The Northcountry Chronicle

by Robert C. Koehler The nation has less than two weeks left to live in its comfort zone of platitudes. This is by far the most ominous election buildup of my (fairly lengthy at this point) lifetime. What will happen on Nov. 3 and thereafter? Will all the votes be counted? Presuming Trump loses, will he leave office? Are we approaching the end of our…uh, democracy? A real democracy, of course, has always been a terrible inconvenience to those in power, which is why, in the nearly two hundred and fifty years of the nation’s existence, voting—as well as acknowledgment of certain people’s humanity—has been …

Read more

To the extent the Brooklyn Daily Eagle is remembered today, it is largely because of Walt Whitman. The poet edited the Eagle from 1846 to 1848, and returned for a second stint about a decade later. We recently stumbled upon another modest reason for remembering the Eagle: it published, on Sunday, August 5, 1883—as the ailing Whitman, 64, languished 100 miles away in Camden, New Jersey—an 1,800 word item on “The Origin and Growth” of The Twilight Club, “A Successful Club Which Has Neither Club House Nor Caterer.” Now, the Twilight Club itself could probably be safely forgotten, had it not provided a platform for …

Read more

Sometimes I don’t know whether to weep uncontrollably, laugh hysterically, or just throw up. I recently did all three when I saw another gusher of greed pouring out of corporate America. This one is especially nauseating, given today’s raging health crisis, for the culprits are major healthcare corporations! One perpetrator is Larry Merlo, CEO of our country’s largest drugstore chain, CVS. In this time of Covid-19, customers are surging into the chains 10,000 stores for everything from medications to masks. Yet, the boss has blithely left many of the pharmacies so severely understaffed that they pose a danger to public health. CVS pharmacists tell of …

Read more

In a few short weeks, the election will be over and, win or lose, we will have to pick up the pieces and move on. How is that possible with all the bad blood and name-calling between the left and the right? In a word, we must have empathy for the other side. What I am going to say, I’ve felt for a long time, alluded to in my pieces, but now have the courage to say it flat-out, buttressing my case with a recent podcast and a book. The podcast is an interview with Arlie Hochschild about her recent book, Strangers in Their Own …

Read more

A recent article in September’s The Atlantic titled “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’” details our current commander-in-chief’s flagrant disrespect for the men and women in our armed forces together with the generations of American service personnel who went before them. I need not repeat the insults and ignominies he heaps upon those who have served their country. You can readily find the article online and read it for yourself, if you haven’t already done so. What amazes me is not what the article says, but the fact that so many people are only now expressing their outrage over Trump’s disrespect …

Read more