is scheduled to run from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

For those hoping to attend, you may want to get there early. Each Wednesday during the summer, downtown Glens Falls has a “Take A Bite” event where restaurants and bars sell food on the sidewalks. It generally attracts a lot of people. You might want to consider having your dinner at “Take A “Bite” before heading over to the presentation at Crandall Library.

Local elected officials such as Bob Henke, chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors; Kevin Geraghty, chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors; Diana Palmer, mayor of Glens Falls; and Assemblyman Matt Simpson have also said they will attend.

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Mask warfare

The Department of Justice is attempting to overturn a New York law that requires ICE offers interacting with the public not to wear masks and to display clear identification like most law enforcement agents.

The Times Union pointed out the DOJ filing had the interesting argument that requiring officers not to wear masks was like requiring them to wear “pink.”

“By New York’s logic, it could require officers to wear masks, dictate what weapons are used, micromanage the training of K-9s, and require ICE agents to wear pink all under the threat of prosecution because none of those laws would ‘prohibit federal officials from carrying out their duties in arresting or detaining individuals,’” the Justice Department wrote in a memorandum. “This absurd result has no basis in law. This is why, absent an injunction, other states are more likely to join New York in its attempt to micromanage a federal function.”

The T-U also reported the new state statutes “are also intended to prevent or sharply limit the ability of state and local police agencies to assist with federal immigration enforcement.”

The New York attorney general’s office is opposing the DOJ request.

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More bad news

The New York Times is reporting that federal agents around the country are being told the FBI will no longer investigate ICE agents involved with violent encounters with the public.

It is another indication that ICE is becoming increasingly above the law.

Killings in Texas and Maine over the past two weeks by ICE agents is the latest cause for concern.

Anonymous sources told the Times the FBI would stop investigating claims of assaults by ICE.

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Twain to visit

Grant Cottage, off of Exit 16 in Wilton, will hold a fun program on Thursday, July 23 at 1 p.m. - “A Most Remarkable Jackass: An Hour With Mark Twain.”

Twain, who had a close personal relationship with President Ulysses S. Grant and published his memoirs, will be the center of the event with Twain performer Kit Webb.

Twain will recount his stories, known for their humor, satire, honesty, and blasphemy, as well as share some passages from his now sadly “classic” novels. Twain will take time to remember his friend and fellow author, Grant, and will be introduced by Fred Grant, who worked with Twain at Grant Cottage to edit the memoirs of his father.

A memorial ceremony will follow the presentation at the flagpole in front of Grant Cottage.

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War news

Brian Stelter, the media writer for CNN, reports the Pentagon has not held a press briefing in two and a half months, despite the ongoing war in Iran.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hasn’t explained the military strategy behind the renewed air strikes,” writes Stelter. “His department hasn’t revealed the circumstances that led to the recent deaths of U.S. service members.”

Stelter points out this is “all indicative of a larger effort to control information, limit access and avoid difficult questions about the war.”

Ironically, this all means that members of the media have had to rely more on anonymous sources than ever before.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

At first glance, the “Benjamin-Franklin-slept-here” story didn’t sound that compelling. Like that other Founding Father, George Washington, I wondered if it was based more on legend than historical fact.

It turns out the veracity of Franklin’s visit to Glens Falls in 1776 not only holds up, but as the region celebrates the 250th anniversary of the revolution, may be one of more interesting connections to the events of that tumultuous year.

The Chapman Museum’s new exhibit, designed by Curator Maureen Folk, takes us along on Franklin’s arduous journey from Philadelphia to Montreal, along with two other Founding Fathers. The goal is to secure support for the American cause.

In all these years, I had never heard about Franklin’s diplomatic mission and his brief visit to the region.

During the second meeting of the Continental Congress in March 1776 - just months before the Declaration of Independence was signed - Congress decided to seek an alliance with Canada. Founding Fathers Samuel Chase, Charles Carroll and Franklin embarked on the journey to Montreal that spring.

They reached Albany on April 7, where they were entertained by General Philip Schuyler - for Hamilton fans, yes, that Schuyler - in his Albany mansion. Carroll’s diary mentions two of the Schuyler sisters being present. You can still visit the Schuyler mansion in Albany.

The exhibit tells us they made their way to Old Saratoga (Schuylerville) where they spent several days due to bad weather. They did not set off from Schuylerville until April 16, when they rode to McNeil’s Ferry and later stopped at Fort Edward where they spent the night at The Old Fort House.

On April 17, Colonel Ethan Allen - yes of Green Mountain Boys fame - joined them for breakfast before they set off for Lake George. But less than a mile into the trip, a messenger from Gen. Schuyler caught up with them and told them that Lake George was not yet open to passage because of ice conditions.

The group backtracked to an inn kept by Abraham Wing in Glens Falls on what is now the corner of Warren and Ridge Streets. It is considered the first building built in Glens Falls.

The research shows “the party took a brief excursion to the falls before spending an evening in the public room of the Inn before a large fire with some liquid refreshments, likely discussing the state of the country with Mr. Wing.”

It also said, “A journal entry from Carroll notes that Wing was `excitedly showing the group the Queensbury Patent,’” the official founding document for the town of Queensbury.

The exhibit went on to describe the rest of the trip:

By twelve ‘clock the next day, the party continued their journey to Lake George, arriving two hours later. The lake was still full of ice, but a strong wind had blown it offshore, and they were able to embark on a boat provided by General Schuyler. Carroll’s journal noted landmarks along their crossing including Sabbath Day Point. They arrived at the northern point of Lake George, deboarding at Fort Ticonderoga to continue their mission north.

The three Founding Fathers arrived in Montreal on April 29, but their mission was doomed before they even left. The English parliament passed the Quebec Act in 1774 that assured the Canadian Catholics they could practice their religion without interference. The grateful Canadians decided not to join the revolution.

