Last Updated: Thursday, February 28, 2013 9:36:35 AM
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
There’s such comfort in the knowledge that we live in a place where people support each other. It’s something I’ve become aware of since taking this position, but it becomes more clear every time a benefit is held. The benefit for Tyson Fowler this weekend was one of the biggest I’ve witnessed, with those in attendance passionate about doing whatever they could to help. It’s a testament not only to the Fowler family’s impact on t ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Spring is just around the corner ó just slightly more than one month away from when I’m writing this article. I can’t wait for the ushering in of balance, not only in terms of the weather. I crave warm breezes and the reintroduction of scents and sound, instead of the inhalation of cold so sharp it stings the insides, accompanied only by the sound of my own feet crunching or sloshing through an either icy or muddy outer layer.
For me, there&rsquo ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
It’s Valentines Day. A day to pay tribute to all the love in our lives. I know a lot of people are cynical about Valentine’s Day, and I do understand that. It’s a holiday, that like most others, has been commercialized to the point that to see any sign of the repackaging of beloved products in big red hearts (though I did actually see one full of beef jerky this year that I fell in love with, so to speak) causes irritation.
I’ve also heard p ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Following New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day is the most celebrated holiday around the world. I don’t know why I was surprised to hear this fact, since it is understandable. Love is universal, and one of the things that people from all around the world are willing to devote their lives, and sometimes give their life, in pursuit of.
Today, the holiday has thankfully become one that we spend simply focusing on loved ones, seeing eye to eye in terms of ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
The local area has seen its share of unfortunate fires this winter. They’ve ranged in severity from localized, quickly doused fires surrounding appliances to fully consuming blazes that have destroyed properties. It sounds as though at least one of these fires could’ve been avoided if proper heating unit procedures were paid attention to, and I can’t help but worry that failure to execute something as simple as a checkup will result in serious inj ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
The $137 billion executive budget that Governor Andrew Cuomo presented on Tuesday called for an $889 million statewide increase in education aid, with three percent applied to schools. It’s noted that there is an additional amount set aside for in-need districts with “extraordinary increases in school district fixed costs, including pension growth.”
While those words sound as if they’re referring to every district as far as the eye can see, ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
As you’re most likely aware, New York State was the first to adopt The Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, which passed through the senate by a sizable margin on Sunday, and was then signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo Monday.
On one hand, I’m proud to live in a state that is at least doing what they think is necessary to prevent senseless gun violence, although I have mixed feelings about the speed at which the legislation was pushed t ...
By Joshua Thomas
C-S-E Editor
If we could travel back in time, even just fifty years, to tell people that many humans in 2013 are in possession of pocket-sized devices that contain every bit of information known to man, I wonder what would be the reaction.
When asked to expound more on this device and all its wonders, one could talk about how life has changed because of it. Watches have become virtually obsolete, as have land line telephones and flashlights, because they are all contained in th ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
It’s overwhelming to realize how much can happen over the course of one year. When I decided to write this editorial about my favorite moments of 2012, I started to look back, and small challenges arose just trying to remember some of what happened in the first couple months of 2012. When a memory struck, I sometimes had to do a mental double take just to make sure it really happened this year. Some memories seem years old, while others seem to trail close be ...
By Joshua Thomas
C-S-E Editor
I doubt I’m the only person with a sketchy relationship to new year’s resolutions. I think that a resolution can be a great motivator, but a failed resolution has the ability to leave a person feeling lousy. At worst, too many failed resolutions might cause a person to give up on them altogether, when I think that we just need to keep plugging away at creating challenges that work for us individually.
I’ve found I respond best to fluid goals rathe ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editorial
Time is flying by. Every year, I sit to write my Christmas editorial, and I’m instantly transported back to last year...three years ago...five years ago. The process of forming my current state of being into a tidy editorial, taking into consideration a life’s worth of holiday seasons, is a humbling experience. It brings back so many different times, places, people and mental states, all waiting under the Christmas tree of my subconscious with a tidy ...
We’re mad and we’re not gonna take it anymore.
That’s one message we’re hearing from people who live, work and believe in the western Montgomery County area. Many of those groups and individuals are working with government officials and/or mounting grassroots efforts to save their communities’ historic structures, address blight and decay, and clean up their neighborhoods.
And we’re not just talking “clean up” with a broom and dust pan.
In St. Joh ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Do you remember that low rumble that evolved into a growl last year, with half the world growing anxious that the world is supposed to end on Dec. 21, 2012? I honestly completely forgot until recently, and I wouldn’t have minded if it stayed that way. Like any good impending doomsday, though, it’s been hard to escape in recent weeks, thanks mostly to the fevered freak outs of strangers on my television.
