Tsarnaev Brothers: Much in Common with Terrorists Who Came Before
By Dr. Sander A. Diamond, Professor of History
At approximately 8:50 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, the first of two planes slammed into the World Trade Center. The Age of Terrorism had arrived on our shores. On April 15, we were once again reminded that despite our best efforts to insulate ourselves from terrorism, we live in an age where our safety is conditional.
The perpetrators of the Boston attack, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were born in Chechnya, which is located in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation. Exactly when and why the older brother, Tamerlan, became a terrorist is a key element in the investigation. What we do know is Chechnya and Dagestan are the epicenters of Islamic Jihadism in the region. Their geography places them closer to Tehran than Moscow to the far north. During the Second World War, when the fate of Russia was conditional and the Battle of Stalingrad was raging in the winter of 1942-43, Moscow alleged that some in Chechnya were on the wrong side. Their punishment was collective. Stalin uprooted them and shipped them to Siberia only to return in the 1950s. Decades later, when the USSR imploded, Chechnya attempted to leave the Russian Federation and an insurrection was put down with the full might of the Russian military. Chechnya terrorists responded by blowing up a subway train in Moscow while the so-called Black Widows seized a theater with 800 people in it and threatened to blow it up.
Meanwhile, in the years that followed, some of the people of Chechnya and Dagestan have turned to Islamic extremism. Perhaps Tamerlan was predisposed to the Jihadist mindset before he arrived on our shores, concluding that however different Russia and the United States are, they share a common hatred of Muslims. Others suspect he was in contact with the Islamic extremists and was, in the words of the FBI, radicalized during a six- or seven-month stay in the region not long ago. We also know that his computer is filled with materials downloaded from radical Islamic sites, so perhaps he and his brother were radicalized on the web. Whatever the case, one does not become a terrorist overnight.
By the same token, terrorist acts are not spur-of-the-moment decisions. In the case of the Boston bombers, they bought fireworks, dismantled them and used the black powder to build bombs. They also planned to use pipe bombs in Times Square. For seasoned terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda with its numerous so-called franchises, leaders place a high value on bleeding their victims in the financial sense. For bin Laden and his cohorts, Sept. 11 was a nickel-and-dime operation. What we have spent repairing the damage and trying to protect ourselves for future attacks is beyond comprehension. The Tsarnaev brothers spent perhaps $200 building the bombs. When the cost of finding them, the commerce lost in Boston for several days, and the hospital bills are finally added, the total will be staggering. Given the cost of health care, the $20 million fund that has been established to help cover hospital expenses for those injured may be peanuts, barely making a dent in the final tally. For many of the survivors, the costs of restoring their health over a lifetime will also be staggering. As for the coming trial of the younger brother, the cost will be in the millions.
What appears to link all terrorists is a deep hatred of their perceived enemies and what they represent. For them, killing is a perfectly rational act in keeping with their religious or ideological beliefs. Their victims, not them, are the incarnation of evil.
North Korea: A Mouse with Atomic Bombs
By Sander A. Diamond, Professor of History
In the 1960s, British comic Peter Sellers starred in a farcical film, “The Mouse That Roared,” a comedy about a mini-nation that somehow acquired an atomic bomb.
Fifty years later, we have a case of life imitating art. North Korea is a roaring mouse. Labeled “The Hermit Kingdom,” a description that conforms to its isolation from the main current of world events, it is a totalitarian regime led by Kim Jong-un, the proverbial loose cannon.
The entire North Korean economy supports the military establishment, a serf-like labor force confined to collective farms and factories. Here, weapons are produced and exported overseas. While other communist states such as Vietnam and China have enjoyed prosperity, North Korea remains poor. Just across the 38th parallel is South Korea, where a population of 49 million enjoys a high standard of living, the average per capital income being $28,000.
Though smaller than Mississippi, North Korea is armed to the teeth with an unknown number of atomic bombs and the ability to deliver them. The image it projects in countless propaganda clips seen on TV in recent days is a leaf out of another age. In the old Soviet Union and Mao’s China in the 1950s, we saw generals, chests filled with medals in off-green uniforms, clapping and shouting in unison when their venerated leader appeared. Today, we see Kim Jong-un looking down in a Red Square-type setting on his troops, 1.1 million in all, as they parade past followed by Soviet-style missile carriers and heavy guns, the types the Russians used in the siege of Berlin in April-May 1945. Even the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang, has the stamp of the old USSR: high-rise buildings the Russians used to call Stalinist Modern.
