There's reality... and then more reality. Once, years ago, we had national enemies. There were world and then cold wars... and then everything came down to our own opinions, and different versions of what we thought was real battling for preeminence.

Is the climate changing or are we just facing some bad weather? Do we try and do something to stop what our scientists are saying is preventable change, or just prepare for the worst? How bad are the sequester cuts everyone's talking about? Does it matter who first proposed them or are we beyond such childish taunts? Do economic realities trump social needs? Can we afford to be only so human? And do we waste time screaming about laws that have already been passed, and can now be changed only through legal channels, or is it better to push our views about guns no matter the circumstances? Does it matter if over half the country doesn't like weaponry, and would rather live without the threat of gunfire around them?

Locally, some big issues: the biggest, just now, being wetlands buffer zones, as noted in our front page story from the Town of Shawangunk; the others having to do with the return of summer bungalow colonies to Wawarsing, and how far we should go cutting back school programs.

So how bad is it to tamper with developer's rights in the name of watershed viability? Do we really need to worry so much about aquifers and flooding when we have way of purifying water via filtration and other means, as well as drying out basements and moving roads? One hundred foot buffers? To save animals?

The other reality is that some things can be lost forever. And aging lands tend to need better protections to keep from getting steam rolled. In many realities the whole world over, one starts caring for property by having everybody decide what they treasure amongst all they see. Then again, we have a tradition here of first-come-first-serve and winner-take-all. Which reality triumphs? Is it open for discussion or do all such matters get decided, in the long run, by the discussions our Founding Fathers had nearly 250 years ago?

In Wawarsing, many have started grumbling about a new bungalow colony with his and her swimming pools for orthodox tastes. The complaints have edged into the territory of bigotry, just as similar objections to a much larger development in Mamakating erupted with people's fears about who might be sold to, and allowed to move into their neighborhood, a year ago this winter.

Are we that afraid of what others think and act like that we can't accommodate others in our "viewshed?"

And then these educational matters... wherein we're dropping foreign languages from our curricula because of tax worries, removing us yet another step from the larger world we inhabit. You say Spanish counts? How about as a second American language... along with French as a third, for any who like to travel north to our civilized neighbors up in Quebec. Cuts to summer academies and other "extra-curricular" tools for making learning fun? Do we really want the generation coming up behind us to be less educated than we are? Or do we still hold hopes for a greater reality beyond what we can see at the moment?

Finally, one other new battle of realities...

Did anyone notice how women from all around the Hudson Valley packed the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center last weekend for martial arts and other tips on how to protect oneself.

"How to carry your keys, what's in your purse, how to get away, this is all part of a three second rule in getting away," said instructor Keith Bennett about the reasoning behind his safety lessons, which did not include either assault weapons or shotguns. "It's not about standing there and fighting somebody. It's about getting away from an attacker."

But who's attacking? Is the "reality" we see on the evening news from urban areas, or in the movie and television narratives that fill so many of our waking hours, so powerful now that it trumps our own experiences?

Could it be time we all, as a nation (and maybe even a world) need a time out? How about therapy?

Of course, that too is another reality...