Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1016 - 1040 of 3750
There are dams that should come down and those that shouldn’t. Hopefully, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducts its review of the 14 federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers, that will become abundantly clear. That review is expected to be ready for public comment in late 2020. Here is the difference. Demolishing the two dams on the Elwha River west of Port Angeles was a good thing. They were built in the early 1900s to bring electricity to the Olympic Peninsula at a time when s...
Our court system is out of control. I was watching a Mariner’s game the other day when the network filled a break in the action with a half dozen commercials. My drink and chip bowl were both full, so I sat back in my recliner and day-dreamed. I came fully awake when a law firm announced they had won a $289 million settlement against the makers of Roundup and requested I call the number on the screen to see if I could share in the bounty. I have used Roundup in my garden for several years, so, after the ball game, I retired to my computer to r...
The deepest solo ocean dive ever made was to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. It was made in a titanium-hulled submersible on May 1. The depth of the dive was more than 35,800 feet. Four new deep sea species were discovered. Also, discovered on the sea floor was a plastic bag and what may have been candy wrappers. In the Philippines, a juvenile whale was found dying of what scientists thought was dehydration and starvation. After its death, it was discovered that the whale had ingested 88 pounds of single use plastic bags....
Pet Peeves People who walk their dogs down Main Street and do not pick up after them. Okeydokes People that support the Rotary baseball breakfast ticket sales and all the extra money donated! Colfax pride!...
Back when I was a TV local newspup, I met Muhammad Ali to do an interview. This was during his boxing days. While my video person set up, I discovered, to my utter surprise, during our chat that he was friendly but soft-spoken and cordial, the exact opposite of his loud, brash shtick. Then it was time for the camera to roll. Ali immediately accelerated into his high-volume, "I am the greatest!" manic patter. When we finished, it was back to normal conversation till we parted. Thousands, if not millions, of people experienced his gracious side,...
The last thing the world needs is more of Robert Mueller's commentary, but Congress is determined to have him hold forth at a public hearing. It's not as though we don't already have the special counsel's version of events. He mustered enormous investigate resources and took two years to write a 400-page report that is available to the public and presumably carefully written (although not necessarily carefully thought through). That should be enough for Mueller to stand on, and enough for Congress to make a decision to impeach or not impeach,...
With the dust settling from the 2019 legislative session, the focus is assessing the impacts on taxpayers and our economy. Our state’s budget grew by a whopping 17.5 percent, which is one of the largest increases ever. Gov. Jay Inslee and his Democrat colleagues who controlled the legislature came to Olympia last January set on raising taxes despite higher than projected revenue collections. “Rather than looking for cost savings, lawmakers chose to raise more than $1 billion in new taxes ove...
I was headed into the grocery store the other day for bread, eggs, and milk when I noticed a line outside the door. I thought it might be some free samples, so I went over to see what they had. It was a line to sign a petition for a ballot initiative to create Liberty State. I had heard a little about the proposal, and had dismissed it as the rumblings of anarchists and the ultra-right. I was more concerned with my bread, eggs, and milk, so I bypassed the gathering and proceeded to get my shopping cart. After securing my purchases and barely...
More than one million species of plants and animals are facing imminent extinction. This is the crux of a just released United Nations report on biodiversity. Climate change has a part to play in this alarming prediction, but the real reason, the report concludes, is human activity. About half a million of these species may survive for just a few decades more. According to the report, these have “insufficient habitat for long-term survival.” Robert Watson, the study’s chief, told the Associated Press “we are threatening the potential food se...
Pet Peeves People moving to a farming community and complaining about farming activities. Rumble strips, four head-ons on 195, four people died. Rumble strips did not make a difference, cannot even pull over on shoulder....
Is Donald Trump slipping? In his endless quest to give everyone a derogatory nickname, he's now calling Joe Biden "Sleepy Joe." It's not clear why he's calling him "Sleepy," but it might be a typo. Perhaps, he meant "Sloppy Joe." That would be spicier. Then again, maybe that's Trump's subtle way of mocking Biden's age. Or maybe not, since one thing we've learned about The Donald is that he's not subtle. The problem for him is he's nearly as old as Biden. Neither of them matches Bernie Sanders, who is so crotchety that he's in a geriatric class...
No one enjoys getting impeached, and if it happens to him, Donald J. Trump will be no exception. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine any potential target of impeachment in Anglo-American history relishing the fight more than Trump. He'd rather be done with the Mueller investigation in all its permutations, but there's no one better suited to being at the center of a harshly partisan, deeply personal political and legal donnybrook that will ultimately be just for show. Trump famously told top aides at the beginning of his administration...