Although North Korea is modeled after the world of Stalin and Mao, it differs from its ideological mentors in one very significant way. In the USSR and China, leaders began their careers in the nascent years of the revolutionary movement and those who followed worked their way through the ranks of the party bureaucracy. North Korea is ruled by a dynasty established by the current leader’s grandfather, who began his career as a revolutionary and came to power in 1945. When he died, his son assumed the leadership of the state and the party and recently, the torch was passed to his son.
The entire world is trying to divine the intentions of the new 28-year-old leader who talks about war as it if was a parlor or video game. Whether all of the blustering and military action is being used to consolidate his grip on the military power or pry economic concessions from the United States, no one can say with certainty since few people outside “The Hermit Kingdom” know exactly what is going on behind the drawn curtain. Here, the ghost of Stalin is alive and well.
Short of a highly unlikely military coup, we have to take Kim Jong-un at his word. And if and when this crisis passes, we can expect Kim Jong-un to repeat his antics again. At 28, he has a lifetime ahead of him to threaten the world.
Kayla Curtis Among Top Student Employees in the Country
Kayla Curtis (l) poses with Valerie Webster, co-curricular transcript coordinator (Photo by Stephanie Lockhart '15)
Kayla Curtis, a senior psychology major, found out today (April 18) she made it to the Final Four of the National Student Employment Association (NSEA) Student Employee of the Year competition.
Curtis was honored at a luncheon for being the 2013 Keuka College, New York state, and Northeast Association of Student Employment Administrators (NEASEA) Student Employee of the Year. As the regional winner, she went up against three other regional winners (from University of Iowa, California Polytechnic State University, and Auburn University) for the NASEA award, which was won by the student from Auburn University.
Nonetheless, winning the NEASEA award is impressive because nearly 100 schools/institutions from 11 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and six Canadian provinces are members of the organization.
“Two-hundred students, including six from Keuka College, were nominated at the institutional level,” said Sally Daggett, associate director of the Center for Experiential learning and director of student employment. “Nineteen schools from nine states submitted their winners for state awards and the regional winner was chosen from that group.”
Curtis, who hails from of Red Creek, is a psychology major who has served as student coordinator for the Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) chapter on campus since arriving on campus as a transferring sophomore. BBBS pairs volunteer “Bigs” (college students) with “Littles,” young students befriended and mentored by the Bigs.
Curtis was nominated by Valerie Webster, co-curricular transcript coordinator in the Center for Experiential Learning
According to Webster, Curtis increased the number of matches from one to 12, handles all aspects of training and data entry for the “Bigs,” and does “98 percent of the work to keep the program operational.”
Photo by Stephanie Lockhart '15
Curtis exhibits a “work ethic, initiative and commitment to understanding and serving others” that will make her an asset to any organization after graduation, said Webster. “Her positive attitude, patience and ability to work with people are refreshing and energizing.”
Curtis has also been a resident assistant, a three-year member of the Psychology Club (current vice president), a member of two honor societies, and holds a 3.8 GPA.
Curtis received a certificate and a check for $250 from NEASEA, and a plaque and $100 gift card to the bookstore from the College.
Seven Events that Changed Our Nation and the World
By Dr. Sander A. Diamond, professor of history
This year marks the milestone anniversaries of seven events that changed our nation and the world, altering the lives of the witnesses and all that followed.
The Battle of Gettysburg (150 years), Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg (150 years), the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president (80 years), Dr. Martin Luther King’s defining oration in Washington, D.C. (50 years), and the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas (50 years) helped define the American journey and continue to impact our lives. Adolf Hitler’s ascension to power (80 years) and the Battle of Stalingrad (70 years) altered the course of world history in ways that were unimaginable at the time.
On Jan. 31, 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Within a year, he consolidated his power, the Third Reich was born, and the course of world history was soon to take a different course.
Three months later, FDR stood on the steps of the Capitol and was sworn in as president in the midst of the Great Depression. Unlike Hitler, who told the German people that the depression was caused by a great conspiracy, FDR told our nation that “all we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR led the the nation through the darkest days of the Great Depression and World War II. Rarely has there been a sharper contrast between good and evil, between all that was embodied in FDR and what Der Führer represented.
