Wednesday April 24, 2024 
Why can’t Keith Hammond be honest?
In the March 25, 2021 Advertiser, Poestenkill Supervisor Keith Hammond stated that by writing a letter to the editor of the Advertiser concerning matters of public importance in Poestenkill, that I was “looking for attention,” and in a threatening tone promising further retaliation by the town, he stated “I now have it,” that before accusing me of being dishonest about absentee ballots, when it was Mr. Hammond himself who was being dishonest with all of us, which dishonesty is nothing new for Mr. Hammond who has a long history of being dishonest.
This is the same Poestenkill Town Councilperson Keith Hammond who in 2005 was calling me a “RETARD”, a malicious lie, which was on the record in an official Poestenkill Town Board meeting.
And the same Keith Hammond who as a councilman on 11 December 1995 published a series of malicious libels wherein he falsely stated that I am “mentally disturbed,” a condition he states as an alleged psychiatric expert causes my “inability to effectively function in society.”
From there he went on to falsely state that I am “forced to live on public assistance,” and since he was on a roll and the lies were pouring forth, he went on to further falsely state that I have a “criminal record,” which is pure invention on his part, as is so much of what he says, and not to be outdone by himself, he concluded his string of libels by stating that the next time I felt the urge to pick up a pen, which I actually just did, three times, to attack a Poestenkill public official like Keith Hammond for having some issues with honesty, why don’t I instead dial the number of a local hospital with a psychiatric ward, because as the psychiatric expert Keith Hammond says, “It is obvious to all around that you are in desperate need of help.”
Except it is not at all obvious to anyone other than Keith Hammond, because none of that is true.
So why does Keith Hammond do it, then?
What motivates him to tell these outrageous lies?
Why, Keith?
Paul Plante, Averill Park
To the Editor
In an opinion piece entitled “Facts Ignored in Attacks on Asian Americans” published in the Advertiser on April 1st, Rich Lowry, editor at the National Review, argues that “many attacks against Asian Americans clearly aren’t acts of white supremacism, or even incidents of racial hatred.” That may be be true, but it is a red herring. No one in the StopAsianHate movement has claimed that all attacks against Asian Americans are perpetrated by white supremacists or are incidents of racial hatred, but there is ample evidence that attacks on Asians have increased by at least 150% in the past year.(1)
Furthermore, Lowry argues, “It’s just not the right kind of hate to fit a woke narrative of white supremacists targeting Asian Americans in a frenzy of racism fueled by former President Donald Trump’s use of terms like “the China virus” and “Kung Flu.” Lowry’s use of the word “woke” serves to mock or belittle supporters of the anti-Asian Hate movement in the same manner it has been used to belittle supporters of Black Lives Matters (2), and comes at a time when we should not be minimizing the issue but spotlighting it.
James Snack, Averill Park
(1) https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-nearly-150-2020-mostly-n-n1260264
(2) Butterworth, Benjamin (21 January 2021). “What does ‘woke’ actually mean, and why are some people so angry about it?”. inews.co.uk.