At the time of his journey, Franklin was already 70 and he immediately set out on a return trip accompanied by priest John Carroll, brother of Charles Carroll.

Franklin did not stop in Glens Falls on his return home. The exhibit goes on to celebrate Franklin’s many contributions to the time.

In just a few short months, Franklin, Carroll and Chase would all sign their names to the Declaration of Independence.

The Chapman Museum in Glens Falls is open Tuesday thru Saturday (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and Sundays (12 p.m. to 4 p.m.).

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Up and running

The Dresden Town Board is once again up and running.

North Country Public Radio reported that Gov. Kathy Hochul has appointed a part-time resident from Hulett’s Landing to be on the board so it can begin conducting business again.

Dresden’s supervisor, Paul Ferguson, resigned in February followed by two board members in March. Without a quorum, the two remaining board members - Marilyn Borden and Deputy Supervisor Allen Wilbur - could not hold meetings, pass legislation, hire staff or have representation on the county’s Board of Supervisors.

Gov. Hochul appointed Suzanne H. Shad to the Town Board.

NCPR wrote that the meeting minutes showed the board “had been fraught with political in-fighting over contracts, judgeships and local government procedures.”

The new Town Board will hold its first meeting tonight at 7 at Dresden Town Hall.

A spokesperson for the Hochul administration told NCPR that “Suzanne’s professional background and commitment to the local community make her well suited to take on this appointment and help move Dresden forward.”

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More bad news

The New York State Association of Counties issued a report that, because of the changes to the SNAP food assistance program by the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” New York taxpayers may be on the hook for more than $160 million, since New York is one of the few states where counties administer SNAP.

The federal government previously handled 50 percent of administrative costs for SNAP, but beginning on Oct. 1, that will drop to 25 percent.

NYSAC estimates that will cost New York City alone $110.8 million. Erie County could face $3.84 in new costs while Monroe County would get an additional bill of $3 million.

North Country Public Radio also reported counties could face additional penalties if their error rates are too high. New York currently has an error rate of 13.1 percent and those costs could also be passed on to the counties.

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Checking speech

Most news outlets gave little if any credibility to President Trump’s assertions that there was election interference in the 2020 election.

To get the details on why, check out Politifact and its detailed rebuke to Trump’s charges.

Poltifact: Trump speech fact check

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It’s happening

Capital Repertory Theatre began selling single-performance tickets for my play The Last American Newspaper last week.

The play, adapted from my book of the same year, celebrates the journalism The Post-Star did over a two-decade stretch from 1999 to 2020. And its eventual decline.

The play opens on Sept. 25 and runs through Oct. 18 at Capital Rep’s downtown theater in Albany.

Hope to see you there.

Capital Rep Tickets

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

Ginger Storey-Welch, a Democrat running for a seat on the St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators, has been canvassing door to door, telling and listening to stories, some of them about Blake Gendebien, the Democratic nominee for the NY-21 congressional seat.

Andy Hurlbut, a farmer in Canton, told her about the time a few years ago when his combine broke down and he couldn’t find anybody who would help until Blake stepped up.

I called the Hurlbuts and talked to Andy’s wife, Elisha. She and Andy have five children and sell maple products, beef, hay and row crops such as soybeans, oats, barley and corn from their farm.

In October of 2020, as Covid was ravaging the country and shutting down supply lines for all sorts of things, their combine caught fire in the field. They couldn’t get parts to fix it, so they called neighbors, looking for another combine they could use for a per-acre fee.

“It was a weird October, dry and hot,” Elisha said. “We called 10 local farmers, but they said no. The weather was good, they were all busy with their own crops.”

But when they called Blake, he said yes, sending the combine along with one of his hired men to drive it.

“He was really good about it,” she said. “We needed somebody right then when the weather was good. That means a lot. The soybeans, it starts falling onto the ground. When it’s ready, it’s dry, the beans pop open and you can’t get it off the ground.

“We’ve known Blake for years. We’re farmers. He could have just as easily said no. A lot of people did. We’ve never done business with him. He saw that we had a need and prioritized it. He had things he could have been combining.”

Then, even though she’s a registered Republican, Elisha said something important about Democrats.

“You see that there’s a need — that is the essence of the Democratic Party. We all should be looking out for each other,” she said.

The second story Ginger heard about Blake concerned Eric and Shelby Richards of Pierrepont. Ginger was at Eric’s door, telling him about the inaccessibility of health care in the North Country, when he interrupted.

“I know,” he said. “We have a nonverbal 6-year-old who needs services we have trouble getting, and it’s getting harder.

“My son spent an entire year in a neonatal unit in a Boston hospital. I was working on Blake’s farm when the baby was born, and Blake kept paying me while I was in Boston,” he said.

I called and talked to Shelby, who is 30. She and Eric have three children now, but Luke, born in 2020 at 26 weeks and weighing 14.8 ounces, was their first.

During the pregnancy, Shelby developed hellp syndrome, which is like preeclampsia but often more severe, threatening the life of mother and baby.

“The only resolution is delivery,” she said.

Luke was born on May 17 in the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, where he stayed until late October, when he was transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital for a couple of weeks. On Thanksgiving Day, he was transferred to Boston again and stayed there until his release in April 2021.

“Immediately following an emergency C-section, he was intubated and put in an incubator in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit,)” Shelby said. “It was very hard. I’m a nurse. At least I have a medical background to understand what was happening. But when it happens to you, it’s a whole different world.”

Eric worked as a mechanic at Blake and Carmen Gendebien’s Twin Mill Farms.

“As you can imagine with us being so far away in Vermont, there was a lot of back and forth for him to come see me, come see Luke,” Shelby said. “I was hospitalized for 10 days before and after delivery. Eric was right there with me. With Luke in the NICU, he would travel back and forth, depending on what was going on. During times Luke wasn’t doing so well, Eric would have to come to be with us.”

Eric was missing work, but his paychecks kept coming.