In the annals of military history, there are battles that turn the tide of warfare. In World War II there were two: D-Day, June 6, 1944 and the Battle of Stalingrad, which came to an end Jan. 31, 1943 with victory by the Red Army. It was after Stalingrad when Hitler acknowledged to his close associates that the war might not end as he imagined.
In World War II, it was Stalingrad and D-Day June 6, 1944. This year we will commemorate the 150th anniversary of a battle that took place in Gettysburg, from July 1-3, 1863. The hilly landscape, with outcroppings of rock and names like Seminary Ridge, Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Ridge, became a killing field. When it ended, 56,000 were dead or wounded, and Lee’s shattered forces retreated to Virginia. The tide of war had turned and when it ended in April 1865, more than 750,000 men had died, according to recent estimates.
The battlefield was dedicated Nov. 19, 1863, with the grave sites still fresh and much of it still littered with pieces of weapons of war. The words delivered by President Lincoln that day transcend what occurred on that blood-soaked battlefield, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”
One hundred years later, on Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, the embodiment of youth and vigor, was shot and a few minutes after 1 p.m. the nation and the world were in a state of shock as they listened to the report from Parkland Hospital. After JFK’s death, American politics and foreign policy moved in a different direction. We are left to only speculate what would have happened had he been elected for a second term.
Four months earlier, on Aug. 28, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the mall and delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In the shadow of Lincoln, he called upon the nation to complete its work, the promise of equality for all 100 years after Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. The Civil Rights Movement had moved to the top of the nation’s agenda.
We can never forget the evilness of Hitler, but as we stop and commemorate so many defining events this year, we should be thankful that each generation brought forth people like Lincoln, FDR, JFK and King who in word and deed gave us a better world. Their monuments are less in stone than in ourselves.
Jan. 30, 1933: Another Day that Will Live in Infamy
An opinion piece by Dr. Sander A. Diamond, professor of history
It has been 80 years since Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of the ill-fated Weimar Republic by its aging president, Paul von Hindenburg, a much venerated general who stopped the Russian advance into Germany in the fall of 1914. The old gentleman thought little of the man the papers once dubbed “The Bavarian Corporal,” whose face was known to millions through countless public speeches and National Socialist of Nazi campaign posters that dotted the very troubled German landscape. When asked what he thought of Hitler who was a message carrier or runner in the trenches of France during the Great War, Hindenburg responded, “Under the Empire, I would not have appointed him a mailman.”
Hitler’s appointment set into motion a train of events that changed the world in ways unimaginable on Jan. 30, 1933: the creation of the most brutal dictatorships in history; the Third Reich; the mass extermination of two-thirds of European Jewry; a war that cost the lives of an estimated 56 million people, including more than 30 million in Soviet Russia and at least 20 percent of the population of Poland; the United States emerging as a superpower after 1945; the Cold War; atomic bomb; radar; and near total destruction of Germany, both its physical and moral ruination. Eighty years later, the system he created, Hitlerism, is a synonym for evil, while Auschwitz, not the Reich, is his monument.
In the eight decades since Hitler came to power, he and the Germans have been put under a microscope in an effort to understand how a nation descended into such darkness. Most agree that Hitler seized upon the major currents of his era, when the Germans believed they had been cheated out of victory in the Great War. He used traditional German idealism, and its militarist and authoritarian traditions, to achieve his ends. This being said, his most recent biographer, Ian Kershaw, whose massive two volume work is the gold standard, believes a question still remains: How could a self-styled messiah, an ill-educated beerhall demagogue who was initially dismissed as an oddity come to exercise unlimited power over a well-educated nation known for its poets, thinkers, and scientists in the middle of the 20th century? Some scholars argue that he expressed the deepest desires of his people who were willing to look away when the terrible secrets were revealed. Others maintain he was an aberration. The answer is found somewhere in the middle.
Today, Germany is open and democratic, its rebuilt parliament’s glass dome symbolizing its openness and transparency. Germany is the economic engine of the European Union and led by its first female chancellor, Dr. Merkel. But Hitler and Hitlerism will always be with the Germans and the world and fortunately, we have not tried to bury the past. Instead we have derived lessons from it. The Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington is far more than what its name implies. In central Berlin, the recently opened Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe and other memorials are daily reminders of what was set in motion Jan. 30, 1933, the extant concentration camps sitting silently as reminders of what humankind is capable of doing.
