Commentary & Opinion

My hometown 49ers will not be playing in this Sunday's Big Game. Despite my disappointment, I nevertheless will be joining millions of my fellow Americans in the hallowed tradition of watching the Super Bowl. I will put my feet up on the coffee table, drink a beer or two, and cheer on the Denver Broncos as they face off against the Seattle Seahawks. I will also cringe every time the quarterback is sacked or a wide receiver is brutally tackled, imagining the lasting damage caused to both body and mind.

The journalistic gunslingers have been out in full force targeting General el-Sisi and the new Egyptian constitution. This criticism, by the way, is bipartisan; it comes from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. What it comes down to is persistent doubt that the government’s pledge to steer Egypt toward a new era of freedom and democracy after the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood is genuine.

Before moving to Albany thirty-five years ago, we lived in Morgantown, West Virginia – a university town and a mining town. We knew people in both worlds. Our daughter was only seven, but after we moved she got letters from a little friend there who was the son of a miner. Miners lived all around.

During the 2012 election, far too many Americans voters had to stand in long lines for hours in order to cast their ballot.  Voters who were stuck waiting were all too frequently lower-income and non-white.  The President promised to act, in order to ensure that such a disgraceful situation would never happen again.

If you’ve been following the Governor’s missives on tax cuts…reports from his tax commissions, his State of the State message and news about his budget proposal… you undoubtedly know that he is proposing sweeping tax cuts.  The potential is for upwards of $2 billion for his tax cut package that includes proposed reductions for property owners, businesses, renters and upstate manufacturers.

Early in my tenure as head of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, I – like many other university presidents – was asked to support the agenda of a Palestinian initiative known as B.D.S., a call for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, given the organization’s belief that Israel was not complying with international law and Palestinian rights. Specifically, they were asking for our university’s participation in a boycott of Israeli universities ... a request I unequivocally rejected as being antithetical to the concept of academic freedom which is at the very heart of the mission of a university -           institutions devoted to unfettered inquiry and discovery. 

The continued refrain from the Obama administration is that they are engaged in a struggle against inequality. This may sound good for the denizens of class warfare, but in fact, it is a claim without substance.

Nationally, Republicans are still fighting unemployment relief and virtually every piece of a public safety net. Their solution to every problem is to blame the victim. Out of work? Must be because people didn't look, or just like poverty. Never mind people spending their days looking for work. It must be their fault, because the only victims worth caring about, of what we politely call the business cycle, are businessmen. Everything would be fine if people would work for pennies a day like much of the world, so the companies they work for could pocket the difference while workers forego food, clothing, shelter and health.

Recent and continuing circumstances have impelled this commentator to question, what is it about rules and regulations that makes them seem so onerous for those in political leadership, who promulgate them, then to pursue almost any course, not to adhere to them, themselves?  That such a situation should prevail in this bell-weather bastion of self-governance is more mystifying enough to discomfit and discourage those most affected and disconcerted by it.

The New York State budget fight begins this week with the governor offering his budget plan.  The governor’s budget will be massive – probably $135 billion of spending.  Over 95 percent of it will become law without much fuss.