Studies and reports say that the greatest health issue facing our children is Global Warming. It will leave them with lifelong health problems. A major cause of future health problems is the cumulative nature of Global Warming. Every year will be worse and warmer and hotter than the year before.

Because of this a child born today could be living in a world where the average temperature is 7.2 degrees warmer. That might be fine around here in the winter, but in the summer there could be top temperatures of 110 degrees. Such heat can kill people. It can also make it difficult to raise crops because of drought conditions. There have been fires on Marlboro Mountain and in the Shawangunks.

Then there will be the air conditioning costs and the heat waves. Affected the most are senior citizens, infants, babies, pregnant women, the poor, and people with underlying health conditions.

Children are already suffering from asthma but there will be even more health problems in the future.

Warmer temperatures make air pollution a much bigger problem, according to the report. Air pollution damages your lungs, your heart and can negatively impact every other vital organ. The impact accumulates over time, leading to problems later in life.

In 2016, there were 2.9 million premature deaths related to increasing pollution, the report found. With exposure to fine particulate air pollution, 64,000 of these premature deaths were in the U.S. as air pollution is getting worse.

Warmer temperatures abet the spread of disease. There is dengue fever, which has been on the rise since the year 2000 as the heat makes it far easier for the disease to fester.

The United States knows what it must do, and is doing it despite the objections and efforts of Donald Trump.

Not the only county becoming Democrat
Republican Congressman Peter King, who has represented Long Island in Congress for more than a quarter of a century will be retiring next year. He was reelected by 6,000 votes in 2018. He used to be a big, big winner but his district has changed as Long Island has gone from a solid Republican winner. In 1996 there were 360,000 Republicans in Nassau County and 257,000 Democrats. Now there are 411,000 Democrats and 330,000 Republicans. There is a similar shift in Suffolk county, which went from having a Republican lead over Democrats of 314,000 to 204,000, to trailing the Democrats, 366,000 to 332,000.

There has also been a demographic shift as more minorities now live on Long Island. Peter King may have decided that there is no future in representing the shrinking Republican Party.

The shift in Ulster County is mostly among women, and the same thing may have occurred in Nassau and Suffolk County. Big issues for women are preserving their reproductive rights, replacing a president, who mocks women, and a Republican Party in the senate, which refuses to vote to approve the violence against women law, which was approved in Nancy Pelosi’s Democrat house, mostly on a party line vote.

My son and I may be the only ones
Way back when Donald Trump was a candidate for President there were all these stories of his trying to have unwanted sexual relations with women, most of them young. Then there was a video of his grabbing a girl/woman by her (and I do not like to use the following word) pussy and then his laughing about it. This latest event, and possibly earlier ones, scared me and my son, Charles, about how can we protect my 13 year old granddaughter from a person like this. We knew at that time three years ago that we would not vote for him or any male candidate like him. My son, Charles, was angry when we talked about it. We have not talked about it since,

I am a grandfather. I have granddaughters. Because of them this is the best time of my life. My youngest granddaughter is of that age that she just has to look at me and I need a gofundme. There are a ton of grandfathers who have the same feeling. How do we protect our granddaughters - how do I protect my granddaughter?

Last year when Christine Blasey Ford was testifying against Brett Kavanaugh I was getting an education. What would happen, as occurred when the door of the room she was in, was locked? Christine Blasey Ford is married and with children. Because of that locked door experience 30 years ago, she and her husband’s bedroom has two doors. I would not be surprised if both of them have no locks. What would my granddaughter do if someone locked the door of the room she felt she was trapped in?

How do you protect your daughter or your granddaughter?
Girls or women, who have been sexually assaulted too often are psychologically damaged for life. Trump has been accused of sexually assaulting 15 or more women.

He has not changed. Now he is verbally threatening women who are testifying against him in his impeachment case. How do we protect our girls from a person like him? He will never get my vote!

A lead in the death of Dr. Irving Rathgeb?

In World War II, Dr. Irving K. Rathgeb of Highland died when the plane he was in went down possibly over the Sahara when sand got in its engine.

A WW II plane was recently discovered in the Sahara. But 75 years after the plane went down there were no bodies in the plane. Sixteen Highland GIs died in the war, and 15 are buried, but not Dr. Rathgeb. There are memorials to Dr. Rathgeb in front of the Lloyd Town Hall, at Colgate, where he graduated from college, and at a Texas Army base, where he was stationed before he went to the European theater.

He was an only child as was his first cousin, Nancy Rathgeb Smith, who married Louis Smith, who owned and operated Louis Smith Chevrolet. His father was born Louis Zammiello and changed his name to Louis Smith, when as Louis Zammiello he could not get a local Chevrolet franchise. They had four children. Their oldest son, Stephen Rathgeb Smith, was the valedictorian of his high school class.

He graduated from Brown, and is a retired professor from the Washington State University.

Fewer kids playing football in New York State

Nationwide there has been a decline of boys playing football. New York State has the largest decrease in the nation at 28 percent, followed by Ohio at 27 percent. Neighboring Massachusetts a 14 percent decline, Connecticut 13 percent, and New Jersey, 10 percent.

Students learn about sports injuries. Football leads all with head injuries being the most frequent. The change has led to a lot of schools shifting to eight man football. Ellenville last year played 11 man football and had a 1 - 8 record and this year against eight-man competition it was 8 - 1, and some of the players are talking about playing at the college level. The Ellenville kids had a lot more fun this year and no one in Ellenville is talking about going back.

Highland only won one game this year, and we will see if it makes the change.