Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 2966 - 2990 of 3750
THERE’S something really wrong in this country when we have so many people out of work and unable to realize the American dream of owning your own home because of sky-high prices, yet we have a president jetting all over the country day after day meeting and dining with people eager and able to pay up to $40,000 for the privilege. Barack Obama picked up $15 million at one of those $40,000 a plate feasts at the home of actor George Clooney, and during that same weekend ate in Seattle with 50 couples who forked over $35,800 apiece and sat down at...
Despite the solemnity often attached to it, Memorial Day is a good time to smile. In my case, one reason to smile is dear Auntie Grace. I would visit her often at her beach house. Sometimes a cousin would join us. Neither of us were yet in school. Auntie Grace would wake us just as the sun was rising and send us off fishing at the public pier by ourselves. She gave us a drop line and a quarter each. We’d fish for a while and then go to the bait shack and buy our very own cup of hot chocolate. We always got a fortune back in change. These w...
Complete Shock I’m writing this letter in response to the certified letter I received from Office of the Chief of Police about the Colfax Municipal Code 10.18.040 (Junk Car Law). The letter I received was a complete shock to me, as no one has previously contacted me about the vehicles that I legally purchased and I believe are legally parked on my legally purchased property. According to the letter vehicles are junk cars if they meet three of the following criteria: 1. Is three years old or older, 2. is extensively damaged; such damage i...
In 1942, the completion of Grand Coulee Dam was hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Seventy years later, most of us aren’t aware of what that dam or the others on the Columbia River continue to do for us. To commemorate Grand Coulee’s completion, the Bonneville Power Administration commissioned legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie to write songs praising the dam that harnessed the mighty Columbia River. Guthrie toured the region from the Bonneville Dam to Grand Coulee, and within a month he had written 26 songs, the most famous of whic...
I’M MORE than a little suspicious that Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, among others, knew in advance that the President was on the verge of leaping aboard the gay marriage bandwagon. Biden kicked it off on Meet the Press with “Men marrying men, women marrying women and homosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.” The next morning Duncan voiced his support for gay marriage over MSNBC, followed by Caroline Kennedy, co-ch...
The upcoming county commissioner elections have generated a lot of interest. Challenges to the two sitting commissioners whose terms are ending this year have been expected for some time. This week is the official filing period for candidates seeking office, and so far two candidates have filed to run against Commissioner Greg Partch. Commissioner Pat O’Neill is expected to have at least one challenger. Commissioner Michael Largent does not come up for reelection for two years. For several months, three candidates seemed likely challengers t...
Step raises reality I want to begin by saying that I am the wife of the grader operator out of the Colton shop in District #2. My husband and many of his co-workers have worked in their positions for many years. There is a very low turnover with these hard working guys. I am so fed up with the continuous reference in the paper from the higher ups about these employees getting longevity (step) raises every 18 months. To quote Mr. Lothespeich “employees have gotten scheduled longevity raises of 3% for every 18 months they work at the same time e...
There are dams that should come down and those that shouldn’t. Demolishing the two dams on the Elwha River west of Port Angeles is a good thing and, hopefully the salmon and steelhead will return in record numbers. The dams were built in the early 1900s to bring electricity to the Olympic Peninsula at a time when salmon and steelhead were plentiful in other Pacific Northwest rivers. On the Elwha River, the issue was clear: Two barriers were blocking salmon from moving upstream. The care with which the demolition was planned, studied and i...
A few weeks ago the national average price for a gallon of gasoline peaked at $3.94. Every newscast covered the escalating prices, punctuating the reports with unhappy people at a gas pumps. Newspapers were no better, and talk shows railed over the situation. Many blamed the president. He blamed speculators. Others blamed the greed of the oil industry. Despite the emotion, nothing was new. We’ve been through this before. The country was first hit by fuel shortages and dramatic price increases in the 1970s. Long, desperate lines of motorists w...
For much of the world, Italy is synonymous with “la dolce vita,” the sweet life, full of pleasure and indulgence. But that life comes at a price, and the bill has come due. After 60 years of ever-increasing cradle-to-grave benefits and lifetime job security, Italy’s economy — the eighth largest in the world — is breaking down amidst declining birthrates, protectionism and crushing debt. Stunted by policies that discourage competition and thwart growth, Italy’s economy has been stagnant for 15 years, forcing that nation to borrow heavily in...
IT’S BAD ENOUGH that the cream of the security crop in our government, the Secret Service, dallied with prostitutes on a trip to Colombia while making sure of the safety of our soon to arrive on a visit president.The more worrisome thing to me, however, was the stupidity of the agent or agents who questioned the fee charged by his lady for the night, thus blowing the lid off the whole thing by triggering her complaint to the local cops. Prostitution is not against the law in Colombia so she had as much of a right to complain as if she were a t...
Some years back, the Whitman County commissioners decided to give up control of their salaries and the salaries of their elected cohorts and turn it over to an independent citizen committee. As a result, on Tuesday night, the county’s elected officials received substantial salary increases. The decision is final and absolute. Now, everyone has to live with it. Surely, those elected officials receiving the increases will have no problem living with it. It is just the rest of us that may have problems. Some lower level county employees may h...