“It never mattered where he was, they always paid him, there was never a question,” she said.

In Boston, the hospital found Eric and Shelby a room at a nearby hotel. But the travel expenses were large, and Shelby wasn’t working.

Carmen started a GoFundMe account for the family.

“Carmen insisted. They helped the community rally behind us. It carried us through a lot of our needs for the expenses and stuff when he was out of the hospital,” Shelby said.

After 11 months and 10 days, Luke was released with a tracheotomy tube, an oxygen tank and a ventilator.

“We had it on a rolling cart. He had enough leeway with all the machinery he could play and move around. Eric rigged up oxygen tubing so it was tacked to the ceiling,” she said.

Luke still has a gastrostomy tube in his belly for nutrition. He doesn’t eat by mouth, but otherwise, he is free of medical devices.

“He is so good now. He just finished kindergarten. He is running around and living his best life,” Shelby said.

She is in a position now that allows her to work from home, and Eric is working as a mechanic for the John Deere dealership in Canton. They still hear from Blake and Carmen.

“It really was a community and they very clearly cared,” Shelby said.

“There were times when Luke was incredibly sick in hospital, and Eric would have to take off a couple of weeks at a time, and we genuinely weren’t sure Luke was going to make it. Even then, he was still getting paid,” she said.

I asked about her party registration.

“I think when Ginger came, I registered as independent,” she said.

She intends to vote for Blake to represent NY-21.

“How could I not?” she said.

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Poem

Here is a poem by Hudson Falls poet Richard Carella:

Mirage

His fever was such that, when he                                                                                   emerged from the desert– where we

first came upon him, more spectral,

himself, than flesh and blood, he swore                                                                                 that, it spoke; and quoted, verbatim

–or so he alleges– conversations they

held, deep in the desert...where                                                                                               the stars were, in his word, “enchanting.”

*

How long he had gone without what                                                                             anyone needed to survive in that desert

of days no one could say; but it had been

long enough, so that when she appeared,                                                                                 on the sterile horizon– like a shimmering

oasis: he dropped to his knees.

*

“Her voice was like music,” he said, over                                                                              and over; and who can forget, who heard

him that morning, the tone of his voice;

“...her laughter: like rainfall,” –but, as if                                                                                    to himself; in a (subconscious) attempt to

dispel nascent doubts.

*

“It’s not your fault you disappeared,” he said,                                                                “...since, after all, you don’t exist

–and never did. And, yet...”

*

The emptiness of that inhuman vastness–                                                                             was as nothing, compared with the emptiness

...that he, suddenly, felt: within.

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Thoughts on soccer

I’m a fan of soccer but primarily of women’s soccer and, particularly, of the U.S. Women’s National Team. So, although I have watched parts of several games in this World Cup, which finishes today, I will watch every World Cup game the U.S. women play next year in Brazil and at least a few of the other games as well.

The men’s game isn’t worse than the women’s but certain unfortunate aspects of the game are more pronounced when the men play. Diving is performed by both men and women but is constant in the men’s game, and the performances are more histrionic. More than once in this World Cup, I watched a player soar through the air, mouth wide in an agonized shout, roll on the pitch and clutch himself, fail to get the call, then stay down as play proceeded without him, even to the point of his team or the other one getting a shot on goal, until finally, resentfully, he jumped to his feet and trotted off, unharmed. That’s shameful.

Men are also more committed than women to winning by wasting time and running out the clock when they have a lead, and we saw what a poor strategy this is in the England-Argentina game.

Although both men and women argue with the referees, men spend more time on it and react with greater feigned disbelief, horror and emotional agony at the unfairness of it all than the women do.

Soccer in general allows far too much gamesmanship, to the point that the arguing and pretending and fouling overwhelm the play, which is a shame. The athletes are amazing and the game can be thrilling when it isn’t being interrupted. Other sports have a far lower tolerance of player input on referees’ calls. Imagine if basketball players argued every foul call the way soccer players do. The games would be unwatchable.

Finally, VAR is ruining the game. We passed the point a long time ago when its usefulness was outweighed by its destructiveness to the flow and integrity of the game. Calling offside when a millimeter of the player’s shoulder, or his ear, was over the line is absurd. Calls are being made no human eye could detect and every one of them slows down the game. Goals appear to have been scored, but it takes several minutes to confirm if the goal counts. You don’t know whether to celebrate, cry or shrug.

Offside should not be reviewable. Likewise, most yellow and red cards. Reviewing fouls that could result in a penalty kick or revocation of a goal should be done when the refereeing team determines there is something substantial to review, but calls on the field should be overturned only when an obvious mistake was made. I think that may be the rule now, but it isn’t being followed. Most egregious of all, and in a class by itself, was the interference by President Donald Trump in a foul call on the field. He deserves an immediate and permanent red card from the World Cup and the presidency for that.

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Fishing

Zo and I have been doing some fishing recently in the Hudson River. Our catch has not been impressive but the process of not catching many fish has been great. We walk down from the Feeder Canal Trail to the riverbank, which is sandy in spots and rocky in others, and wade in a few steps to cast. It has been warm, the water is cool and the river is shallow for many yards out, at least at spots just below the Feeder Dam. We throw the fish back, but fishing offers a way to enjoy the outdoors while doing something purposeful. Fishing with Zo reminds me of fishing with my dad in the Adirondacks and Canada, the quiet casting and the bouts of shared excitement when a fish hits the lure.

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I finally heard from congressional candidate Anthony Constantino Thursday night.

It had been nine days since I asked him how he was going to help the 15,500 New Yorkers who had lost their health insurance under the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

It has been four days since I asked if he really believed that his opponent Blake Gendebien was a Nazi as his campaign insinuated.

It had been a day since I called out his campaign for invoking Nazi accusations as a low blow for any political campaign.

Constantino wrote me I got it wrong.

“No one on the campaign called the other guy a Nazi so you need to fix it,” Constantino said.

