I believe that sometimes you have to learn a lesson at a very young age that things aren't always fair. Unfortunately that is what the boys from Pine Bush learned.

I had children and grandchildren that played Little League and I was involved in the Montgomery Little League for a long time. By reading what was in the paper, these young men were deprived of playing for a total of 55 minutes. The game was supposed to start at 5:30 p.m. and didn't start until 6 p.m. and there was a delay in the game for another 25 minutes over a rule interpretation.

This delay should have been given back to this team on the next day. Ending this game at 7:30 p.m. because according to the umpires it was too dark... This was a tragedy by the New York Eastern Region and Williamsport, PA, and they should be embarrassed by what transpired.

I hope Pine Bush and all the local leagues in district will contact Williamsport to change the rules, that all games played in a state championship round and beyond should not be played on a field that does not have lights. I believe in fair play and I thought that was what Little League tries to represent. What they did here does not represent that.

Richard W. DeGroat
Montgomery

The rumors of my political demise are greatly exaggerated. The quote by Mark Twain (though he wasn't referring to politics) is rather apropos to Hugh Reynolds' article "Snafu sinks Jack Hayes."

What if being elected to office was not the only reason Jack Hayes decided to run for the Assembly? What if giving people a choice of the same old corruption versus ethics and integrity is by itself a reason to run for office? What if exposing the chairman of the state Assembly Insurance Committee's financial contributions as being almost solely and generously derived from the corporate insurance industry is in itself a reason to run for office?

What if we let the people of Ulster and Dutchess counties decide whether "Jack Hayes is sunk" and not close out the candidate's run on the basis of media commentary?

The lack of ethics and integrity is not a partisan problem. It is an institutional problem. The institution of New York State politics has an infection of corruption. It is a culture of corruption. The disease of dishonesty affects the lives of all New Yorkers. It affects all our reputations.

The watchdog organizations that decry the horrible corruption of the governor's office and legislature always seem to find some silver (pardon the pun) lining in the incumbent to send him or her back to Camp Swampy (Albany executive and legislature).

Is it time to drain the swamp? Is it time to vote for reform rather than political criminal recidivism? Isn't 18 years long enough to address abusive political power? Will anything change if the incumbent returns for two more years, or will he just enrich his retirement options?

I am running for office for the people. I am running because there is a great vacuum of honesty and integrity in our state government.

I ask all voters of all parties and those who are not enrolled in a political party to reject the premise that "Jack Hayes is sunk." The decision of whether to elect Jack Hayes does not lie with a newspaper reporter. Rather, it lies with the people. The people are the deciders of who is chosen to represent them.

I choose to embrace Winston Churchill's call to the people of Great Britain in the darkest hours of World War II — "Never, never, never give up!"

Jack Hayes
Candidate for
Assembly District 103
Gardiner

It was recently reported that New York State grant funding will be given to five small telecommunications companies across the Catskill Mountain region in order to make broadband and high-speed Internet available to these rural areas. These five grants which total $15.1 million are part of a more comprehensive grant project that allocates $54.2 million of grant funding for the proliferation of high-speed and broadband Internet across upstate, western and central New York. Last week Gov. Cuomo was in Hudson to announce the allocation of these grants, while Lt. Gov. Hochul made two appearances at SUNY New Paltz this year to announce the planning and implementation of this high-speed Internet stimulus program. These are positive steps towards improving the Internet-based infrastructure across upstate New York, but more infrastructural repairs and improvements need to be completed in order to make New York State technologically competitive with other areas of the United States. Many regional areas within the U.S. are more technologically advanced than the areas of New York State outside of southern New York are, as these areas do not have above-ground telephone wires and polls. These areas have broadband Internet and telephone lines installed underground, and it gives these areas a technological advantage over the regions of New York State that are north and west of New York City, Long Island and Westchester County. In most of upstate New York, the above-ground telephone lines are between 75-110 years-old, and they are cooper-based lines that are insulated by lead and paper. Strange as it may sound, squirrels have chewed holes through these paper-insulated lines over the last 75-110 years which causes major disruptions in telephone and internet service throughout New York State. Segments of copper-based phone lines generally run in three-mile segmented increments and a single hole and the associative exposed wires (when wet) can cause telephone and internet disruptions up to three miles away. The costs associated with a full replacement of these lines are astronomical, as engineers and numerous workers have to be brought in to initiate and complete such projects. In addition, the costs associated with the proper disposal of lead-insulated wires can be quite costly. The alternative would be to install telephone and broadband Internet lines underground, but in a state as large and geographically diverse as New York, this option is also very costly. Unfortunately, this problem is not being addressed by elected officials in Albany or Washington! In fact, Internet service is not considered an essential public service! The companies that maintain our landlines are looking to get out of the industry and allocate their financial resources towards the wireless-cellular industry, while leaving the phone lines in their current state of dilapidation. This leaves the leaders in Albany with a major crises-level situation which none of them have even addressed! In order for residents to have reliable telephone and Internet service, major infrastructural improvements need to be made, and in order for Upstate New York to be competitive in the globally-based economy, we need reliable high-speed Internet!

