Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 2807 - 2831 of 3750
Monday was an important day in LaCrosse. The LaCrosse Market was reborn. The town’s previous market closed a few years ago. Little hope for getting a new store existed. The situation was grim. A small, isolated town cannot long survive without a place to get the basics of everyday life. Townspeople and many from the surrounding area responded. This was important—too important to ignore. LaCrosse Community Pride, a group of locals, brought together a variety of talents and resources. Area residents helped as they could. Some made great sac...
W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. The one thing I can say about my children is that I know if I really, really need them for something, they’ll be there for me — unless they’re busy. A few days ago, I needed them, because I came down with the stomach flu and my insides were actively becoming my outsides. As a man, I am capable of suffering any illness in stoic silence as long as I know that other people are aware of how miserable I am. My kids seemed like a good choice to be those people,...
Traditionally, the new year is a time for resolutions and new beginnings. Unfortunately, it is also a time when new regulations kick in. Why should we care? Because complying with regulations costs money — money that we could otherwise use to pay bills, save for college or create jobs. Yes, essential regulations are necessary to protect health and safety. But when families, schools, hospitals and employers are buried under tens of thousands of costly, confusing and often contradictory federal, state and local regulations, everyone suffers. J...
For years I have clipped stories out of the newspapers concerning untrustworthy sorts I classified as Ripoffs or Rotters and here’s a first batch from 2012. Jan. 16—A former human resources manager for Trident Seafoods in Anacortes is charged with several counts of theft on reports he funneled paychecks of former employees into his own bank account. Oak Harbor resident Don Kenney, 44, is alleged to have deposited nearly $200,000 for personal use from the accounts of temporary employees, reporting them as still working so he could collect the...
The Organization to Void Illegal Conduct, a group of Whitman County residents determined to keep the county from spending $15 million of public money on the Hawkins shopping center project at the stateline with Idaho, has decided to pursue its case in court. Last year, after a so-called public meeting where citizens were not allowed to voice their concerns over the county’s investment in the project, outraged citizens formed the organization and hired a lawyer. The pending lawsuit has hung over the county since. The heart of the case is deep re...
The Meaning of Christianity If you are a Christian, and reading this article, then this message is for you. If you are not a Christian, and find yourself reading this, then this article is for you as well. I have been a Christian for a mere 22 years, having accepted Christ at the age of 29. I don’t know it all, and I don’t pretend to. I find myself each and every day in awe of the power and majesty of a God who gave His one and only Son, so that I could live. And since that day, in April of 1990, when I surrendered to the love of God, as dem...
(Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008.) There comes a time in every teenage boy’s life when the best thing he can do for the other members of his family is take a bath. His glands are producing testosterone, which is a hormone that causes deepening voices, body odors and “Jackass” movies. When boys first start experiencing testosterone, they have no idea how to control the reckless impulses that will seize their brains. Later, once they’ve matured, they will discover that they can master these impulses — they’ll...
As we look ahead in 2013, the cost and availability of electricity will become more important to our families, farmers, merchants and factories. Washington is blessed with abundant low-cost hydropower, which supplies 75 percent of our electricity. But low-cost reliable energy supplies are dwindling, and power rates are climbing, even as our dependence on electricity increases. That impacts jobs and family budgets. Millions of Washington homes have computers, large power-hungry televisions and multiple electronic devices. Our major industries,...
It has been a bad time for the Republican Party, and wouldn’t you know it? The worst addition to President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy team could well be a Republican. Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel is reportedly under serious consideration to replace Leon Panetta as secretary of defense. A self-styled foreign-policy realist, Hagel is out of the mainstream and terminally naive. It would be one thing if Hagel were merely what he so often seemed when he was a regular on the Sunday talk shows — a tiresome purveyor of conventional wisdom overly...
It would be nice to think that the new year is completely new. It will surely be different. Yet, as the old saying goes, “No matter where you go, there you are.” And, here we are in 2013. Some of the things that stared us in the face last year will continue to stare us in the face this year. Still, there will be differences. The continuing controversy over the state-line Hawkins shopping complex remains. Although the project itself promises to be an important benefit to the county and its revenue picture, the project is mired in political and...
W. Bruce Cameron (Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008.) I believe that computers were invented to make our lives easier. My own computer doesn’t agree. We’ve tried relationship counseling through hours and hours of technical support. In the end, though, my computer just doesn’t like me. In shopping for a new PC, a video ad for a very popular laptop caught my eye. People in jumpsuits bounce weightlessly around inside an aircraft cabin, tossing the laptop back and forth like a Frisbee — and guess what: It still...
With all the class warfare these days, “rich” has become a four-letter word. To hear some tell it, high-income earners are greedy misers who don’t pay their “fair share.” Well, not quite. When it comes to taxes, the IRS reports that, in 2009, the latest year figures are available; the top 1 percent earned 17 percent of all income and paid 37 percent of federal income taxes. As for contributing to charity, Americans are a generous people. According to the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, private donors contributed...
