Your article "Saying Goodbye To Golf" in the February 16th edition is inaccurate. The article covered a preplanning session and not the current status of the golf course. Rondout Country Club is the current owner of the property in discussion and plans to continue operation as we have in the past. There is no plan to say goodbye to golf this year. Any and all scheduled events will be held and membership will continue as in previous years.

The article has had a negative effect on our business.

Apparently there was no effort to contact the current owners of Rondout Country Club to verify the fact that the golf course was closing. I believe that this borders on fake news if not actually fake news.

Daniel D Gagnon,
shareholder/treasurer
Rondout Country Club

Editor's Note: There is a correction story on page 7 to remedy the inaccuracies that arose at the recent Rochester Planning Board meeting.

It was snowing the first day we drove into Ellenville for our son in law George E, Barthel Jr's memorial service. We were greeted and welcomed by family, friends, and a loving community.

George was a humble and caring man. He had such strength, courage and an unwavering faith. We often called him a "warrior" (a warrior's spirit). His armor was his faith that saw him through his battle with cancer. The foundation for his faith began at an early age at his church, Ellenville Reformed Church. It was there that his church surrounded him with God's love.

George was the man he was because he was not only nurtured by loving parents, family, but a loving and supportive community of Napanoch and Ellenville.

As we drove away that snowy day we felt blessed to have been a part of the community George grew up in.

Let faith arise; fond memories always.

Don and Chris Tyre
Fayetteville GA

My mother died of Alzheimer's disease. During her illness, I sometimes told her what I thought of as "white lies" to protect her from the extreme agitation which is one of the many symptoms. When she once asked me when Dad would visit, I reminded her that he had died three decades earlier. She grimaced and cried and I realized she did not remember and the news I just shared was raw and painful. I never made that mistake again.

I now have a new name for my white lies — "alternative facts." Thank you, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump.

Alternative facts were my mom's reality and so they became ours. Alternative facts soothed her, protected her, made her feel safe.

However, in the White House alternative facts have no place. The reality of our government and our country is the reality we should all know and be able to see and touch. These so-called facts do not protect us, but make us question. They do not make us safe, but make us frightened. They do not soothe, but stroke Trump's ego. They are not the white lies I told my mother all those years ago, but lies our president tells himself to suspend an unflattering reality. The size of a crowd is not so important, but what about alternative facts with real significance, real consequences? He needs to accept the truth. We need to demand it.

Maureen Bowers
Hurley

There are many Americans that are extremely disturbed and disgusted by the double standards going on in this country. The outlandish behavior by the Democrats along with the overwhelming amount of false news from the media and the lack of respect towards the president by the Hollywood and sports elite is what's dividing this country.

If the Democratic Party along with its voters want to strengthen their party, they need to start respecting the president, the Republican voters, but most of all themselves. The riots, the destroying of property and the continued violence is getting old and embarrassing. They need to start promoting respect and acceptance.

Maureen McGuigan
Middletown

Those familiar with the history of the 1960s will recognize an anthem from that era, the refrain from John Lennon's song, "Give Peace a Chance" (1969).

All we are saying, Is Give peace a chance

That anthem has been revised in 2017 by "soft" supporters of the Trump administration:

All we are saying Is Give him a chance...

"I've got health insurance through my job, but I've got COPD and they've been laying off lately. What would happen to me if I'm next?"

Let's give him a chance

"My daughter had a super teacher for her physics class. He's a foreign graduate student, studying in the U.S. What's going to happen to him? She's really upset."

Let's give him a chance

"Too much whining about the bad press he's getting. He's supposed to be the tough guy. C'mon, every president gets criticized and lampooned. They stay quiet about it. Not him. Thank God we've got a free press."

Let's give him a chance

"Sure, we need to destroy ISIS, but isn't this Muslim ban going to give the bastards just what they need — more recruits for a holy war?"

Let's give him a chance

"I have to admit that he makes me nervous. The way he yells and threatens foreign leaders, never mind regular Americans that get on his wrong side. 'Don't worry, I'll fix it.' Does he think he's a king instead of a president?"

Let's give him a chance

"What? He's threatening Iran and China, and kicking our allies in the teeth? Is he going to have us in a war within a month?"

Let's give him a chance

Music shifts to another sound: The actor, Slim Pickens, whooping it up, riding an h-bomb like a cowboy as it drops on Russia to trigger Armageddon. (Dr. Strangelove, film, 1:27, 1964)

We gave him a chance.

Tom Denton
Highland

In the wake of General Michael Flynn's resignation from his position as National Security Advisor, the question inevitably arises, "What did the President know and when did he know it?" But there are two problems with that question.

