2024 - Oh my!
Rockwell Falls Library controversy featured in New York Times
By Ken Tingley
As they counted down the seconds in Times Square, a sense of foreboding washed over me.
It was just my wife and me sitting quietly at home.
Our only child was celebrating with his girlfriend in a far away city. Our family got a little smaller this past year, so that was part of it as well.
But as the ball descended and “2024” was welcomed by thousands, I couldn’t help but wonder where we will be a year from now.
As the Hollywood types in Times Square gushed about a great year ahead, I felt dread, not optimism.
I wondered if 2024 would become infamous in the history books like 9/11 or Dec. 7.
Each day of news brings new reasons to worry.
Those who support the former president seem to have abandoned any premise our court system is fair and just.
Those who answer polls seem unaware the economy has improved significantly with gas and supermarket prices down, our retirement accounts growing and unemployment at record lows.
Where we once embraced defending Ukraine from Russian atrocities, it is now being used in Congress as a bargaining chip.
The national press continues to cover the presidential election process for the major parties as if the American people have a choice.
Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist, wrote this week there is “a meanness in American life” and how the 2024 election turns out could be a turning point in our country.
Our congresswoman is gloating about her takedown of a college president at an elite university and promising she will always deliver “results” to us. I don’t see how any of this helped us here in the 21st Congressional District, especially with universities all across her district cutting programs and seeing enrollment declines.
Does she understand that the small, rural communities she represents are getting older and smaller and a crisis of health care and emergency services is already upon us?
I’ve decided we are a spoiled and pampered people who think we are much smarter than we really are.
Few of us have ever been to war.
Even fewer have had to fight for our rights.
But here is what I fear most. Few of us can possibly imagine an America where are freedoms disappear, where our leaders are arrested by political opponents, where the media we so often criticize is silenced.
Welcome to what 2024 represents.
“Do a majority of Americans still believe in the American project and the American dream as we’ve long mythologized them?” Bruni asked in his column this week. “Do they still see our country as a land of opportunity and immigrant ingenuity whose accomplishments and promise redeem its sins? Do we retain faith in a more bountiful tomorrow, or are we fighting over leftovers? Those questions hover with a special urgency over the 2024 election.”
For those of us who lived through the year 1984, we know it was nothing like the book. 2024 may be an entirely different story.
The Rockwell Falls Public Library remains closed after its employees were driven away by people within their community.
While visiting Crandall Library in Glens Falls recently, I overheard a man criticizing the current library director and angrily demanding to put a hold on books he found objectionable. In fact, several books.
What happens when that man leads a group to the library, or to the next board meeting, or if he runs for office?
We don’t believe these things could happen here.
But we are naive.
Elise Stefanik’s political opportunism showed us first hand how fast it can happen.
While at the National World War II Museum last month, I was reminded of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
They were herded into camps by the stroke of a president’s pen.
Their businesses and finances ruined.
That happened overnight because of their ancestry. Our political beliefs could be targeted in 2024.
After the Harvard president resigned this week, she penned an essay for the New York Times with a warning:
“The campaign against me was about more than one university and one leader,” Claudine Gay wrote. “This was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of American society. Campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise, because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda. But such campaigns don’t end there. Trusted institutions of all types — from public health agencies to news organizations — will continue to fall victim to coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leaders’ credibility. For the opportunists driving cynicism about our institutions, no single victory or toppled leader exhausts their zeal.”
Gay blundered when she tried to be politically correct, but we should pay attention because it could happen again and again and again in the coming year.
“Having now seen how quickly the truth can become a casualty amid controversy, I’d urge a broader caution: At tense moments, every one of us must be more skeptical than ever of the loudest and most extreme voices in our culture, however well organized or well connected they might be.” Gay wrote in what I suspect was a nod to Elise Stefanik. “Too often they are pursuing self-serving agendas that should be met with more questions and less credulity.”
I don’t believe that 2024 will be a wonderful year.
It will be a challenging year where freedom-loving citizens will be called to defend their country.
I’m hoping we can survive it with out democracy and ideals intact.
Another event
I will be speaking again at The Senior Center of Kingsbury and Fort Edward on Tuesday, Jan. 9 at 11 a.m.
I’ll once again be talking about my latest book “The Last American Editor, Vol. 2” and the value of commentary and editorials as part of your daily news diet.
A history lesson
The highlight of my recent event at the Queensbury Senior Center was meeting Harriet Rogers.
Harriet is 101, still living on her own and enjoying life.
After sitting through my talk, Harriett told me how she used to work at The Post-Star for legendary publisher Arthur Irving.
She remembered working for him among the staff he once took to the horse races.
Luzerne library featured
The New York Times featured a story on the closing of the Rockwell Falls Library on Thursday.
The article was written by John Leland And includes photos of current and past members of the library board.
The article reflected most of the news we already knew about the controversy at the library.
Decorating challenge
Since joining the Chapman Museum as a trustee this past year, I’ve been kicking around an idea for making the old house a centerpiece for holiday decorations in downtown Glens Falls.
The staff does a nice job of decorating the house, but this past year the outside was mostly dark and lacking holiday decorations. I’m hoping we can do better in 2024.
I’m in the process of forming a committee of folks who not only love old houses, but see the potential to make the Chapman house a centerpiece of holiday lights in future years. I hope the committee will meet monthly leading up to the holiday season later this year.
If you would like to join the effort, contact me at tingleykenneth4@gmail.com with your contact information. We’re not looking for experts, just regularly people who love the holiday season.
I suspect we will also be looking for donations of decorations throughout the coming year as well. If you are dealing with an estate or looking to downsize your current collection, I hope you will consider the Chapman Museum.
My daughter is 34 and the other night started watching "House" reruns after work. She said to me "Mom, I'm stunned. The way women were treated in this show is appalling and it wasn't that long ago." I told her that women have been working very hard for generations to get where we are today. So have blacks, LGBTQ folks, etc. It has taken years to acquire the rights afforded men for centuries. That is why it is all so precious and dear. So many tears have gone into getting where we are and I have lived through so much so that you wouldn't have to. This is why this next election is so important for your generation. If Republicans win, you will be fighting all over again for your sons and daughters. Two steps forward, three back. Young people need to vote. They have no idea what they will lose if they don't.
Sitting here in my humble abode far from the bustle and busyness of the world. I read this article sipping two obligatory cups of Java. Now awake I'll say there is much to be wary of in the coming year. Wars rage on between the Ukraine and Russia as well as Palestine and Israel. China's last comment I read on reunification was unchanged. Not if but when.
This could be a game changer. North Korea? OK well, as always a dicey situation. Been this way for so long it seems normal? Scary thought for sure.
Elise Stefanik, our little glimmer of Trumpism and morality at a her usual low. Yes her antics seem like a moment of one upping an authority figure to me. Yes the stroke a pen a word is all it takes to tip the balance of calm and civility.
I'll say Happy New Year.
I'll live humbly as my Grandfather said and did. I'll live with the faith my Father and Mother instilled in me. I'll wear my humanity on my sleeve. I'll try and lake my corner of the world better than I found it.