Other Voices
Society & Culture
About
Often, truth isn’t handed down from public officials but comes from listening to other voices. Once a week, you can hear a wide variety of views from people who shape our corner of the world in New York’s Capital Region. The Altamont Enterprise is the weekly newspaper of record for Albany County, New York. We’ve talked with a Buddhist who provided therapy for Gilda Radner and then helped set up Gilda’s Club after she died; with a Muslim woman who is trying to educate people about her religion as she feels increased hatred; with an African-American man who, as a teenager, helped ferry people north from a town in Mississippi haunted by lynchings. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
- Memoirist Linda Bakst explores what it means to be a Jewish American
One of her goals in writing the book, Linda Bakst said, is for people who are not Jewish to read it. “People may have a picture, a fairly stereotypical picture of what a Jewish person is,” she said, “and there’s a whole range of the way it…
- Gerard Wallace’s lifetime and work on kinship care
Gerard Wallace, who grew up in Brooklyn, suffered as a child and so devoted his career to ending childhood suffering. Retired now, he lives in the rural Helderbergs and believes some of the worst suffering happens in rural areas. Wallace,…
- Laure-Jeanne Davignon and John Anderson, Friends of Thacher State Park
The Emma Treadwell Thacher Nature Center is being reimagined so that kids will be able to crawl into a giant honeycomb or tree to learn about meadows and forests or “dig” for fossils to learn about the Devonian sea. The Friends of Thacher…
- The tale of two generous men and a bygone era
Bob Flynn has written a book — titled “Tork’s Hill & Mead’s Pond” — about two Voorheesville men who used their private property to create what he terms “winter wonderlands” where he and his friends could gather. Flynn’s book captures an ea…
- GleeBoxx creator Shreya Sharath wants forgotten people to feel seen
Each box includes a note she wrote. Sharath read one to The Enterprise: “Even in difficult times, hope can be a light in darkness. Know that you are deserving of support, compassion, and a better tomorrow. Stay safe, take care of yourself,…
- Wiles publishes a book on lessons in leadership learned from the Bard
altamontenterprise.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Kate Cohen says, to save the country, atheists should make themselves known
altamontenterprise.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Daughter and mother coach dragon-boat paddlers
Anna Judge and Louisa Matthew realize they live in an ageist and sexist society — but, with generous spirits, they are paddling against the current. The mother-daughter duo together coach a crew of dragon boat paddlers. Matthew, the mother…
- Lyon Greenberg: A doctor takes a long view of his farm and his life’s journey
altamontenterprise.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Sky Baestlein follows her passions with a purpose
altamontenterprise.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Arthur Y. Webb, consummate public servant
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Angelica Sofia Parker and Elca Hubbard prepare for a pageant while supporting each other
https://altamontenterprise.com/07242023/angelica-sofia-parker-and-elca-hubbard-prepare-pageant-while-supporting-each-other Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Diane Luci learned empathy as a child and uses it to mend a rent society
altamontenterprise.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Emily Tice: Baking is more than filling; it's fulfilling
altamontenterprise.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Pastor Holly Cameron says we desire to be connected
Holly Cameron loves her church. She has been the pastor of the New Scotland Presbyterian Church for 25 years. “The church is a place to try to understand what is something larger than myself, both within that community of people, and with…
- John Fritze says: Ham radios serve the public
John Fritze Jr. is a dedicated ham radio operator and a third-generation jeweler. He is passionate about both his avocation and his vocation — and on the cutting edge of each. Hams have a saying as they try to inform the public that amateu…
- Market ‘a chance for all of Guilderland to come together,’ says Scott Abraham
When Scott Abraham read about farmers committing suicide, he decided to do something about it.He read about families that had owned their farms for generations but couldn’t carry on. “It was just too tough … They can’t find help,” he says…
- Chef Lateef Clark says good meals can make a difference in students’ lives
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Alan Kowlowitz, New Scotland's application for national historic districts
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Tara McCormick-Hostash tells stories in an intimate space
— Photo from Tara McCormick-Hostash Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Nicole Gladieux, ‘Be a part of the community coming together’
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Poet Leonard A. Slade Jr., ‘We need to celebrate love and get to know one another’
In the way most of us breathe air — an essential intake to sustain life — Leonard A. Slade Jr. breathes poetry. He inhales the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and Langston Hughes, and breathes life into their words as he…
- Anthropologist Thomas Plummer: Who made the earliest tools?