For many people, Jan. 30 will just be another day, marked by a small article in the media. But some—the Germans, Israelis and World Jewry—will look at it differently. Old black and white images from a film taken Jan. 30, 1933 revealed the future. In one window, a joyful Hitler can be seen looking down on a Nazi-organized, torch-lit parade. In the other window, Hindenburg, his face frozen. Perhaps Paul von Hindenburg saw the future and had to know there was no turning back. A year later he died of old age and shortly thereafter, his beloved army took a personal oath of loyalty to the Bavarian Corporal, now Der Führer.
Belize Beckons Brown Recipient
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of features on recipients of the Judith Oliver Brown Memorial Award. The award, named after the late 1963 Keuka graduate, is supported by Brown’s family and the Class of ’63. It is designed to assist students pursuing culturally-oriented Field Periods.
Junior Meghan Houlihan believes that choosing to pursue a major in criminology or law enforcement means you will deal directly with large cross sections of a diverse and global population.
She also believes that true multicultural experiences can only come from multicultural exposure.
To that end, Houlihan is completing her Field Period at Gallon Jug Community School/Casey Community School in Belize City, Belize.
“I have had the opportunity to travel before, and I believe my understanding of people in general has been broadened by cultural exposure,” said Houlihan, a criminology/criminal justice major from Elysian, Minn. “If you are entering the criminology or criminal justice profession, one important thing that you have to have in your back pocket is effective communication styles and skills.”
By having the opportunity to pursue a Field Period in a Third World nation, Houlihan intends to add to her communication skills, which she intends to rely on throughout her career.
“Few colleges have taken active interest in developing countries, so a Field Period like this puts Keuka in select company,” said Houlihan prior to her departure. “Developing an understanding for the underprivileged will allow me to stand out as I pursue my career.”
One of her goals while at Gallon Jug School is to study the socialization of youth in middle school, with a special focus on how teachers and school staff promote student success and respond to student misbehavior or deviance.
“With today’s increased mobility and the emergence of a global economy, a world view of educational systems is essential,” she said. “During my Field Period, I will work with children and adolescents who have diverse life challenges. I expect to gain insight into the basis for some of these difficulties.”
According to Houlihan, the country of Belize is “struggling economically, but filled with highly motivated people hoping to improve conditions there. It is my goal to use knowledge I have gained in my classes to help the kids and families I will meet.”
Hopping Through German History
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of features on recipients of the Judith Oliver Brown Memorial Award. The award, named after the late 1963 Keuka graduate, is supported by Brown’s family and the Class of ’63. It is designed to assist students pursuing culturally-oriented Field Periods.
For senior Diane DePrez, her interest in Germ
any began when she was in high school.
“We had exchange students from Germany come to our school, and I always wanted to learn more about the culture of a country that—on the outside—seems so similar to our own,” said DePrez, a resident of Fairport. “It has such a rich history and I am curious about so many things.”
DePrez is satisfying her curiosity this month during a Field Period in Deutschland.
“Many people are under the misconception that Germany is all about the two World Wars,” said DePrez before she left for Germany. “This is something I would like to dispel. As a political science and history major, I am especially interested in how Germany’s history and political system have affected its modern culture. One of the ways I will learn about these is to talk to Germans about their country’s history.”
DePrez’s itinerary called for a trip to Museum Island, so called for the complex of five internationally significant museums—all part of the Berlin State Museums—that occupy the island’s northern half.
“While in Germany, I will stay in hostels, which I have been told is a good way to meet people from all over the world,” said DePrez. “One goal while conducting my Field Period is to immerse myself in German culture and to see how it compares to America. I will travel throughout Berlin and Potsdam, and tour many sites significant to German culture and history.”
DePrez says this Field Period “will provide me with the opportunity to learn more about Germany’s history through guided tours, as well as visiting museums and historic sites,” she said. “One of the places I will visit is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a damaged tower that is a symbol of Berlin’s resolve to rebuild the city after World War II and a reminder of the destruction of war.”
Added DePrez: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I am excited to learn all I can from the people, food, and culture of Berlin.”