I’VE LIVED around guns all my life. My father was career Army, and when I was a kid, my brothers and sisters and I learned to hoist up a heavy service rifle, as well as a .22, and shoot cans off fence posts during the short times we lived in the country, rather than in barracks buildings where your neighbor wasn’t just next door, he was through the wall. We were taught early that guns never came off the closet top shelf except in the hands of my father. Anyone who dared touch one otherwise risked being blown to smithereens because only he knew...
Every new year holds promise. They give us a new start and a new chance to get things right. There is always something to be done to make things better. Nationally, we all know there is a lot to do. A good start will be to demand reasonableness from our leaders. It is not very sexy or catchy, but it is essential. Most of the enduring problems facing us are the result of blindly following some arbitrary muse. The new year is the perfect time to demand reasonableness and to work towards pragmatic solutions rather than ideological perfection....
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. There seems to be some controversy amongst my children as to whether I am a geek or a nerd. (My son insists that we consider “dork,” as well, but my daughters feel that is too pejorative.) The argument is confusing to me, because neither of the two descriptions seems very manly. Shouldn’t the dispute be whether I am a “he-man” or a “hotty”? “No,” my older daughter tells me. “You’re making me kind of sick,” my younger daughter adds kindly. At issue is whether I know enough...
Everyone is talking about the “fiscal cliff” deadline looming on Dec. 31, when automatic tax increases and spending cuts take effect unless Congress reaches a compromise. Both political camps are in full campaign mode, blaming the other for the lack of progress. However, as the nation moves ever closer to the dreaded precipice, something interesting has happened. The long-vilified Bush tax cuts have been rehabilitated. For more than 10 years, most Democrats lambasted the lower taxes approved during the Bush administration as “tax cuts for t...
“I SEE WHERE the president of Syria is threatening to use sarin nerve gas to quell the revolution aimed at getting him out of office and we are concerned it might wind up in the hands of terrorists,” said a caller. “Didn’t we have a problem with nerve gas once?” Indeed we did, right here in Washington state. We were never told it was sarin, an amount of which on the point of a pin can kill you, just that nerve gas was coming. And that was thanks to an amendment to the military procurement bill in 1969 requiring that governors be notified...
More than a hundred years ago, a young girl wanted to know if Santa really existed. Her friends were telling her not to believe. So, she wrote her newspaper to get the truth. This is the famous reply from the editor, Francis Church. Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been afflicted by skepticism in a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s are little. In this great universe of...
It may be surprising to some that the very first prophecy of the coming of Christ came during a declaration of war! On the occasion of man’s fall into sin through the lying serpent, God’s judgment of the serpent was final, and carried a sentence that bore both physical and spiritual implications. The latter would be the first prophecy of the coming of Christ, His finished work on the cross and His final defeat of Satan in the Lake of Fire. Indeed the first Gospel ever preached was preached by God Himself in the Garden of Eden! In the ini...
W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. I am aware that everywhere I go, people are having whispered conversations about me, saying that I’m paranoid. I’ve also been told by my doctor that I have hypochondria, which is just one of the many diseases she’s treating me for. Between these two afflictions, I barely have time to be lazy, though I always manage to work it in somehow. Being a practicing paranoid hypochondriac means that I am always on the alert for new medications to take when those w...
Colfax Just an hour ago I rounded the corner at Eddy’s restaurant and noticed that the new windows were being installed and also that the new brick front was expertly put back into place. Let me see, it has been a little more than twenty five years ago when Eddy opened for business. Not only did he open for business but he also became an integral part of our little community. I know for a fact that always when our children visit from Spokane, California or Texas, they always ask to go to Eddy’s for their favorites. I recall too how they mak...
We’re seeing a lot of news stories these days about the projected costs of the new federal health care law known as Obamacare. Employers of all sizes, from small companies to warehouse stores and restaurant chains, are warning that compliance costs will force layoffs and price hikes. Even some of the lesser-known provisions will cost employers billions of dollars. For example, tucked away in the 2,000-plus pages of the legislation is a requirement that restaurants and “similar” food retailers display calorie counts on their menus. Sounds reaso...
WITH THIS YEAR nearly at an end, I’d like to use one of the last columns of 2012 to try to assist some of my readers in making it at least this far into 2013 without mishap. 1. There was a story in the newspapers recently about members of a family that met their deaths because their cook served them wild mushrooms she had gathered that turned out to he poison. Now there’s nothing wrong with gathering and using wild mushrooms, I’ve done it for years end have eaten more than a dozen different kinds I picked myself, starting off with chant...
The county commissioners have decided to suck it up and keep the New World accounting software for at least a couple more years. That is the right decision. Those following the seven-year New World saga will remember the expense and anguish that the software has caused the courthouse. Eventually, the trauma ended and the software was up and running. Then, once out of the woods with the system, it was suggested that a search be conducted for a new system to replace New World. The $45,000 a year or so maintenance fee was too much to stomach,...
Christmas is always a busy time and very often we get too caught up in the hustle and bustle. But something as child-like and simple as a scene from “A Charlie Brown Christmas” can bring us back. It did me. Charlie Brown : “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Linus Van Pelt : “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. [moves toward the center of the stage]. Lights, please. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” (From “A Charlie Brown Christmas” quoting the Gospel According to Luke...
