-
1 week ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
Plenty of would-be tourists to the United States — even U.S. citizens — are asking the same question. Just how safe is it to travel? Media reports and social media commentary are revealing how U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and other immigration officials are ramping up questioning and detaining travelers at airports and border crossings. Including U.S. citizens. People say they have been questioned aggressively and had documents, phones, and computers examined.
-
2 weeks ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
When my oldest son was born in 1970, the trajectory of my life changed radically. Until his birth I was — in today’s terms — kind of a slacker. Married and working, but unmotivated, coasting along through life without clear a purpose. But when my wife’s pregnancy went from abstract to very real with the birth of Jason, I went into full “Oh my God, I’m a father!” hyperdrive. My life has pretty much stayed in that gear ever since.
-
3 weeks ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
Make America sick again? In addition to health and human services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s strong anti-vaccination stance, we can add his call to end all fluoridation of public water supplies. I wish I was kidding. The history of fluoride’s health benefits stretches back to the early 20th century when researchers determined that folks living in places with naturally occurring fluoride in water had fewer cavities in their teeth and generally healthier mouths.
-
4 weeks ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
Seneca Meadows Inc. landfill’s plan for a massive expansion got knocked back on its heels earlier this month when the New York State Court of Appeals upheld the Town of Seneca Falls Local Law 3-2016 that mandates the massive landfill must close by the end of this year.
-
1 month ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
Last Sunday I took my dog Biscuit to an indoor dog park and brewpub. For four-season climates like Portland, Ore. and the Finger Lakes, it’s a perfect invention. An indoor play area for pups, a comfortable tavern for their people. I was pretty sure I needed a maximum dose of oxytocin to prepare myself for my Monday morning review of the news before writing. Oxytocin is often called the feel-good hormone in humans and dogs, which both get from interacting.
-
1 month ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
I just finished reading “The Lost Souls of Leningrad,” a page-turner historical novel by Suzanne Parry set in Stalinist Russia on the eve of and during World War II. Like all good historic fiction, it takes the very real, very horrible historical events of those years to help spin a tale about the impacts of war: civilian starvation, Nazi air raids, personal tragedies, everyone living fearfully in a brutal dictatorship and their resilience through it all.
-
1 month ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
There’s some faux logic afoot in the virtual blizzard of federal budget cuts swirling around us. The error is believing that if these President Donald Trump-and-Elon Musk-induced cuts don’t directly affect you — or someone close to you — then, whew!, you dodged a fiscal bullet. Not entirely, amigos. A timely example is the proposed slashing of Medicaid funding, outlined in detail last week in an online national media briefing in which I participated.
-
1 month ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
The anger has reached the boiling point. In the Finger Lakes and other communities across the United States, citizen concerns about the cuts to public services by Elon Musk and his DOGE operatives is becoming a full-blown rage. The anger/rage is being directed at elected members of Congress — including our representatives — who appear hapless, helpless, or simply unwilling to do anything to help the public.
-
2 months ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
A majority of the Seneca Falls town board last week showed it favors protecting the profitable Seneca Meadows Inc. landfill rather than the people of the town and region. The board voted 3-2 to give a town operating permit to Texas-based Waste Connections, SMI’s parent company, for a 47-acre expansion. The split vote also gives its blessing for 15 more years of daily dumping of up to 6,000 tons per day of trucked-in garbage, all to be added to the already ginormous SMI landfill on Route 414.
-
2 months ago | 
fltimes.com | Michael Fitzgerald
I have been professionally curious since becoming a journalist five decades ago. It goes with the territory. Give me a budget to write about and I’ll discover fiscal details screaming to be brought to the public’s attention. The same for any controversy, conflict, disaster or complicated political matter. But travels in the last few months graphically demonstrated to me that being professionally curious, vs. being curious in general, are often different cats.