Although Dec. 21 is when the Mayan calendar ends, ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
For the past few years, the day after Thanksgiving — when the Christmas onslaught truly begins — was when I began to panic. While Christmas lights have always been effective in calming me, it’s been years since I was able to avoid that moment when I realized exactly how much needs to be done, and how little time there is left to do it. Getting serious with the holiday budgeting and systematically checking off a seemingly never-ending list of gifts ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Who are these people that spend Thanksgiving savoring and appreciating the greatest things bestowed upon them, basking in the glow of the people and places they’ve surrounded themselves with, only to go buck wild at midnight, disregarding fellow man entirely in the name of deals?
Black Friday seems like it keeps getting worse. Just last year, someone sprayed mace into a crowd at a semi-local department store. People were biting each other like horror movie mo ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
I’m thankful for the people of this area that continue to do selfless, wonderful things. There are so many of them, and I’m lucky to have the opportunity, through my work, to meet them and hear their stories. Editing this week’s stories and press releases, I couldn’t help but be moved by the abundance of generous deeds by local people, who, even in times of their own economic strife, put personal worries aside to help those in need.
The Flan ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
It’s a week to feel exceedingly proud of my fellow Americans. It’s a time to be proud of the evolving country we inhabit, those who strived to move it forward to this point, and the version of it that is yet to come, which, will hopefully take all of history into consideration to refine and perfect the things that haven’t yet been.
I spend a lot of time living in the past and looking toward the future, but with Obama’s win in the presidentia ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
I recently witnessed a conversation between an acquaintance and one of their friends. The conversation began with the acquaintance lamenting the needless abundance of political signage. He noted that he felt too many signs had been erected locally for one specific candidate. The other party in the conversation stated that he believed it’s often the property owners that place the signs, not the candidate. The acquaintance stated in response, “I didn&rsqu ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
I love to scare people. There’s nothing I desire more to send a chill up the spine with a twist of phrase, or evoke imagery that produces a full-blown nightmare. Even just a fleeting moment of fear. It’s not often that I have the chance, so when Halloween rolls around, I’m attracted to the opportunity like a vampire to a warm neck.
One thing that is important to me though, in doing so, is that the truth remains unembellished, so that the fear I d ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Election time makes me just a little bit crazy. I can’t help it. I love the opportunity to voice my opinion and have it counted, but it’s a frustrating time, because as much as I feel I attempt to find out the truth about candidates, policies, etc., it becomes increasingly hard to maneuver around the many deceptions. Attempting to get to the bottom of things often means being savvy of manipulations, half-truths and outright lies.
Watching television thi ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
October annually calls attention to two very important causes, both of which have touched my life by affecting those close to me. It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month, and National Fire Prevention Month, wherein we’re annually provided a great opportunity to remind each other to make sure things are in tip-top shape, externally and internally.
I’ve known breast cancer survivors, and I’ve unfortunately also known people who were unable to beat ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
The recently created Courier-Standard-Enterprise Facebook page surpassed 300 “likes” this week, and while I, and News Staff member Linda Kellett (administrators of the C-S-E Facebook page), are incredibly happy that the page reached that goal, it also filled us with the desire to continually set new goals to surpass.
I was a Facebook holdout for quite some time, not even creating a personal account until years after everybody else had one. Finally real ...
By LINDA KELLETT
C-S-E News Staff
There were three take-away points that came out of the first session of the Sept. 13 Mohawk River Flood Management Update at Herkimer County Community College: The Mohawk is a dynamic system, and flooding is not an uncommon occurrence; the intensity of flooding events is increasing; and future flooding may be more dramatic.
That was the assessment of Alexander Smith, an environmental analyst with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, who both intr ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Yesterday, I read about how local school districts are now utilizing three-dimensional projectors to teach students. I’m admittedly quite excited about this technology and all its potential uses.
As the press release stated, the technology has the ability to show a detailed worm dissection, peeling it away in digital layers. I have no idea if local schools still participate in animal dissections, but the idea that these can now be simulated is one that I&rsqu ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
This morning was the first time I accepted that it’s no longer summer. While fall is my favorite season, and I usually grow weary of summer’s forceful, humid heat, I was hesitant to let go of those warm nights, trading them for a chill in the air.
As the sun rose this morning, Wednesday, a fog settled over the valley. While there were many foggy mornings this summer, there is just something different about the way a fall fog hangs in the air. Barely-mov ...
By JOSHUA THOMAS
C-S-E Editor
Wednesday, local kids returned to school once again. And for another year, I’m just glad it wasn’t me. Or am I?
I can’t help but feel a mix of emotions every time a new class moves forward and a new group of children begin their academic career. Whether I liked my (what seemed like a lifelong) tenure in grade and high school, it’s a part of me, and it shaped me. It prepared me for the life I live now.
As I was editing this year’s seni ...
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