New Laws Appropriate Monument to Newtown Tragedy
By Dr. Sander A. Diamond, professor of history
By the time the Civil War ended in April 1865, the North and the South lost more than 750,000 men, according to a recent study. In the North, the first national cemeteries were carefully laid out to contain the fallen; Gettysburg the most visited nearly a century-and-a-half later. Here and in other cemeteries, each state has its own monuments.
But in small towns and cities, citizens wanted to memorialize the war in their town squares. One of the first catalogues made this possible; it featured a full host of memorials. Some had a single soldier with rifle in hand, others were more complex and expensive with statues of soldiers, sailors and marines. On the stone pedestals, one can read the raw statistics of the number of townspeople who served and the number who did not come home. It is in these numbers that the full scope of the Civil War is revealed—a battlefield roughly the size of Western Europe. Once delivered, the monuments faced south.
While some of the metal statues were made in other states, most came from foundries located in Connecticut. By 1900, nearly all were in place in little towns like Newtown that dot the northern landscape.
It was in Newtown where a 20-year-old local resident broke into the Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14 and slaughtered 26 people, including 20 children, and then took his own life.
While the nation will move on, we know that the families, their friends, neighbors, and relatives will always have a hole in their hearts that will never heal. In time, perhaps, the people will find a fitting way to memorialize what happened, but it is too soon to think about. If and when this time arrives, just as the State of Connecticut’s foundries turned out memorials that captured the essence of the Civil War, someone will come up with a design in metal or in stone that will appropriately memorialize this profound tragedy.
In a state that has been the home and birthplace of so many people who have captured the high and low points of the American journey—what writer Arthur Miller did for the theater, what painter John Trumbull did to capture on canvas the American Revolution and the faces of the Founders, and what Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote before the Civil War— someone will emerge with the imagination to capture this heart-wrenching event. Perhaps a harbinger of this is to be found in the Hebrew chant of mourning sung by a local Rabbi and the profound grief expressed by President Obama, lost for words with tears in his eyes. Time and distance are needed.
A more immediate monument on the national level should not be made from stone and metal. We are in need of new laws and the enforcement of older ones that control and regulate easy access to weapons used for the domestic mass destruction. Congress has to balance the rights of gun owners with the inherent right of the American people itemized in the Constitution to expect far more than conditional safety in our malls, shopping centers, streets, movie theaters and, as we learned Dec. 14, our schools. The response is not to be found in the use of armed guards in the schools, let alone arming the teachers. The time has come for soul-searching and action to arrest this senseless pandemic of gun-related violence by rampage killers. The nation is in need of a restoration of civility in the political arena to accomplish this goal. This will hopefully create a common good; doing away with the belief held by some that they need weapons used by armies to protect themselves.
Ancient Rome is Still with Us and So is the Jewish War
By Dr. Sander A. Diamond, professor of history
In the first century of the Common Era (CE), the Romans were masters of the known world and would continue to be for the next 350 years. At the heart of the Empire was the City of Rome and at the core of the city was the Forum, the administrative center of the Empire. Overlooking it was the palace complex where the Emperors lived, their names still well-remembered: Augustus, who was the first to use the name of the fabled Julius Caesar to mean emperor; Tiberius; Caligula; Claudius; Nero; Vespasian; Titus; Trajan; and Hadrian, who built a wall to indicate where the Empire ended.
The year after Vespasian died in 80 CE, his pet project was opened not far from the Forum: the Coliseum, where 55,000 people watched the games nearly every day for the next three centuries. Not far away and at the head of the Forum, his son Titus (who ruled from 79 – 81) erected an arch that commemorated Rome’s destruction of the Jewish State of Judea in the Jewish War which began in 66 and ended on August 29, 70 with the total destruction of the city of Jerusalem and with it the Second Temple built by King Herod.
The story of the Jewish War was written by Titus Flavius Josephus in about 75 CE and 2,000 years later, Bellium Judaicum stands alone as one of the great classics of the ancient world. It was written by a man who stood next to the general who destroyed the City of Jerusalem, Titus, the son of Vespasian.
The world of ancient Rome is in the distant past but much of it is still part of our world: the “ia” at the end of the name of nations indicating in Europe and the Middle East that the Romans were there; the coins we use every day with ridges on the sides to prevent debasing; the Church of Rome, which inherited a broken empire; less the year, the calendar we use with the days of the weeks and months given to us by Caesar and his successors; and so much more.
