The Buffalo News: Local Columns

Bruce Andriatch: Skeptics be damned: still taking the bus: By Bruce Andriatch
Updated: 08/19/08 10:33 AM; Are you still taking the bus?” is the second most common question I have heard in the past few months. The most common is: “You’re not still taking the bus, are you?”

Bruce Andriatch: Little Cherry Valley votes for bigger board: By Bruce Andriatch
Updated: 08/12/08 8:25 AM; Things are a little different in Cherry Valley, a community of about 1,300 people 30 minutes from Cooperstown. Try to contact an elected official there in the afternoon, and you hear this message: “Hi. You’ve reached the Cherry Valley village office. Hours are 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Please leave a message.”

Bruce Andriatch: As a parent, it’s all about being there: Bruce Andriatch
Updated: 08/05/08 7:58 AM; The calendar on the refrigerator has so many numbers, abbreviations and acronyms jammed into the squares for each date that anyone who doesn’t live in the house could not know what they all mean.

Donn Esmonde

Donn Esmonde: County puts its beaches in order: By Donn Esmonde
Updated: 08/13/08 11:22 AM; One giant leap for beach lovers. One small step for county government. It was sunny and 81 degrees on a recent weekday afternoon. I crossed the foot bridge over Big Sister Creek and sank my feet into the warm, white sand of Bennett Beach.

Donn Esmonde: Media sent the mayor a message: By Donn Esmonde
Updated: 08/10/08 10:48 AM; Byron Brown buckled Thursday. After days of pummeling from various media outlets, Buffalo’s mayor relaxed the Police Department’s policy of sanitizing or withholding crime reports provided to reporters. He let the police commissioner, whom he appointed, ungag a few more of the top brass. And then the notoriously hands-on mayor stretched his credibility by blaming the mess on a “miscommunication.”

Gaughan right to resist Golisano: Donn Esmonde
Updated: 08/08/08 6:49 AM; The cliche says to take the money and run. Civic leader Kevin Gaughan looked at Tom Golisano’s money — and the baggage that would come with it — and ran the other way.

Charity Vogel: Defenseless old churches lure vultures: Charity Vogel
Updated: 08/25/08 7:51 AM; This is what it looks like when the carrion begins to fall from the bones.

Charity Vogel: Commitment and need build ties: Charity Vogel
Updated: 08/18/08 7:47 AM; It’s lunchtime, and they’re hungry. Inside an Olive Garden restaurant on Maple Road in Amherst, the comfortable- looking pair sitting at a sunny window table ponders what to eat.

Charity Vogel: Lessons left to us here by a patriot: Charity Vogel
Updated: 08/11/08 8:00 AM; Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died of heart problems in Moscow last week at 89. This might seem an event far removed from our life here on the Niagara Frontier. But the opposite is true.

Off Main Street: One-track mind: Updated: 08/16/08 9:02 AM; NFTA Executive Director Lawrence Meckler kept it simple when speaking about the authority’s needs during a hearing this week about transportation priorities.

Off Main Street: Humor most fowl: Updated: 08/09/08 8:36 AM; At the risk of further angering PETA, the news Thursday that a truck carrying chickens crashed on the Niagara Thruway led to the following comments in quick succession from colleagues:

Off Main Street / The offbeat side of the news: Updated: 08/02/08 6:54 AM; Water-colored memories

Reporters’ Notebook/ Bits and pieces of news...: Updated: 08/27/08 6:50 AM; OLAF SEZ: ^FUB According to our 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson, born on this date in 1908, “Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.”

Reporters’ Notebook/ Bits and pieces of news...: Updated: 08/26/08 6:56 AM; OLAF FUB SEZ: Advice on how to be discreet from former Louisiana Gov. Earl Long, born on this date in 1895, “Don’t write anything you can phone. Don’t phone anything you can talk. Don’t talk anything you can whisper. Don’t whisper anything you can smile. Don’t smile anything you can nod. Don’t nod anything you can wink.”

Reporters’ Notebook/ Bits and pieces of news...: Updated: 08/25/08 6:54 AM; OLAF SEZ: ^FUB According to cartoonist Walt Kelly, creator of “Pogo” and born on this date in 1913, voiced through his character Porky Pine: “Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought.”

Rod Watson: Dads step up to show value of education: Rod Watson
Updated: 08/28/08 8:02 AM; When you throw in the overtime, 38-year-old Ricky Riley works practically seven days a week as a mechanic’s apprentice at General Mills.

Rod Watson: Budget battle has a lesson for teachers: Rod Watson
Updated: 08/21/08 7:44 AM; Teachers and school administrators dodged the bullet this time. But if they’re smarter than the kids they teach — and that’s not a high bar, given some recent data — they’ll learn from the effort to implement a statewide property tax cap.

Rod Watson: Inmate health is ignored at our risk: Rod Watson
Updated: 08/14/08 7:46 AM; No one ever lost an election by paying more attention to taxpayers than to inmates.

Trivia Quiz /By Donald Saltz: Updated: 08/28/08 6:56 AM; 1. What is the more common name for the malar or zygoma bone in the body?

Trivia Quiz /By Donald Saltz: Updated: 08/27/08 6:51 AM; 1. How is the date of Easter determined each year?

Car Talk /By Tom and Ray Magliozzi: Updated: 08/26/08 6:56 AM; Dear Tom and Ray: I have a huge rust spot on my car, a ’95 Subaru. It is not really a rust “spot,” but rather a missing part of my car that has rust around it. I tried to sand it down and put Bondo on it and repaint the car, and it actually looked pretty good for a while! As impressive as my Bondo job was for a first-timer, the Bondo soon fell off, and now the huge rust hole is back. I am wondering if there is any other option besides replacing the whole part of the car. Thanks so much. — Shannon