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Anita Martin on a journey to ‘help the horse world’
Anita Martin talks to horses.As a certified equine sports massage therapist, she helps horses in pain. “When horses are in pain,” she says, “they need help. They can’t tell us with words, but they certainly tell us with body language and a…
- Megan and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
When is a coat a work of art? When is a coat the center of a play? When it is Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The character Joseph wears his coat in this weekend’s school production in Voorheesville — where it takes on a life of it…
- Jill Rifkin says musical instruments can be instruments of change
Jill Rifkin is a sort of Robin Hood for musical instruments. She collects them from often well-off kids who don’t use them and redistributes them to children who can’t afford them. Rifkin was hooked, she says, by a little boy from the Cari…
- Legal Hand: ‘Our mission is to inform and empower’
A new widow had never driven. She had no license. She did, however, have her husband’s car. But, without a driver’s license, she couldn’t register the car to park it on the street. A neighbor said, “Hey, if you title it to me, I can regist…
- Joan Mckeon says, nurturing nature is something everyone can do
Joan Mckeon had an awakening as she mowed her lawn — a job she hated.“It smelled bad, it was noisy, and the little creatures would run for their lives,” she says in this week’s Enterprise podcast. The less lawn she mowed, the more native p…
- Richard Umholtz: The Mountain Family wants to mentor
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Emily Vincent in Berne carries on a sheep legacy
Emily Vincent is carrying on a legacy. A sheep farmer in Berne, Vincent had a brain tumor removed in January of 2020. “After I got out of my surgery, I had just the most horrendous vertigo that you could ever have,” recalls Vincent in this…
- Julia Young, a presidential scholar nominee who likes being challenged
Julia Young, a student at Clayton A. Bouton High School, is one of 25 seniors in New York State nominated as a Presidential Scholar, a recognition the Regents chancellor called “the pinnacle” — and yet Julia Young is humble.The day after t…
- Year in review — The Altamont Enterprise 2022
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
- Attorney Christine Galvin: Brave children fleeing terror have a friend
Christine Galvin helps abused and neglected children who have fled their homelands in hopes of building a better life in the United States. She has spent up to a thousand hours each year for more than five years working, for free, to help…
- Farmboy learns he can lead people as well as cows
Rudy Pitcher calls his wife, Connie, his “combat buddy.” It’s not an exaggeration. Pitcher, now retired from his Army career, was stationed in Tehran in 1978. His wife and their three young children — ages 5, 7, and 9 — were with him. Pitc…
- A fold or a twist or a coil is the stuff of dreams for Steinkamp
Paul Steinkamp wishes that, when he was a child, someone had taught him how to fold a piece of paper in half. As he talks about the art and science of origami, which he came to late in life, he sounds like a poet. “The greatest gift you co…
- Alexandra Fasulo writes of freelancing her way to freedom
Alexandra Fasulo last month published her first book and calls it “my favorite thing I’ve ever done.” She has done a lot while still in her 20s. She owns the weekly gig economy newsletter, the Forum, as well as Fortuna Forum, a suite of on…
- Peggy Warner: ‘Our country gives people the right to choose’
Peggy Filkins Warner says she learned to be independent from her grandfather.“That’s where I got my attitude,” she said of her father and his father. She was born in the Filkins farmhouse on Joslyn School Road in 1930, in an era when not a…
- Penny Shaw creates “Goosen, The Musical”
Penny Shaw Bartley has always loved to sing and entertain people.It started when she was a kid growing up on a farm in Michigan. She and her siblings worked in the fields, “hoeing out weeds and driving the tractor and feeding the animals,”…
- David Rodney Miller, a life-time pacifist takes children seriously
David Rodney Miller describes himself as an 85-year-old pacifist.He says, though, that he has been in a war of one kind or another for most of his life and cites his time in the Peace Corps, which he terms “war on war”; his role in the Lyn…
- Sandra Dollard, leading Guilderland Chamber, creating connections
Sandra Dollard, a woman known for her warmth and sense of style, ran Evoke Style, a women’s fashion boutique, in Stuyvesant Plaza for more than a decade. “I had cancer and I got myself through chemo and I wanted to help other people,” Doll…
- Guilderland Food Pantry director says: ‘If you need us, we’re here’
Last week, John McDonnell, who directs the Guilderland Food Pantry, talked to a woman in her early seventies who had been retired for about five years.He recounts their conversation in this week’s Enterprise podcast. “She said, ‘You know,…
- Wendy Dwyer holds on to hope as she fights for a better world
Wendy Dwyer is a lifelong activist who is going to take her commitment to recycling and fighting pollutants all the way to the grave. Literally. She has signed up for a green burial. “I’m going to go in… a totally biodegradable wool blanke…
- Millie and Alan Zuk: Lifelong care for community
Mildred and Alan Zuk are consummate givers.Constant in their commitments, they have been married for 50 years. Throughout that half-century, Alan has been involved either driving school buses for Berne-Knox-Westerlo or supervising the tran…
- Nadia Raza follows her passions — for fashion, food, and helping
Nadia Raza was visiting family in Pakistan this summer when the floods came. “We didn’t even know. I woke up one morning and I had text messages and Facebook messages from the entire Altamont community,” said Raza who owns a Pakistani rest…
- Indigenous ways of knowing are a totem for Sarah Walsh
When Sarah Walsh was working with indigenous people in Canada, she experienced a national Thanksgiving address. “It is a way of acknowledging every piece of the Earth … and to center yourself in your role as a human being in the Earth, not…
- Bernard Melewski shares stories of lobbying to save the Adirondack Park
Bernard Melewski has spent most of his life working as an environmental lobbyist, and eight years writing a book about it. “Inside the Green Lobby: The Fight to Save the Adirondack Park” has just been published by the State University of N…
- Chris Howard is documenting ‘stories that the world needs to hear’
Life and art are often intertwined for Chris Howard. She sees communication as a common thread in her life, taking her from parts she played in the school productions of her childhood through a career as a speech and language pathologist,…
- Laura Barry plants hope along with native trees
Laura Barry is like a modern-day Johnny Appleseed.Except, instead of planting apple trees, which originated in Asia, she is planting native trees. “I planted about 15 trees this year, little saplings and things all over the place secretly,…
- St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church celebrates 150 years
Karen Williams, Linda Zell, and Megan Connolly consider themselves to be sisters. “The bond is that strong,” said Connolly in this week’s Enterprise podcast. The three women are not related by blood. Rather, they are part of what they desc…
- ‘The Power of Plus’: Russo was healed by telling the stories of courageous women
Gianluca Russo became a journalist because he likes telling stories. He has just published his first book, “The Power of Plus: Inside Fashion’s Size-Inclusivity Revolution.” The book is “For the women who changed my life and the people who…