I told him I stood by what I wrote, because that was what was insinuated. It was obviously intended to to be inflammatory.

“You can’t possibly be arguing that associating Gendebien with a person you believe to have Nazi sympathies is NOT calling him a Nazi,” I wrote back.

No rational human being would ever buy that.

Constantino went on to make other accusations about his opponent, but he did not provide any evidence.

His campaign continues to send out text messages through the district associating Gendebien with New York City Mayor Zohran Mandami and then this shocking bulletin - his Democratic opponent running for Congress voted for a fellow Democrat in the 2024 election.

Considering how our health care has been compromised, the Justice Department weaponized and how the president has used his office to enrich himself and his family, there are probably a lot of people who want back that vote they cast for Trump, but not Constantino.

I also reminded Constantino he had not answered my question about how he was going to help New Yorkers who lost their health insurance and whether he still believed - as President Trump insisted on national television Thursday night - that the 2020 election had been stolen and on what evidence he based his belief.

I also told him I appreciated the continued dialogue and was surprised his handlers had not shut it down.

I’m looking forward to continuing the debate. Hopefully, it will have more substance in the future.

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Fact-checking

Reminder that Mary Miller of the New York News Publishers Association will be conducing her “fact-checking for all” event on Wednesday, July 29 beginning at 6 p.m.

Miller will help regular citizens discern between real facts and misinformation.

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Hurricane season

I was literally sitting in the airport Thursday, waiting for the first leg of my flight to New Orleans, when I read in the Times-Picayune that a key satellite used in tracking hurricanes in the Atlantic basin was out of order.

The Times-Picayune reported that “GOES-19” is the main instrument used to identify tropical waves as they strengthen and move over the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, providing real-time tracking for forecasting.

It reported the satellite went into something called “safehold” late Wednesday and engineers are working to “recover the satellite.”

That sounded serious. It also reminded me that the the Trump administration had cut nearly 1,000 employees from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

Thankfully, I’m only going to be in New Orleans for a week.

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What’s that smell?

While landing at the Philadelphia airport on Thursday, the horizon had a smoggy-looking tint.

The pilot alerted us before landing we would be smelling smoke from the burning fires in Canada.

We did.

The New York Times reported some of the wort air pollution on record was recorded in Washington, D.C., as it blotted out views of many of the monuments.

While the fires in Canada continued to get worse, cities such as Milwaukee, Toledo and Detroit were among the hardest-hit, with an air quality index soaring to over 500. Anything over 300 is considered hazardous.

Republican members of Congress blamed Canada for the wildfires.

Several different sporting events were affected by the conditions, and there are concerns the World Cup final on Sunday might be affected.

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Trump speech

The Poynter Institute’s Tom Jones pointed out how the major news networks covered President Trump’s speech to the nation, with Fox News and CBS covering it live. NBC and ABC showed the speech on their streaming news channels.

But more importantly, he marked the speech as a milestone, because never before had there been so many questions about whether a president was telling the country the truth.

“Sadly, we have no choice but to be skeptical when this president talks about elections because what he says, at least what he has said in the past, is often just not true,” CNN’s John King said.

“It has become abundantly clear that Donald Trump would rather cheat than win. His prime time speech tonight is another example of that,” MS Now’s Chris Hayes said.

Ultimately, NBC and ABC broke into regular programming to cover what the president said.

But Trump criticized NBC and ABC for not carrying the address live on their main networks, saying they should have their licenses revoked.

“They and others in the media are part of a plot,” he said.

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Reading in decline

The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch points out in her article “The end of reading” that Americans are probably reading more than ever before because of emails and text messages.

But she also writes this:

This explosion of textual fragments has come at the expense of devoting sustained attention to longer written works that convey rich and complicated information. Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA, argues that people are losing the ability to think deeply about writing. That doesn’t mean they are forgetting how to decode individual words. Rather, they are losing the higher-order abilities of comprehension and synthesis. America, in other words, isn’t illiterate. It’s postliterate.”

She then concludes that things are going to get worse and points out:

- Kindergarten teachers say their students don’t know nursery rhymes or fairy tales.

- A recent Yale study found that only 2 percent of American adults read to a child on a given day. (That’s shocking).

- From 1984 to 2025, the number of 13-year-olds who said they rarely or never read rose from 8 percent to 29 percent. And every year after that they read less and less.

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Sports money

While college athletics tries to figure out the right balance for paying college athletes, the for-profit mindset has already crept into high school sports.

In Louisiana, star high school athletes are now seeking endorsements to cash in on their athletic success.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported Louisiana law acknowledges that high school athletes have a right to profit from their personal brand and the Louisiana High School Athletic Association established a policy to allow prep players to benefit financially.

“There has always been a business ecosystem built around athletes at the high school level, as well as at the college level,” said state Rep. Rashid Young. “This is the first time in history that athletes are able to participate in the ecosystem that was built around them, and it’s really important for equity.”

The Times-Picayune reports the new law puts some limits on high school athletes. Parents must sign off on deals for those under the age of 18, and high school players can’t make money from marketing deals for alcohol, drugs, gambling, tobacco or weapons. High schools can also prohibit students from making money from NIL deals during school or sports activities and from using the school’s facilities and branding in those deals. And they can block student NIL agreements if there is a “material conflict” with another agreement the high school already has in place.

How long before high school athletes have agents?

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Wrong answers

The Centers for Disease Control is trying for the third time to get someone confirmed to lead the agency.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose vote was responsible for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being confirmed as health secretary, might have been trying to make amends with a tough line of questioning for Erica Schwartz this week.

“We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization,” Cassidy said to the third nominee for CDC during Trump’s second term.

“Parents should not have to guess whether information on the CDC’s website reflects the best available science rather than the preferences of political appointees. This is what has led to children being hospitalized and dying from diseases preventable with the vaccine,” Cassidy said. “As a result, we see thousands getting measles. We see, unfortunately, deaths from measles, a vaccine-preventable disease, just lying at the feet of folks casting misinformation on these issues.”