Chris Allen
Ulster County Legislature,
District 2
Saugerties

In a recent issue of the Journal there was an article about NY State maple syrup production — a record breaking year.

Now don't get me wrong. I love maple syrup and have spent many weeks of many years in the cold, in the rain, and under two glorious comets with my feet warmed by the wood fire under the boiling pan.

But contrary to what everyone, not just the Shawangunk Journal, reports, it is not an unrefined sweetener. What was I doing all that while, boiling away water, skimming away mineral foam, and filtering sugar sand (niter and other salts)?That is what is called refining. The unrefined product is Maple Sap. It comes from the tree and is an excellent late-winter/spring tonic.

This year was so spectacular that my single tap, on the good side of a good tree, growing with its feet in a spring, yielded 45 gallons. And it was sweet — sweet enough to have made six quarts of syrup – but most of it was (with a lot of help from friends and neighbors) drunk fresh or used in place of cooking water – especially for hot cereals and dessert rice.

And as to the abused term "100 percent natural" — nothing is added but components are changed. Maple syrup is, along with the few remaining minerals, a sucrose solution. The characteristic taste and various shades of amber come from sucrose and trace organics contacting the very hot pan metal. Freezing and reverse osmosis alone do not produce this taste.

Bob Prener
Grahamsville

To my neighbors in New Windsor, did you hear that Donald Trump is planning on opening his Trump National Hall of Honor next to the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor? To get a Trump medal, all you need to do is prove you were viciously attacked in the press, on the air or at a convention. He will have two wings, one for those attacked from the left and one for those attacked from the right. One wing is expected to be quite large.

Donald Trump, you should be ashamed of yourself. An honorable man would have thanked the man offering his medal but turned it down, saying "I have not done anything to deserve this honor." Maybe we should invite Trump to come visit to see and understand the real sacrifices made by the true Purple Heart recipients.

John Graham
Wallkill

Over 200 years ago, the American people declared they would spend "millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute." Sadly, the worst president in American history paid a $400 million tribute to Tehran and signed off on a disastrous nuclear arms deal. This humiliating payoff will be used to finance international terrorism sponsored by Iranian jihadists. Barack Hussein Obama has harsher criticism for Americans exercising their constitutional rights than for terrorists.

This president has nothing but contempt for the American political process when he denounces Donald Trump as unfit for the presidency, while endorsing the most corrupt politician to ever seek the highest office in the land. Trump's leadership may be questionable; Clinton's corruption and incompetence are incontrovertible.

If anyone is uncertain who to vote for in November, I would suggest they weigh a doubt against a certainty, and vote against Clinton. Trump's leadership may be doubtful, but Clinton's is certain to be catastrophic.

James Cunningham
Middletown

Take a good look. You are in business: The business of being a consumer.

You are part of the population that is essential to providing and controlling the growth of the economy. Let your voice be heard.

When you shop, you want products to be honestly presented, that have quality, and that come with the needed services for the product.

Let your county representatives know you want them to join with you in the efforts to be economy builders.

If you are a non-driver, let it be known to the community that it is essential for you to have proper mobility in order to purchase the goods and services that contribute the economic growth of the county.

We're all in the business of minding business.

Evelyn Barosin
LaGrange

That who we are, is Polarizing Citizens,
Decrepitude in puritan sources represents the human faces to faces in compromising humanity.
Coarseness Congress lives apart, now

Pries apart the arts of compromises.
Those arts are imaged from 1776.
As Washington put it: You patrons see it: Your workers are Whites and They work the Blacks.

The key to that image is locked in the mind of Trump, giving Whites a leverage on Blacks.
Washington's gift is grifted to Trump,
As he must know or not, but used in abuse.

As Polarized Citizens are Authoritarian or Autonomists.
Inside Trump is all authority his and fears not his but knows his fears of autonomy.
Love autonomous twists comprising.

Autonomy is humanity in authorities and compromised in Howard Zinn's book, "A People's History of the United States." The passage severely spirited into Bacon's War of 1676 in Virginia. Elites were startled to find the combining of Blacks and Whites in battalions fighting to capture lands for their lives. Zinn's passages of the People's History could be Trump's, the way he needs a lighted spirit to freshen Blacks and Whites to make Unions of Citizens.

Tom Gale
Cragsmoor