Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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Unimpressive Attention Whitman County voters: The ballots for the Primary Election are counted and a minority of the minority moved their candidates to the general election. Yes, an unimpressive 40% of registered voters took the time to cast a ballot! Since 60% of you did not vote, please do not complain about the status of our governmental officials. My plea is to cast a ballot in the general election by November 6, 2012. Your citizen in disgust. Donald C. Orlich, Pullman Irresponsible The Food Stamp Program originated in the late 70’s for p...
Poland and the U.S. are like two trains passing each other in opposite directions. Poland broke the shackles of Soviet domination two decades ago with the rise of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity labor movement. Free for the first time since World War II, Poland cast off its yoke of government control and central planning in favor of an American-style free enterprise system. Today, Poland is the European Union’s largest eastern economy, the only member of the 27-nation bloc to avoid a recession in 2009. While most of European economies are in t...
ITEM—The Pentagon has started a program to develop and buy replacement Air Force One aircraft for presidential use after 2022. The first phase, costing $757 million for Air Force One and $1.84 million for a new helicopter, will focus on completing a market analysis and performance requirements, including whether to buy sole-source from Boeing, maker of the current Air Force One plane and helicopter or put it out to bid. The memo for the program does not specify the number of planes that may be purchased. COMMENT—If Barack Obama is reelected, th...
Now that presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has named his running mate, Paul Ryan, the 2012 campaign is off and running. It promises to be a contentious affair. The two parties seem to agree on only one thing: the country is in trouble and must be fixed. Yet, they violently disagree on what that fix is. The Republicans think they can save the country by cutting spending. As such, many programs are under threat of dramatic cutbacks. That is not all bad. It is not all good either. The Democrats, on the other hand, want revenue increases to eat...
What’s in there Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout it: Mitt Romney’s refusal to release any more of his tax returns. Wondering what might be hidden in there that could make suspicion less damaging than revelation? Pulitzer prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston exposes many of the most common and outrageous possibilities in his book, “Perfectly legal: The covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich—and cheat everybody else”. He’s as fun to read as Louis Grizzard or Bill Hall, with citations to support his case. It’s a book all o...
President Obama’s national health care law, the Affordable Care Act, will extend health care coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans. But health care coverage isn’t the same as health care. The problem is a shortage of doctors. The New York Times reports that, just as the ACA is poised to add millions to the health insurance rolls, the U.S. is on the brink of a critical doctor shortage. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that by 2015, the U.S. will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed, a figure that will mor...
THERE SEEMS to be a “deteriorating relationship” developing between the media and politicians, Reliable Sources talk show host Howard Kurtz opined the other day, as if he hadn’t noticed it had deteriorated a long time ago. Depending on who the candidate is, of course. Mitt Romney was hassled in Poland while walking back from laying a wreath on their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by reporters who shouted “What about the gaffes?” not once but twice, first a male reporter, then a woman. Romney wisely kept his mouth shut but one of his aides responde...
Commissioner Greg Partch did not garner the support he needed in last week’s primary. He finished third in a three-man race. As a result, the sitting commissioner will be out of office at the end of his term. Now, the District 1 race for his seat is down to Art Swannack and Bill Tensfeld, both Republicans. Commissioner Pat O’Neill, Democrat representing District 2, will again face Dean Kinzer, a Republican, in the general election. Kinzer received the most votes in their first contest. Rarely has the county seen such emotion and potential tur...
A Hypochondriac’s Compendium W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. Because I’m technically over 40, it’s been a bad year for me health-wise. I’ve had a host of ailments, including an appendicitis attack, spleen disruptions and liver migrations, all made worse by the fact that my doctor doesn’t agree that I’ve had any of them. Instead, he says I have mild hypochondria, which is silly — I have major hypochondria! A hypochondriac is a person who gets a disease by hearing about it. So when, for ex...
It’s hard enough for employers to cope with hundreds of new regulations passed each year, added to the tens of thousands of regulations already on the books. But now, agencies are adding insult to injury by imposing standards that are impossible to meet. The Small Business Administration estimates employers spend $1.75 trillion dollars a year complying with federal regulations, a burden that falls heaviest on small businesses, America’s job engine. The SBA reports it costs small employers more than $10,500 per employee to comply with federal re...
I CONFESS that I turned the television set off and hit the sack as the Andorra athletes were marching into the stadium for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. I knew there were 90 some countries yet to follow with the United States near the end and Paul McCartney as the piece de resistance of the finale, but I was already bored stiff. England had a tough act to follow in being expected to if not exceed, at least match the splendor of what China did but I expected better. Some of the best movies ever made have been English films and s...
Something special happened this week, and it had nothing to do with the Olympics. Nor was it in London. Actually, it was 350 million miles away. It was the landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover. The Curiosity rover itself is an amazing piece of equipment, able to perform a variety of scientific experiments. Its delivery on Mars was even more amazing. First, the rocket launch from Earth to Mars was precise, and the module entered the Martian atmosphere as planned. There it plummeted to the surface at speeds up to 13,000 miles an hour. A heat...
