Local paper bends the knee to Trump

Wilting flowers are beautiful, too

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

We recently ran as a guest essay a letter written by Bill Tedesco, a longtime family doctor in Glens Falls. Dr. Tedesco had submitted the letter to Mark Frost at the Chronicle but after about six weeks got tired of waiting for it to be published.

I contacted Frost to ask why he had held the letter for so long, and he replied he lacked space for it. I told him we would be running it as an essay, which we did on Tuesday, Sept. 9. He ran it in the Chronicle that same week, on Thursday, Sept. 11.

Then in the Thursday, Sept. 18 issue, Frost ran three letters that criticized Dr. Tedesco and attempted to rebut the points he had made about perils our country is facing.

Here is one of those three letters in its entirety:

To the Editor:

Why are you inciting violence Bill Tedesco? Please stop with your hideously uneducated hateful rhetoric. That’s how CHARLIE KIRK got assassinated. You should check yourself boy.

— Bill Trombley Jr.

Rereading it made me wonder whether Frost read this letter, and if he did, why he published it. It starts with a lie and concludes with a threat. At the very end is the pejorative “boy,” a particularly stupid way to refer to Dr. Tedesco, who is over 90, served in the Air Force, has been practicing medicine in Glens Falls for about 60 years, founded Irongate Family Practice Associates and was until recently the director of High Peaks Hospice.

Frost can edit letters if he chooses, and he should not have included this insult.

Dr. Tedesco’s essay does not incite violence. He says the country is “at war,” but he urges the mobilization of the American people in peaceful protest as the proper way to fight.

Here is how I paraphrase Trombley Jr.’s letter in my head: “Your rhetoric is hateful. That’s how this other guy got killed. You should be careful.”

Isn’t that a threat? Is that a letter that should run in a community newspaper?

I asked Mark Frost that question in an email but haven’t heard back.

Local media has an outsized importance now as national media outlets such as the Washington Post, ABC and CBS are caving to the strong-arm tactics of the Trump regime.

We need local publishers to stand up for civil rights and the Constitution the way people like Dr. Tedesco and so many other citizens are at rallies and marches and on social media.

The Chronicle appears more interested in promoting the Trumpist takeover. Consider Frost’s devotion to our congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, one of Trump’s most enthusiastic and obsequious cheerleaders.

The Chronicle could be an example of independence and pluck, a shiny contrast with the tarnished national media. But it isn’t.

Frost is leaving the independent and plucky role open for others to fill. I can think of two who are relishing it.

Bill Trombley Jr.’s letter, which would have been rejected by me and Ken at the Post-Star, can be seen in this week’s Chronicle.

Poem

Here is a poem by Hudson Falls poet Richard Carella:

Balloonist

I float up to you,                                                                                                                       from my fortress below,

a balloon of myself                                                                                                                  which

-when you see it-                                                                                                                           you think is me.

Truth is a wind,                                                                                                                        that often comes up...

and blows, sometimes,                                                                                                                so hard string slips

through my hand–                                                                                                                   and balloon gets away.

Maybe you’ve seen me,                                                                                                        surfacing

(briefly),                                                                                                                                   trying vainly:

to get balloon back.

Wilting

The yellow heliopsis helianthoides that are everywhere around our lawn are wilting as the nights get cold. But they’re beautiful, too, as death approaches.

The wilted ray flowers look like a scarf that wraps around the cluster of tiny disc flowers in the center of the heliopsis helianthoides.

The drooping flowers might be expressing grief at the end of their season.

Or maybe they’re making funny faces.

I’ll miss their manifold glory.

And so will the hundreds of little insects that harbor in them.