Last Thursday evening was a typical one in Niagara Falls as it pertained to the season and the temperature outside. With the mercury in the thermometer struggling to creep past the teens and a northern wind cutting through the early February night air, it was an evening tailor-made for curling up on the couch under a big blanket. It was also the type of night that you might expect local eating and drinking establishments to have a difficult time drawing a crowd. Thursdays in February leave a lot of barstools empty and a host of songs unplayed on area jukeboxes.
Another Martin Luther King Jr. Day has come and passed, and with it came a sense that there exists a need to have a similar day for gay rights in America. While there is still work to be done, race relations have made dramatic strides in this country in the years since Dr. King's death. The recent attacks on two women in Buffalo, both reputed hate crimes due to the victims' sexual orientation, prove that there is still a large chasm to cross in tolerance of the homosexual lifestyle in contemporary America.
President Barack Obama is in a dilemma from which there appears to be no easy or early escape. Democrats are the Party of Government. They feed it, and it feeds them. The larger government grows, the more agencies that are created, the more bureaucrats who are hired, the more people who become beneficiaries, the more deeply entrenched in power the Party of Government becomes.
Probably the most important battle of the whole War of 1812 was the vicious and gory Battle of Lundy's Lane just across the river. Today Lundy's Lane is a sparkling commercial district. Back then it was figuratively a river of blood.
Romance novelist Nicholas Sparks is probably a very nice guy, but frankly, I think his brain is filled with mush. "The Notebook," "A Walk To Remember," "Nights In Rodanthe" and "Message In A Bottle" are virtually interchangeable. Romance is promised and interrupted, and is then concluded in a tidy little package. The latest Sparksian ode to coitus interruptus is called "Dear John."
Publisher: Dan Cipollitti
Editor in Chief: Mike Hudson
Senior Editor: Rebecca Hudson
Design Editor: Margaret Coghlan
Contributing Editors: Michael Calleri, Frank Thomas Croisdale, Bob Kostoff
Advertising: Jim Bower