The Times-Picayune story reported that Johns Hopkins University counted 2,250 cases of measles so far this year. Last year there were 2,289 cases for the entire year. The disease had previously been largely eradicated in the U.S. through the use of vaccines.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

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Aaron Woolf asked me if I wanted get a beer.

He had just finished showing his 2007 documentary King Corn to 60 or so people at Crandall Public Library. He said he had not watched the movie in years. Maybe he was being nostalgic, or just taking stock of where he is as a 62-year-old still trying to change the world, or maybe he just had a lot on his mind.

Two hours earlier, the documentary was introduced as three guys who, literally, made a movie about watching corn grow.

While that teaser was essentially true, the film carries a much larger wallop. Woolf, his cousin Curt Ellis and his best friend Ian Cheney, went to Iowa with the idea of growing one acre of corn and chronicling where it went afterward in the food chain.

The tentacles from that idea went in all directions and taught Woolf a lot about the economics of the world and the place politics has in it.

There was the collapse of the family farm, production of ethanol as an additive in gasoline, the use of corn to feed cattle for cheap ground beef and eventually grinding up all those ears of corn into high fructose corn syrup to be used as a sweetener that would fuel a national obesity crisis and a Type 2 Diabetes epidemic.

Maybe that’s why Aaron wanted to go get that beer.

You can make a case now that the film was not so much about watching corn grow as watching a way of life die, of seeing the family farm disrupted and eventually eliminated into corporate businesses that made us all less healthy to the point the corn Iowa farmers grew was inedible.

One person summed it up this way: How did such a rich country get such a poor diet?

The event was sponsored by the Unitarian Universal Church of Glens Falls and was intended as a jumping off point for a discussion about the Federal Farm Bill, ethanol and the value of solar energy, but seeing the film again took Woolf back, not forward.

He explained to the audience he had not watched the film all the way through in a long time.

“It was a very moving experience. It surprised me,” Woolf said afterward Monday night. “We really did move to Iowa. We showed up with this idea and we were welcomed.”

The filmmakers took the movie back afterward to show the people who helped them grow their corn in Greene County. Woolf said it was received well and they then took the film across the Midwest to little one-screen theaters for other farmers to see. That seemed to be what was Woolf was remembering Monday night.

“It’s one of the reasons I decided to run for office. I saw stories like this,” Woolf said.

You may have forgotten that Woolf was the Democrat who ran against Elise Stefanik in 2014.

And now he was back there again talking about that return to Greene County and how the local high school closed and the families moved away and people lost their farms and the corn they grew - for a sugary supplement - was not even edible at a Fourth of July picnic.

Someone else chimed in that Iowa now has the highest rate of cancer in the country from all the pesticides used to treat the corn.

So we had a beer.

Woolf told me about his latest documentary project about an Olympic archer who has no arms.

And it was somewhere between polishing off the French fries and the walk back to our cars that a question I suspect was a dozen years in the making came to his lips.

It was during the campaign for Congress, Aaron explained. He was the candidate. I was the editor of the local newspaper and I had asked him a question of why he believed he had the experience to serve in Congress.

He waited a second, let the question sink in so I understood where he was going. It was because of his work. It was because of King Corn and what he learned standing shoulder to shoulder with other farmers growing his one-acre crop that made him more qualified than any other candidate out there.

He knew all this 20 years ago.

For a second, I allowed myself to think about how different things might have been if Aaron Woolf had won the election 12 years ago.

He was portrayed then as a Brooklyn city slicker, but the utter irony 20 years later is that Aaron Woolf made his home in rural Essex County, has become a civic leader in Elizabethtown and has been advocate for preserving the small-town life that Elise Stefanik not only never experienced, but never embraced or understood.

“What does it say when a town like Greene closes its high school,” Woolf asked, then added, “Rural life has value. Families working together. I miss that life.”

It’s what his life in Elizabethtown is about these days.

It’s what so many people didn’t understand about candidate Woolf all those years ago. Doing the work he did and living where he did for a time made him wiser and more learned than any of us in the Adirondacks.

And certainly more in touch with real America than any other politician out there.

We just didn’t see it at the time.

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AI arrives

During my annual physical at Hudson Headwaters I was informed by my doctor that she would be using artificial intelligence to record our visit and help transcribe her notes.

I had several pithy observations.

Would AI help with a diagnosis?

Would she be proof-reading AI’s note-taking?

And would the fact we were talking skeptically about AI during this appointment lead it to holding a grudge against doctor or patient?

One of my previous doctors struggled when he was required to type his notes into a laptop after years of writing them out longhand, but this is an entirely different thing.

My current doctor was hopeful it would make her more efficient so she could have more time to practice medicine.

Prison problems

Considering some of the recent violent incidents in prisons lately, it is probably not a surprise that the Department of Corrections has a problem with prison guards.

New York Focus reported the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision released a 277-page report it describes as offering “scathing new insights” into a prison system “stuck in a brutal past.”

The report was based on facility visits, hundreds of interviews and internal prison documents.

“While lawmakers and the prison agency commissioner preach rehabilitation, guards still see themselves as stewards of punishment,” New York Focus wrote about the report. “Many adhere to an `us versus them’ mentality, and corrections officers perceived to be soft on prisoners are branded `inmate lovers’ and ostracized. It found that officers are able to disregard rules around use of force — by obstructing the view of body cameras, for instance, and relying too heavily on pepper spray. And DOCCS does a poor job of tracking violent incidents: Guards mostly use pen and paper to submit use of force reports, which often exclude key data points, making it difficult to detect trends and hotspots.”

And it gets worse.

“Nearly all of those interviewed for the report acknowledged that groups of `goon squads’ would beat up incarcerated people they viewed as difficult,” New York Focus reported. “Outdated training likely contributes to prison violence. DOCCS’ paramilitary-style training academy `can promote aggression.’”

