Thumbs up to the Norwich community and the support they have shown lately to a man and his family who are in need after a tragic bicycle accident a few months ago. Being the crime reporter for The Evening Sun has been beyond great so far, I wouldn’t wish for anything different, but I tend to see a lot of what the community has been doing in a negative light. Therefore, when I get the opportunity to reach out to people like Shawn Witherow as well as his family and friends, and get to hear about how much support they have received and keep receiving from the Norwich community, it is definitely a good change of pace. Big thumbs up to the people who are trying to help improve this community and keep it a great place to live.

-CT

My thumb is sideways. Thumbs up to those of you who have submitted “Letters to the Editor” supporting a candidate for either the Norwich Mayor position or the Chenango County District Attorney position. I also received a letter regarding an Oxford position. Thumbs down to those of you who have not yet submitted anything. It need not be lengthy, but I want to know what’s on your mind. Certain stories that have been published within the past couple of weeks have garnered many comments with regard to the DA race. Some have been ‘hidden’ because of our profanity filter. If you feel so strongly about this issue, I urge you to write me a letter, so that thousands can read what is on your mind.

– ARB

Thumbs up to fall sports finally starting. All this week, and some of last week, games have been played and all the hard work from the pre-season is starting to pay off. Tonight marks the first football games of the season and I’m excited to see what these teams can do after writing about them in our fall preview. I should also take this opportunity to apologize for any spelling errors I may have made in the preview regarding names of the athletes. I’ll do my best from here on out to get the names correct and get the scores in the paper as fast as I can. Good luck to all who are competing this season, I hope all your hard work pays off.

– JT

Goodbye satisfying “clack” of closing my flip phone, hello sleek new touch screen and smiling poo emojies. Yours truely took a big step into the 21st century this week, trading in my flip phone of the last 14 years for a new smartphone. I’ve also let my flock of carrier pigeons fly free. Admittedly, I’m not terribly excited about the upgrade. I liked my flip phone, even the obnoxiously long time it took to send a single text message. And apparently I’m not the only one who put off joining the ranks of roughly two-thirds of Americans who now use smartphones. Flip phones are cheap, nearly indestructible, and provide very few distractions compared to the circus of apps offered by smartphones; which is why so many people aren’t ashamed of this dinosaur of the technological world. While I might have bailed on my fellow flip phone fanatics, I say thumbs up to those who haven’t. Way to keep the “dumb phone” movement alive.

– SM

Yesterday, a Federal Judge placed Kim Smith – the Rowan County Clerk who denied issuing marriage licenses to members of the gay community – in custody on the premise of contempt after she disobeyed the judge’s earlier instructions to do her job. I offer a boo-hiss and a “Thumbs Down” that the matter had to reach the federal level at all. To me, this matter would have been better off dealt with behind the closed door of her immediate supervisor. Her job is to file paperwork in accordance as prescribed by law, not levying moral judgments to those within her jurisdiction of Rowan County. Personally, if my morals interfered with the responsibilities of my job description – and I wanted to keep the paychecks coming to feed my family – my head would stay down, my mouth shut... but not because I'm a sellout. Because I understand that my obligation to the contract I signed when I agreed to take the job supersedes my own personal beliefs. Working for the government ain't Working for God; and if that's what Ms. Smith wants to do with her life she should be running a church, not a county. She should have simply been dismissed for not performing her assigned duties, not dragged about the judicial freak show.

—MSW