Montana’s legislature took the unusual step of exempting older, less-valued mobile homes from property tax as a way to stem homelessness. The bipartisan legislation, which Gov. Steve Bullock signed into law last week, aims to keep people in their homes. It exempts mobile and manufactured homes worth less than $10,000 and at least 28 years old from taxation starting next year. In Montana, a state with just over a million people, there are more than 22,000 residences where owners are in danger o...
Twenty years ago, Washington State voters outlawed ethnic discrimination within our state. Initiative 200, passed by a decisive popular vote, specified that employers or those granting contracts, “shall not discriminate against nor grant preferable treatment … on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.” This past Sunday during their last minute session, our legislature struck down the people’s initiative. Ethnic background is now a required criteria for evaluating new employees and granting state contracts. Proponents base th...
Twenty Democrats have declared their candidacy for the presidency of the United States. It is the largest field of candidates for one party in history. All are seeking their party’s nomination. The diversity of the candidates is impressive. Age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic backgrounds and philosophies are vastly different. Another difference is experience. Some have little experience in any field, be it politics, business or government. In a few cases, hubris seems to be the reason for the run rather than qualifications. The c...
Pet Peeves The farmer who chose to move his combine on Highway 26 at 5 p.m. when all the Moms’ traffic was already heavy. Four council seats open, change for Colfax, please someone run! Okeydokes The library’s virtual reality....
Impeach Donald Trump? What a bad idea for the Democrats, in spite of the pressure from the party's left flank, and in spite of various presidential candidates, like Elizabeth Warren, pandering to the ultra-progressives. After all, the ultimate goal of a House of Representatives impeachment is to set up the Senate to remove him from office. In a rough form, it's kind of like an indictment and trial. Actually, in the Senate it's called a "trial," nothing rough about it. One would think that with the Democratic majority in the House, impeachment,...
There was Bernie Sanders at a Fox News Channel town hall, not giving an inch in a forum every Democratic presidential candidate has shunned. His reward was a cataract of good reviews, and monster ratings. Sanders had a solid hour to try to reach people not favorably inclined to his worldview, at the very least demonstrating that he's willing to show up outside his political silo. Why hadn't any of the other Democrats done it before? Because they lacked the verve and ideological self-confidence of Sanders, as well as the independent streak to...
I want to ruffle my feathers and join the squackfest about marijuana production in Whitman County. I want to see as much agricultural diversity and value-added activity as possible. The location for the proposed new business might have been wrong, near existing homes and a dainty dairy. I can't evaluate that. Other than that, let 'er rip. Looking across countries and over time, the least drug use is found where there is a government policy of restricted availability; neither prohibition nor excessive availability. That's because prohibition...
On March 15, a small group of Aryan supremacists attacked a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 worshipers. Political and religious leaders throughout the world condemned the act and the terrorists. The six gunmen were rounded up and will be punished to the limit of New Zealand law. As far as we know, the motivation of the attack was more racial than religious. In retaliation, a group of Islamic terrorists sent seven suicide bombers to Christian targets in Sri Lanka last week. They inflicted 800 casualties, 300 of them fatal. Once...
A trend in American society has been sliding away from the religious toward secular or just spiritual. Easter is a prime example with the Easter bunny gaining more popularity while the Christian observation just spikes attendance at church for the weekend. And, there are those who focus on the pagan ties to classic Easter symbols. Regardless whether it is for the egg hunts or celebrating the resurrection of Christ, the holiday still serves as a reason for people to gather. They gather in homes,...
Pet Peeves Landlords that expect an 80-year-old woman to mow lawns around their apartment building. First person to say it is too hot. Okeydokes The flowering trees on Mill Street. Onecho Good Friday Easter Cantata. Wonderful....
We should do better, but how can we? By "we" I mean media wretches -- the purveyors, so President Donald Trump charges, of "fake news." The reality is that we constantly deal in his fake spews of outrageous controversy, which he concocts to feed his insatiable need for attention, and our perpetual need to have something to feed our beasts. Astronomers made a big deal about actually photographing a black hole; we all know that it doesn't compare with the black hole that is Donald Trump's desperate inner child. But what can we do? As...
"I believe that this church offers the carefully discerning such cause for admiration," the 14th-century French philosopher Jean de Jandun wrote of Notre Dame, "that its inspection can scarcely sate the soul." A cultural calamity played out on live TV when the Paris cathedral that has been a focal point of Christendom for so long was apparently gutted by a raging fire, destroying a significant part of an inheritance built up over hundreds of years in a few hours. Notre Dame stands for so many qualities that we now lack -- patience and staying...
It seems to me, having spent most of my life in eastern Washington and working throughout the area, that the people who want to destroy our existing water environment have little or no direct connection to the Valley communities or to the Palouse. All they can talk about is the high cost of maintaining the dams and decline of the native fish population. It is time to start talking about the huge benefits, as done by Krista Meria at the recent 'Our Columbia Snake River System' luncheon. None of the advocates for dam removal grew up in the...