The report contains 77 recommendations to help address the problems, but fixing them will not be easy and may take years.

Iowa poll case

You may remember that right before the 2024 elections, an Iowa pollster reported the state could be in play in the presidential election.

The Des Moines Register and USA Today wrote stories about the poll.

President Trump subsequently sued the pollster, J. Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register and USA Today, even though he won the election. All three have asked the case to be dismissed.

But the judge ruled last week that he will need more time to consider the “massive” First Amendment implications in the case.

“There is an element of chilling,” Beattie said and believed the case needed a “closer look.”

Covering church

Since the movie Spotlight, it seems the atrocities committed by pedophile priests is a story that has been well-documented. Unfortunately, the story has too often moved off the front page as lawsuits have played out.

Buffalo journalist Charlie Specht is one of those reporters who continues to do the needed and necessary reporting for the second half of this story.

The headline for his newsletter this week was “Inside the `filthy disgusting den’ of a meth-fueled diocese of Buffalo priest.” You are not going to find a more provocative headline.

This was the lead to his story:

“I have been a working journalist for 15 years, with most of that time spent as an investigative reporter looking into shady things. But I have never attended a court hearing like the one I covered Monday night.”

The story about the arrest of a Catholic Diocese of Buffalo priest is a difficult read, but it’s good to know that reporters like Specht continue to do the difficult work on these important stories.

Here is a link to the important story:

Charlie Specht - Buffalo Muckraker

Inside the "filthy disgusting den" of a meth-fueled Diocese of Buffalo priest

I have been a working journalist for 15 years, with most of that time spent as an investigative reporter looking into shady things. But I have never attended a court hearing like the one I covered Monday afternoon…

Read more

23 days ago · 10 likes · 10 comments · Charlie Specht

Naked priest in meth den

Robot teacher

This amazing little story from New York Focus shows how far we have come with technology.

The Salamanca City Central School District, a rural district in western New York located on the Seneca Nation reservation, will be one of the first school districts in the country to put a humanoid robot in the classroom.

New York Focus reports that it will not replace the classroom teacher, but is programmed to provide learning support to students and educators.

The Cattaraugus County school district agreed to purchase the robot from Realbotix along with a teacher’s assistant program that allows students to interact with an avatar of the robot on laptops.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

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On July 5, Anthony Constantino texted me a “Happy Independence Day” and assured me, “I only want to win the election to be able to effect positive change that makes people’s lives better.”

He hoped we could talk more in the future when we both have time.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that 15,500 New York residents had lost their health care coverage under the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

So I texted Anthony and asked how he would effect positive change on the people who lost health care.

He never answered me.

I guess he didn’t have time.

We had been texting on and off since April when I did an hourlong interview with Constantino. At one point, he said he enjoyed some of my writing even though he disagreed with it.

In an April 11 post, Constantino wrote to me:

“My first boss taught me to be tough but fair. Believe it or not, the earlier critique of me in business was I was too kind and needed to be tougher.

“My next critique was that I am impatient but I learned that’s a necessary character attribute if you want to achieve anything difficult.

“I intend to keep my character and ethics intact as I enter politics or there’s really no point.”

That is something few politicians have been able to do in recent years, so that promise by Constantino was encouraging.

I have found the Republican candidate to be alternately charming and alarming over the past couple of months. He may even have the best intentions - unlike his idol President Trump - but he is clearly out of his depth in terms of understanding the issues and how to effect change in the 21st Congressional District.

I sense that Constantino loves the politics, the brawling, the arguing, but that won’t make him a good representative.

A week ago, I got this text message - not from Anthony - but from his campaign:

ALERT: POLITICO is reporting Blake Gendebien’s campaign is being run by the same DC consultants running alleged rapist and Nazi-sympathizer Graham Platner: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/new-york-playbook-pm/2026/07/08/gop-attacks-gendebien-campaign-ties-00990826 It’s all documented on www.BlakeExposed.com, and we promise, it’s worse than you can imagine.

The use of the word “Nazi” in association with a political opponent should never be taken lightly by any serious candidate.

I don’t think I have to explain why.

But the Constantino campaign did not seem too worried about that.

The backstory is that Platner, the former Maine Senate candidate, was characterized as a Nazi early in his campaign for having a “Totenkopf” - a skull and crossbones emblem historically used by the Nazi SS - tattooed on his chest in 2007.

Certainly, not a good look for any candidate.

Platner explained he got it while drunk one night while serving in the Marines and was unaware of its history. Still, not a good look for any candidate.

But the Constantino campaign text promised it was “worse than you can imagine.”

It turns out to be just the opposite.

Nick Reisman, who previously worked for The Post-Star and Spectrum News before becoming the Albany bureau chief for Politico, wrote the story that Gendebien’s campaign had paid nearly $90,000 to Spruce Street Compliance for compliance work, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Platner’s campaign had also used Spruce Street Compliance.

But that doesn’t make either one of them a Nazi.

Reisman explained: “FEC records also show Platner and Gendebien share national Democratic donors. It’s not uncommon for Democratic campaigns to hire the same firms for specialized work like regulatory compliance or fundraising services.”

I suspect many Republican candidates do the same thing, including Constantino.

But because Gendebien’s campaign used the same fundraiser as Platner’s campaign, that made him a Nazi.

I don’t follow.

Constantino is now taking advice from Elise Stefanik’s hatchet man Alex deGrasse, and this looked like it might be his handiwork.

So on Sunday, I texted Anthony and asked if he really believed Gendebien is a Nazi as his campaign suggested? I then asked him why he allowed his campaign to portray him that way. “I’d really love to hear your justification for this,” I texted.

I didn’t hear back.

He must have been too busy.

I haven’t heard from Anthony since that July 5 text wishing me a happy Independence Day.