Two thousand years after the Destruction of the Second Temple and the Jewish State, one has to wonder what Vespasian, Titus and above all Josephus, the son of Matthias from the Tribe of Levi who took the name of Titus’ clan, would think if they returned to modern Israel. They could never have imagined that the Jews would return and that the Second Temple’s foundation would become Judaisms most sacred place, the Western or Wailing Wall, which the Israelis reclaimed from Jordan in the 1967 war. Surely, they would be very surprised to find a modern Jewish State with more than 7 million people speaking Hebrew, a first-rate army and Jews praying at the foundation of the complex they destroyed. They would be very impressed by how “The People of the Book” remained intact and had the will to survive, successfully fending off all efforts since 1948 to drive them into the sea. They would leave Israel knowing that what they did between 66 and 73 CE was temporary and over time translated into a belief among the Jews that no matter what, they will “Never Again” be dislodged.
It is a message that the new Zealots— the Islamists, secular terrorists, Hamas, Hezbollah and above all Iran—should take very seriously as they dream of someday evicting the Israelis. But in a rapidly changing geopolitical region since the Arab Spring, the Israelis should also take away from Josephus some lessons as its ultimate protector, the United States, tries to bring some stability to the region. Like ancient Rome, the Jewish War is still with us.
Food Production, not Fracking
An opinion piece by Dr. Sander A. Diamond, professor of history
The debate among those who believe that hydrofracking is not only safe but will also give a much needed boost to the economy of the Southern Tier and those who believe that the damage it will cause in no way justifies placing both the environment and so many people at risk has been bitter, rising to a level of acrimony not seen in decades.
The objections raised by those opposed to fracking are focused on the massive amounts of water needed in the process, as well as the disposal of the toxic mix of water and chemicals, the waste or residue. However, there is another consideration. The draught conditions we have witnessed nationally and locally are a harbinger of the future, a much changed climate. Coastal regions are in harm’s way from the expected rise of the level of the oceans, but the interior will experience draught. Portions of the Mississippi are now closed to heavy shipping and the grain harvest has been nearly halved. Closer to home, the grape harvest is down 20 percent due to the draught conditions. In time, water may be more valuable than gas and oil. The water removed from local supplies to permit fracking will be hard to replace, and while some would argue that the waste water can be reprocessed and used, it is hardly an argument in support of fracking.
Moreover, the last thing that anyone would want is the use of water from the bucolic Finger Lakes region. It is a treasure not to be tampered with and will remain, for decades to come, a breadbasket reliant on water from rain and table water.
Those in favor of fracking argue that it will be a boom to a region that has been left behind. There is much to be said for this, but even if environmental and health concerns are alleviated, there are still reasons why fracking may not be the solution for the Southern Tier’s economic woes.
The price of processed gas has fallen dramatically and will for the foreseeable future, and major gas companies may cap production until the price rises. Massive deposits of gas are now being brought to the surface elsewhere and the Southern Tier would enter the world of gas production late. The wells in nearby Pennsylvania will be full throttle soon. The glut on the market could easily turn from boom to bust, and farmers who have abandoned their fields having found a pot of gold in fracking will be reduced to penury.
Ben Franklin once said, “Do not ask the price of water when the well runs dry.” By extension, those in the Southern Tier do not want to say years from now, “Do not ask the price of gas when the well runs dry.”
Rather than putting their faith in gas they should consider restoring the farming economy. With the current world population at 7.3 billion and perhaps reaching10 billion in the next 60 years, and U.S. population climbing to 350 million in a few decades, producing food is the future.
By an odd twist of history and need, the very region that was part of New York state’s breadbasket has before it the prospect of a revival that would benefit the state and the nation, especially dairy production now that factories are being built to produce yogurt in Central New York. Food is what everyone needs, human fuel so-to-speak. People in this region only have to look at what happened to the economy of the Finger Lakes—a virtual explosion of grape production with once abandoned farms brought back to life by the arrival of the Pennsylvania Dutch. To be sure, the money made by those who have signed leases with the gas companies is significant, but taking the long view, economic security will be found in the revival of the growing of products and in dairy, not gas production.
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