Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Letters to the Editor - April 24, 2025

To protect the rule of law, enforce it

It is extortion by Trump and bribery by the law firms which have promised nearly one billion dollars of “pro bono” legal services to causes approved by Trump. Both extortion and bribery are crimes under the penal laws of most States. Moreover, the extortion by Trump violates multiple provisions of the Constitution. This chaos caused by the Wannabe King must be stopped.

Where are the Attorneys General of the States?

The Attorneys General should consider multi-state indictments of Trump for extortion and the law firms which have capitulated for bribery.

As these cases move up through the appellate process of the court system, one can hope:

That even the Supreme Court will recognize that the immunity granted to Trump should not be available when his actions violate both the penal laws of the States and the Constitution of the United States, and

That even the law firms which have capitulated to Trump’s blackmail and are subject to criminal prosecution for bribery will repudiate their vague agreements with Trump to provide “pro bono” legal services.

While bribery is a crime, repudiation of a vague agreement which is the result of criminal extortion is not.

G. A. Mudge

Sharon


Affordable healthcare for women

She was petite with pale skin and shoulder length dark hair. She worked at the book shop in town. Her husband took care of his grandmother, her house and garden, so they could live in the grandmother’s apartment over the garage.They could not afford health insurance, but she told me that she was able to go for her annual checkup including cancer screening and birth control at Planned Parenthood for only three hundred dollars.It was such a relief for her.

Millions of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide go for their health care, birth control and cancer screening and it is paid for by Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is prohibited from using Medicaid funds for abortions.

Three southern states have blocked Planned Parenthood from seeing Medicaid patients. The Trump administration is withholding tens of millions of Medicaid dollars from Planned Parenthood clinics.South Carolina is backing a suit before the Supreme Court against Planned Parenthood to stop them from getting Medicaid payments for their patients, even though they do not use those funds for abortions.

This seems very cruel.Where will these women go to get the health care they need and can afford?

Lizbeth Piel

Sharon


On Every Face, That Day

Hope was palpable,

emblazoned on the faces

of all who gathered there; while he, his one lung

surely gasping

with the weight of expectation,

stepped forward from the shadows

of the ancient basilica—and his own humility—

into the footlights of all

he must embrace.

Even had they not been asked,

the thronging masses—there,

and glued to screens

around the globe—

would pray for him,

the aging pontiff,

pastor of the poor,

his smooth jowls

transformed to radiance

by joy and affirmation,

reaching out to upturned faces,

breaking ground on every front,

the name Francis, alone,

pregnant with promise—and possibility.

Betsy Sprague

Salisbury

Written March 13, 2013, upon Pope Francis’ election.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sons of Astro are musicians, friends and bandmates — in that order

The Sons of Astro will be at the Common Pub in Housatonic on Oct. 24 and the 2nd Home Lounge in Winsted on Nov. 14.

Provided

No matter where they are in the world, musicians seem to find other musicians. There’s a shared language, a shared experience of being on stage and performing, and a shared enthusiasm for making those melodies by themselves or together. Such is the case with Norfolk and Brooklyn-based cosmic Americana band Sons of Astro.

That magnetic musicians’ bond drew Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cobb into the orbit of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt Statler. The two neighbors took to each other right away and were soon playing open mics together. As an ethics professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Statler made the case that if he sat in for Cobb’s set and Cobb sat in for Statler’s, they could play together and double their stage time. Clearly, these men wanted to make as much music as possible. That became a little harder when Cobb and his family moved up to Norfolk, Connecticut.

Keep ReadingShow less
One more weekend to get inside the art at ArtEast

The participating artists in this year’s ArtEast open studios.

Provided

ArtEast’s annual October Open Studio Tour is already underway, but there’s still one more weekend to step inside the creative worlds of artists working throughout eastern Dutchess County. On Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 24 and 25, artists will once again open their studio doors, inviting visitors to see where the work happens, meet the people who make it and perhaps discover something worth taking home.

Now in its 21st year, the ArtEast October Open Studio Tour offers a self-guided journey with participating studios in Holmes, LaGrangeville, Hopewell Junction, Pawling, Patterson, Poughquag and Wingdale. Visitors can explore painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and other artistic practices, and get some leaf-peeping in at the same time.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.