I suspect Anthony Constantino now has “handlers” who will convince him who to talk to and when and avoid unsavory characters like me who might ask him questions about things that matter to the voters.

His silence also might have something to do with the Gendebien-commissioned poll that showed him just one point behind Constantino. If accurate, that is shocking in this Republican-leaning district.

Back on April 11, Constantino texted me: “I intend to keep my character and ethics intact as I enter politics or there’s really no point.”

Calling his opponent a Nazi means Constantino has already abandoned any pretext of maintaining his character and ethics.

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Will feedback

My colleague Will Doolittle got some interesting feedback from a reader after writing about the dramatic differences between congressional candidates Blake Gendebien and Anthony Constantino.

Constantino is the Trump-idolizing businessman who once boxed professionally and did a rap album to celebrate Donald Trump.

Gendebien is a farmer who served on his local school board and coaches a little basketball. Kind of boring.

But one comment on Will’s column got my attention. Here is what it said:

Well, Will what about better than decent. Two stories. Blake Gendebien will NOT be the one to tell them. Story one, my wife is running for St. Lawrence County Legislature. One day while campaigning in the backwoods of Pierrepont she talked to a young man. When Blake’s name came up, he shared that he had worked for Blake. When the man and his wife had a baby the newborn had serious health concerns and the young family spent the better par of a year dealing with the baby’s medical issues. Even though the young man was not at work, Blake paid the young man the whole time he was away from work. Story #2 Another dairy farmer in Canton had his combine break down at the height of the season, and put out word to 19 other farmers for assistance getting his crop in. Only one farmer answered the call. Blake Gemdebien sent a combine and a hired man to aid the fellow farmer. Voters may hear these stories during from the campaign, but it won’t be the candidate telling them.

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Misinformation event

We’ve had several different references to the start time for Mary Miller’s presentation on misinformation at Crandall Library in Glens Falls on July 29.

To clarify, the event is scheduled to run from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

For those hoping to attend, you may want to get there early. Each Wednesday during the summer, downtown Glens Falls has a “Take A Bite” event where restaurants and bars sell food on the sidewalks. It generally attracts a lot of people. You might want to consider having your dinner at “Take A “Bite” before heading over to the presentation at Crandall Library.

We’ve also heard from Warrensburg Supervisor Kevin Geraghty, who is chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, and plans to be at the event. Glens Falls Mayor Diana Palmer is also planning on attending.

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Chapman event

Chapman Museum Curator Maureen Folk will offer a special inside look at the museum’s new exhibit, “Benjamin Franklin was Here, 1776,” on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

She’ll review the story of Benjamin Franklin’s stop in Glens Falls, explore his lasting impact on both local and national history, and discover what it really takes to bring an exhibition to life as she reviews the curatorial process.

This program is free for Chapman Members or $10 for non-members. Space is limited so make sure to register at (518) 793-2826.

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N.Y. education

Politico revealed some startling statistics about the state of New York.

It reported:

• New York spends more per student on public education than any other state, but its test scores are mediocre.

• New York’s share of the nation’s millionaires declined more than any other state from 2010 to 2022, and, had it stayed the same, the state would have collected $10.7 billion more in taxes in 2022.

• Every other U.S. state has gained more residents from New York than it lost to New York.

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Great reporting

Dan Clark, who writes the “Capital Confidential” report for the Times Union each day, should be applauded for doing some old-fashioned basic reporting about the state Legislature.

Clark wanted to know the attendance record for members of the New York Legislature, but it oddly does not publish those statistics, so Clark asked for them and compiled a database for each elected official. The worst were, not surprisingly, downstate members of the Assembly who didn’t bother to show up in Albany at all.

Here at home, it was great to see that both Matt Simpson and Carrie Woerner had perfect attendance records, while Dan Stec missed only two days in the Senate.

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ICE presence

Politico also reported that ICE has a growing presence in three different New York communities.

It wrote:

• In Newburgh, the federal government has signed a warehouse lease near Stewart International Airport, with a filing indicating that the facility will be used by ICE.

• In Batavia, ICE announced it would expand its 650-bed Buffalo Federal Detention Facility.

• And in Rochester, the agency is adding immigration detention cells to a federal office building that includes a daycare and courthouse.

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End of an empire

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is the latest pundit to muse about whether the United States will be as “vibrant on our 500th birthday?”

Kristof, known for his reporting overseas, writes:

I worry in particular that we are undermining the tripartite approach that has made the United States dominant, starting with heavy investments in human capital such as education. The United States was a world leader in mass education in the 19th and 20th centuries, but we now rank ninth in reading, 16th in science and 34th in math, according to the PISA global ranking of student test scores. Human capital is also about our health and well-being, and that likewise is discouraging: The United States now ranks 61st in life expectancy globally, according to the World Bank.

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Finally, action!

Back in January, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

Finally this week, Minnesota investigators announced that federal prosecutors turned over key evidence during a week in which another man was killed by ICE in Maine.

The Minnesota evidence included hard drives containing statements, police body camera video and Renee Good’s car.

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Blanche hearing

As attorney general nominee Todd Blanche, previously President Trump’s lawyer, faces a confirmation hearing today in Washington, a judge in Florida issued a scathing rebuke to Blanche and a lawsuit the Department of Justice filed to shield Trump’s tax records from the IRS.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams accused Trump and his lawyers of having manipulated the court system by suing a federal agency (the IRS) under his control and bypassing a policy that parties in a lawsuit must have “adverse interests.”

You may remember the lawsuit was settled by granting Trump immunity from tax audits and establishing a $1.776 billion fund to compensate Trump allies who believe they are unjustly persecuted.

While the judge stopped short of voiding the immunity deal, she did decide the the lawsuit was not legitimate.

The Associated Press reported the judge recommended legal sanctions against some of the lawyers involved and said she was “extremely troubled” by the testimony of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, which was “at best, misleading and, at worst, disingenuous.”

That may come up at his confirmation hearing today.

