My View
George Borrelli: Life and death: one man’s decision
It was Tom’s decision to die. And, paradoxically, it was Tom’s decision to preserve the lives of others. (Updated: 11/20/09 9:39 AM )
Nation needs to invest in high-quality day care
Guess which industry, if it ceased to serve its function, would have the power to shut down America, impacting public and private sectors alike? Here’s a hint: It’s a human service industry that is generally undervalued in regard to salary and social status, yet most working parents rely on its services. (Updated: 11/19/09 7:06 AM )
Terri Mudd: Being ‘good enough’ is a two-edged sword
If I had . . . If I had a million . . . of anything. No, we won’t go there. (Updated: 11/18/09 10:57 AM )
Jim Schneegold: Cuckoo clock’s ruckus is music to my ears
Perched on a wall in my living room rests a cuckoo clock that has two windows — one for the cuckoo, which comes out every half hour, and one for a little German man to yodel, “Edelweiss.” After two months of this constant chatter, it became necessary to silence the bird and obnoxious man by latching their windows. There’s nothing fun about rolling over in the middle of the night to hear what sounds like a Swiss Miss commercial. (Updated: 11/17/09 1:35 PM )
Michael D. Langan: Grapes take me back to my boyhood gang
Fall is the time of year that Concord grapes are gathered in Western New York, growing as they do on the hillsides of Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Finger Lakes, farther to the east. The grapes are a deep ecclesiastical purple and are my favorite fruit. (Updated: 11/15/09 8:45 AM )
Doug Routt: Guys should stick to shaking hands
I don’t want to seem like too old-fashioned a guy, but I’ve noticed a lot more hugging between men that was not prevalent just a few years ago. I was reared that guys shake hands. During my 30- year Air Force career as a fighter pilot, that concept was reinforced. We didn’t high five or bump fists or even beat forearms together — we just shook hands. (Updated: 11/14/09 11:47 AM )
Kathleen M. Rog: Enjoy the detours life throws at you
Sept. 28 may go down in Buffalo “meteorologica” as the 2009 Monsoon of September, similar to the October Surprise of ’06 or the Blizzard of ’77. I just know it took me — and, by the speed and number of vehicles surrounding me on the road, many others — two hours to drive to work from my home in Hamburg, a 14.8-mile trip that usually lasts 20 to 30 minutes. (Updated: 11/13/09 9:25 AM )
Carol Carreno: Art in its many forms is what makes us human
A recent article in Scientific American struck a chord. It was a piece about the dawn of cooking. Harvard University biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham believes that as our early ancestors began cooking food, they had more time to devote to other activities rather than spend their days chewing raw food. The eventual payoff to these ancient barbecues was more energy and time to form, among other things, social relationships. Wrangham believes that “cooking made us human.” (Updated: 11/12/09 9:21 AM )
Janusz Nieduzak: Remember the struggle for freedom and peace
The observance of Veterans Day evokes memories of my long trail from the Soviet Gulag. Needless to say, the living conditions there were beyond human imagination. In that hopeless situation, a ray of hope came into sight. (Updated: 11/11/09 8:46 AM )
Ronald Krul: Purple Heart recipients share a special bond
One Western New York family, two heroes wounded in action, two Purple Hearts, two different wars at two very different times in our history. Parallel circumstances decades apart resulted in the creation of a bond of brotherhood between an uncle and his nephew. (Updated: 11/11/09 8:49 AM )
Dan Schwartz: We need to record our veterans’ stories
A few years ago, I mentioned to Dan Keck, a professor of educational administration and an amateur military historian, that my then father-in-law, Norman Kolbusz, was a chief petty officer on the USS Minneapolis. (Updated: 11/09/09 9:14 AM )
Cathy Talladay: No one promised life would be fair
Life isn’t fair. I guess we’ve all said that at one time or another — for many reasons. Maybe we even yelled it as kids. “No fair!” And if we’ve lived a long time, it has simply become a part of our overall belief. (Updated: 11/09/09 9:15 AM )
Naming one’s child is an act of love
When my daughter Chloe was born, it had taken months of tense negotiations between her father and me before we agreed upon what to bring to the delivery room. As our daughter’s second birthday approaches, I recall how selecting her name was somehow prescient. (Updated: 11/06/09 6:58 AM )
Bob O’Connor: Husbands can’t dodge wives’ loaded questions
Back in the ’90s, some guy got rich writing a book called “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” The book’s premise was that the sexes are so different in communication styles and emotional needs that we might as well be from different planets. I checked the guy’s biography and he is on marriage number two and he got his Ph. D. through a correspondence course from an unaccredited university. (Updated: 11/05/09 9:19 AM )
Penny F. Zeplowitz: Matchy-matchy decor is my kind of fashion
I have a confession to make. Our bedroom furniture matches. I didn’t realize it shouldn’t until I was watching the home decorating shows on HGTV last summer. To my horror, I discovered their interior design experts consider our bedroom set to be (gulp) too “matchy-matchy.” That’s their word, incidentally, not mine. Now you might wonder what that means. (Updated: 11/04/09 11:04 AM )