Some activists believe there is no such thing as a good dam, that we should destroy all dams to restore fish runs, no questions asked. A more balanced approach would be identifying dams we can live with, and dams we can live without. When the Elwha Dam was completed in 1913, people cared more about electrifying the Olympic Peninsula than protecting migrating salmon. After all, salmon were plentiful and electricity was the force driving economic growth. But the dam denied salmon and steelhead access to their traditional spawning grounds about...
DID YOU EVER see an election year before where so many candidates worked so hard to paint themselves as members of the middle class? It’s because the middle class is where the majority of voters are, of course. And in these days of high unemployment and escalating food prices, it’s not exactly conducive to be above the rest of us in earnings and status. Millionairess Susan Delbene, who wants to be the new 10th district congressman, refers to being successful in business and says she’s running “to rebuild the middle class.” Every candidate...
Robert “Bob” Russell Curtis died last week. He was 87. Bob was the long-time announcer for the University of Idaho Vandals. He called Vandal sports for 51 years, covering hundreds of football and basketball games. He rightfully was known as the ‘Voice of the Vandals.’ His broadcasting job brought him celebrity and many honors. Some people knew him only as a vibrant sports announcer and a true supporter of Vandal sports. He was dedicated, tenacious, tough and respected. His death has prompted many prominent sports figures to recount stories...
Flooded streets I heard about and read in the paper about Colfax having to clean mud off certain streets in town. I am surprised that all seem to accept this as a quirk of nature and no one can do anything about it. The purpose of this letter is to make the claim that there is something that can be done about it and that it doesn’t have to happen. Farmers learned more than 30 years ago how to summer fallow a field and not have huge gullies in it the next spring. Conventional summer fallow can even have runoff from a hard summer rain. We saw t...
In 1975, Central Washington University President Jim Brooks approached the Association of Washington Business with a concept of linking business leaders, teachers and high school students together to learn first-hand about what makes our free enterprise system tick. Brooks proposed that employers not only sponsor students and teachers but spend a week with them on the CWU campus. They would form 10-person companies, compete against one another in a computer simulation game and actually invent and market creative new products. That formula has w...
ITEM—Debate continues over how to punish Penn State University following release of the Freeh Report on the child sex abuse scandal in which it was found that top university officials, including beloved football coach, the late Joe Paterno, focused on protecting assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky to avoid endangering the football program. A decision is awaited from the NCAA on whether to cancel this year’s season or longer which would result in loss of millions of dollars amidst pleas that this year’s players were not part of the problem. COMMENT—I...
The country has been thrust into sorrow and grief over the mass killing at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. The death toll is 12. Another 59 were wounded, some critically. The ages of those killed run from six to 52. It all happened at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie last week when a lone gunman entered the theater and started shooting. Apparently, the shooter had planned his massacre for months, assembling an arsenal of weapons and ammunition and constructing explosive devices. He also had hoped to lure police into another killing...
Backs Tensfeld Whitman County is facing one of the most critical elections in a decade. The Commissioners’ seats for District 1 and 2 are up for grabs and the time is nearing for voters to decide who will lead our county in this time of economic uncertainty. With the Washington State Primary in sight, voters of District 1 will have to choose which two of the three will continue to the General Election. All the candidates have an interest in serving their citizens through dedication and hard work, but between the three I believe the man who best...
The First Healthy Day W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. The first day of any health regimen is always the hardest for me, because by the second day I’ve given up. The problem isn’t me, it’s my body. I set the alarm for an hour earlier than usual, figuring that the easiest thing to do is to start exercising before I wake up. My brain is the first to react. Brain: The alarm’s broken. We need to shut it off and call in sick. Me: No, let’s get out of bed! Eyes: It’s still dark outside. The...
Apparently, the battle for clean energy can be a very dirty business. For years, the Sierra Club has been waging an all-out war to end the use of coal. Dubbed “Beyond Coal,” the campaign includes a hit list of coal projects the Sierra Club is targeting, including “green” projects designed to reduce coal plant emissions to zero. The Sierra Club is getting help in its war on coal from the Obama administration. Not surprising, since candidate Obama famously warned that, as president, he would endeavor to bankrupt the coal industry. As The New Yor...
It is already time to think about the new school year. Families must get their children ready. That, as everyone knows, means clothes and supplies. It can be an expensive process. Getting the required school supplies can be a daunting exercise for some parents. Finding the different class-by-class and school-by-school requirements is not hard. Often, what is hard is buying them. This is true for parents in every school district in the county. According to the Colfax Chamber of Commerce nearly 30 percent of the children in the Colfax School...
MAYBE something’s been done that I haven’t heard about yet, but somebody missed or is missing a chance to make a bundle in San Diego. That’s where the collection of fireworks for the big Independence Day show all went off at one time in one gigantic explosion. It was all over TV the next day. I have yet to read what went wrong, just the disappointment of the crowd, which expected to see a half hour at least of timed fireworks and music to enjoy them with. My thought was boy what an opportunity for a tee shirt that has a picture on it of the e...
The 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold the federal health care law doesn’t close the book on health reform. The court ruled that the individual mandate requiring everyone to purchase health insurance is constitutional because the fines for not purchasing insurance are taxes, not penalties. That may have resolved the legal issue, but it did nothing to make health care more affordable. How does ordering people to pay for something they can’t afford solve the problem? Despite its name (Affordable Care Act), the federal law focuses alm...