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Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and his play “The Last American Newspaper” is being produced by Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 . He currently lives in both Queensbury, N.Y. and New Orleans, La.

Please consider supporting The Front Page with a paid subscription: HERE

By AARON WOOLF

For most of a month, the United States welcomed the world.

And for most of a month, it did so beautifully.

The fears that had accompanied the tournament—about logistics, security, transportation, even whether Americans would embrace the world’s game—gave way to something unexpectedly joyful. The expanded 48-team format, widely criticized before the opening whistle, produced one dramatic match after another. Cities discovered that football supporters do not simply attend games; they occupy parks, bars, subway platforms, and public squares. They sing with strangers. They teach chants to children. They leave scarves tied to fences and friendships in their wake.

I watched many of these matches upstairs at Counter Space in Elizabethtown. The room filled with neighbors, cyclists, travelers, and the occasional visitor from abroad. It was one of those rare moments when a small town in the Adirondacks felt quietly connected to the rest of the world.

The world, meanwhile, began to rediscover something about the United States.

The country’s greatest asset during the World Cup was not its stadiums. It was not its highways, airports, or television production. It was ordinary Americans.

I kept thinking about an interview with supporters from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They admitted they had been nervous about making the trip. Years earlier, the American president had referred to countries like theirs in deeply insulting terms. They wondered what kind of welcome they would receive.

They found themselves embraced.

In city after city, visitors described unexpected kindness. Scottish supporters in Boston laughed about the mayor pouring beers for them. Families invited strangers to backyard cookouts. Volunteers posed for photographs with fans wearing jerseys they had never seen before. Taxi drivers recommended neighborhoods. Restaurant servers became unofficial ambassadors. The United States that visitors encountered bore little resemblance to the country they had imagined from headlines and political speeches.

One of the unexpected pleasures of this World Cup was the U.S. men’s national team itself.

For so much of American sporting history, our teams arrive carrying the burden of expectation. But not this one. In the beautiful game, the United States remains an aspiring nation. We are not Brazil or Argentina or Spain. We are still trying to earn our place.

There was something deeply appealing about that. Watching from a town that still lives in the long shadow of Lake Placid, it was hard not to feel the faintest echo of another improbable American team that once captured the imagination simply by refusing to believe it was overmatched. It was probably wishful thinking. But for a little while, it didn’t seem entirely impossible.

This American team played the way underdogs are supposed to play—with relentless energy, stubborn resilience, and the belief that effort can sometimes overcome talent. Even after the controversial red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina left them with 10 men, they defended with extraordinary discipline and resolve. They didn’t ask for sympathy. They simply kept playing.

Neutral supporters notice things like that. They admire teams that earn respect one tackle, one desperate clearance, one exhausted sprint at a time.

Looking back, it strikes me that both stories—the one unfolding in the stands and the one unfolding on the pitch—were really the same story.

Neither depended upon power.

Both depended on goodwill.

Years ago, the Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye gave that phenomenon a name: soft power. It is the ability to attract rather than compel, to persuade rather than coerce. At the heart of the idea was the recognition that admiration can often accomplish what coercion cannot.

Day by day, America was steadily refilling that deeply depleted reservoir of goodwill.

Then came a red card.

Whether the card itself was deserved is almost beside the point. Many thoughtful observers believed it was harsh. Appeals exist precisely because referees sometimes make mistakes.

But the public campaign surrounding the appeal changed the story. What might have remained a debate about refereeing became a debate about influence, political intervention, and whether the world’s most powerful country expected different rules to apply to itself.

The effect reached beyond FIFA.

In a matter of days, the story surrounding the American team shifted as well. The qualities that had made them so appealing—scrappiness, humility, resilience, the willingness to fight from underneath—were suddenly eclipsed by a different narrative altogether.

When the United States walked onto the field against Belgium, it no longer looked like the plucky challenger trying to earn its place among football’s elite. Fairly or unfairly, the emotional mantle of the underdog had been handed to Belgium.

In sport, that matters.

Athletes search for reasons to believe. Coaches spend entire careers trying to convince talented players that the world doubts them. The controversy had accomplished all of that work for Belgium before the opening whistle. It gave them not only motivation but something perhaps even more valuable: a story.

When Belgium won convincingly, many people around the world did not see simply a football match.

They saw a morality play.

That may have been unfair.

It may even have been wrong.

But soft power has never depended upon objective truth alone. It depends upon perception.

That is both its strength and its fragility.

Perhaps that is what made the episode feel so disappointing. The United States had spent nearly a month demonstrating that its greatest strength was not its power at all. It was its openness. Its hospitality. Its ordinary citizens. Even its football team had become a kind of ambassador, earning respect not by winning easily but by fighting honestly from underneath. And then, in the space of a few days, the old habits of power intruded. The country that had been admired for behaving like an underdog suddenly looked, once again, like a superpower insisting that the rules should bend.

One story was written by volunteers, bartenders, waitresses, subway riders, and neighbors.

The other was written by politicians and their machinations.

If there is a lesson in this World Cup, it is that nations are ultimately judged less by what their leaders proclaim than by what their people practice.

For most of this tournament, America practiced hospitality.

It hurts to be knocked out of the tournament earlier than we had hoped. But our most enduring victory may have come off the pitch.

Goodwill is painstakingly earned and astonishingly easy to squander.

For a few remarkable weeks, visitors from around the world experienced an America that was generous, welcoming, and eager to share itself with the world. I hope that is the America they carry home.

Aaron Woolf is a filmmaker and community developer based in Elizabethtown, New York. Best known for directing the Peabody Award–winning documentary King Corn, he has also been deeply involved in local projects that strengthen Adirondack communities. His work includes reopening the historic Deer’s Head Inn, serving on the town planning board, helping to found the Adirondack Community Recreation Alliance, and leading the redevelopment of Elizabethtown’s historic pharmacy building into a multi-use center promoting small businesses and community life.

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