First, every day images in the media and serious, reliable reporting reveal this president's spectacular lack of knowledge: of world affairs, the workings of government, the election process and the traditions and protocols relied on for maintaining order and stability as leader of the free world. A president renowned for his general ignorance can almost automatically be granted plausible deniability regarding the disqualifications or deficiencies of prospective appointees. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told Trump about Flynn's probable vulnerability to blackmail due to his conversations about sanctions with the Russian ambassador. The President chose to ignore that counsel. Since the announcement of Flynn's resignation, the Republican response has been muted; putting party before the good of the country is shameful, but putting party before national security is unconscionable.

Second, when the President publicly demonstrates, via Twitter, his delight in and praise for the astoundingly rabid exchanges between Stephen Miller and the hosts of multiple Sunday morning news shows the message becomes clear, the president will not be held accountable for any failures or transgressions during his tenure. Miller's words and tone, which could easily have been taken from an autocrat's training manual, suggest pursuing the question of what the President did or did not know about Flynn's conversations with Russia are likely not going to yield satisfactory results.

I suggest the more important question is, "What did Stephen Bannon know and when did he know it?"

Deidre J. Byrne
Saugerties

In regards to Alan Chartock's op ed from last issue... As someone who has been required by law to pay into these programs for most of my life, I resent any politician who refers to them as "entitlements."

Worse yet is when Congress tries to reduce or eliminate them. Social Security would be financially secure if Congress had not raided the cookie jar so many times.

Jim Armstrong
Woodstock

Praise the veterans who fought, and some who were wounded and died protecting our freedoms by taking credit for the County Veterans Memorial, Veterans Cemetery and Patriot's Project Center — but he doesn't allow his staff to speak to the press?

County Executive Hein, what kind of freedoms do you approve of?

William F. Berardi
Kingston

While the Republican Administration attacks America's free press and judicial system, elevates billionaire ideologue cronies to the nation's highest positions of power, and signs cruel, unconstitutional executive orders like the Muslim ban, this is what our District 19 representative John Faso has been up to:

Voted for which would allow guns in school zones

Voted to allow people with serious mental illness to be able to purchase guns

Voted to repeal a rule requiring energy companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.

Voted to repeal a rule requiring some federal contractors to report labor violations

Voted to repeal the Stream Protection Rule

Voted for a budget resolution to repeal the Affordable Care Act

Gained national media attention after being quoted in The Washington Post saying he had "no problem" with defunding Planned Parenthood

Faced large protests against his support of ACA repeal

John Faso has voted in alignment with his Republican Party president's position 92 percent of the time. In interviews, he talks in circles, never standing for anything. That's because his allegiance is to his wealthy, arch-conservative donors, not to constituents. He does not represent the working and middle class people of our district, and that's why we voters must make sure he's a single-term legislator.

Michelle Sutton
Highland
Zach Feuer
Hudson

My grandfather Albert Joseph Bialek came to the United States from Poland (Galicia) in 1910. Per the Ellis Island website he boarded the ship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in Bremen, Germany (formerly Prussia.) He had just completed his service in the Austrian Army. Poland at that time was divided

into three spheres of influence by Austria, Prussia and Russia. Upon being discharged he returned to his father's farm. Officers from the Austrian Army made an attempt to reenlist him but tradition dictated that he could remain at home so long as he was sorely needed on the farm. Immediately after the officers departed Albert's father gave him his brother's travel documents and instructed him to emigrate to the United States. His father knew that war was coming and he didn't want to lose his son to it. It took me longer to locate my grandfather on the passenger list because I had forgotten he was traveling under the name Jan and not Albert. Given the fact that Albert entered the United States under the name Jan Bialek and later burned his immigration papers it is evident he was by definition "illegal immigrant." He went on to become a very hard-working brick mason and law-abiding citizen raising 12 children with the help of his Polish wife Mary (nee Mazan) and the rest (as they say) is history.

Just as Cleveland (Ohio) is a city of neighborhoods so is the United States a country of immigrants. In fact all the major cities of America (at one time) served as incubators for immigrants to not only become accustomed to the ways of this country but also to intermingle with each other (often prohibited in their native homeland.) It's a shame that the inner cities were handed over to the absentee landlords following World War II. Just imagine how much stronger and united our country might have been had this unofficial tradition continued. Gentrification is not the answer. Preventing immigration is

not the solution. Intense vetting is acceptable during these challenging times but to unfairly deny one person access to the United States makes us all orphans again. As a popular song goes: "let me in immigration man."

Joe Bialek
Cleveland, OH

We all have the constitutional right of freedom of speech — for now. Something that I would like to see Democratic Party and political candidates address is the sneaking feeling some of us Democrats have that there are some people associated with the new president and who support him who actually believe in their minds, hearts and souls that only Conservative-Republicans like themselves should have freedom of speech.

Obviously, the new president and many of his supporters don't like being criticized. Who does? But there is a much deeper problem with these people and with who they believe should and should not be allowed to have freedom of speech. I cannot "prove" this. I believe it to be so based upon how I "read" these people, how they come across and the type of personality that they seem to have, which Theodore Adorno referred to as "The Authoritarian Personality." Am I the only one who has "picked up" on this?

Stew Epstein
Rochester