W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. In this berserk, time-bankrupt world, I believe I should be grateful for an opportunity to spend several peaceful, uneventful hours sitting on an airport runway with the seatbelt sign on. It provides me with time to look inward, toward my bladder. After an afternoon of controlled breathing, I feel as though I’ve gotten in touch with my inner child — the child who used to wet his pants. There’s a reason pilots hold their passengers hostage for hours and hou...
Open Palouse I had a very small shopping list of things I wanted to accomplish when I was appointed to the Palouse City Council 25 years ago. Trees for downtown was tops on my list, followed by saving the historic Pratt truss, F-Street bridge. I lost on both. A perfectly serviceable bridge was replaced at huge cost by a slab of concrete. Trees in 1988 could line Main Street for less than a thousand dollars, well within the city’s well-managed budget. That plan was shelved until then councilman Echanove discovered how persistence could turn a s...
Recently, the EPA proposed new air quality regulations for power plants that activists say will finally kill King Coal. The rule would require all new power plants to cut emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by almost 44 percent. While natural gas plants can meet the standard, coal-fired plants cannot without expensive carbon-capture and storage technology that is not commercially available. While EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stresses the standards will apply only to new power plants, some experts say the Clean Air Act explicitly requires the go...
ITEM—Just as the Democrats were stoking up a hit on Mitt Romney as being unacceptable by women voters, prominent Demo Hilary Rosen threw gasoline on the fire by stating that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.” Even Democrats joined in condemning the remark about a woman who was a stay at home mom, rearing five sons. Rosen apologized to her and “anyone else who was offended.” COMMENT—USA Today says Hillary Rosen has two children with her ex-partner Elizabeth Birch, although there is no explanation for how that came about. ITEM—Congre...
Mitt Romney says he likes to fire people. If elected, can the General Services Administration be his first target? A few (but not enough) heads have already rolled at the agency that threw itself an infamous Las Vegas conference that could have been planned by former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski before he went to jail. The GSA couldn’t outdo Kozlowski, who threw his wife a birthday party on an Italian island with an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s “David” that urinated vodka and billed his company for half the cost, but it undertook its confere...
When environmental organizations pushed Washington voters to approve their renewable energy Initiative 937, they touted biomass energy — incinerated wood waste — as one of their preferred alternatives to fossil fuel. They reasoned that biomass energy plants would help clear forests of flammable wood debris from dead and diseased timber, put idled loggers and millworkers back to work and produce cleaner, more affordable energy. But since voters narrowly approved the initiative in 2006, many of those same activists are battling against bio...
REMEMBER the 9-year-old kid who took a gun in his backpack to school in Bremerton and when he dropped the backpack on his desk the gun went off and almost killed another student? That was Feb. 22, and the victim just got out of the hospital the other day. The bullet did so much internal damage, however, that Amina Koceer-Bowman will be undergoing repairs for years to come, if not the rest of her life, She and the accidental shooter made the news again recently over a letter he wrote her apologizing for bringing the gun to school. That...
Irony was thick this week. The GSA, General Services Administration, is under fire. One manager may face criminal charges, and the administrator has resigned. It all stems from a GSA conference and team building exercise in Las Vegas in 2010. Nearly $830,000 of public money was spent on the affair. The conference turned out to be a raucous and very expensive party. What is more, the GSA regional commissioner who put on the show made several trips with taxpayer money to Las Vegas prior to the party just to scout things out. Ironically, according...
On April 21, 1962, the Seattle World’s Fair opened. The “Century 21 Exhibition” ran for six months, drew 11 million visitors, turned a profit and left the Northwest with a wonderful Seattle Center. A half century later, many of the fair’s landmarks remain, and the Center’s 73-acres is a gathering place for people from all walks of life. It is Seattle’s Central Park. The Space Needle has become Seattle’s landmark. Conceived in an architect’s notebook, it was constructed in eight months at a cost of roughly $3 million in private funds. You have...
A short time ago, LaCrosse was declared all but dead. The loss of its grocery store, declining population, a downtown fire, the negative impact of CRP and, more recently, the loss of its bank threatened the town’s future. Despite even all this, the report of the town’s demise was exaggerated. LaCrosse is seeing a resurgence. This renewal is not the result of some grand project but is instead the result of many smaller ones and many individuals working together with a common goal. Even though the town’s obituary had already been written, LaCross...
“IN YOUR COLUNM which ran in the Wilbur Register issue of March 8, in response to a younger member of your family who asked why doesn’t somebody do something about Barack Obama,” writes Gordon Green of Seattle, “you responded in part by saying ‘he keeps doing things that are unconstitutional like making recess appointments.’ “A check with the Congressional Research Service, which works closely with Congress providing policy and legal services, shows Obama has made only 28 such appointments to date. By contrast, George W. Bush made 171 and Ronal...
Crosswalk concerns With the work proposed on State Route 195 this summer, I wish to inform the Gazette’s Colfax readers about my concerns for pedestrian safety. I am particularly worried that there will be more fatalities in our crosswalks. Of particular anxiety are two intersections, one between Greg’s Electric and Columbia Bank and the other between Palouse Empire Pest Control and the Siesta Motel. At this time, the possibility for improvement in safety would seem to be better for the crossing intersection of Thorn Street and Main Street sin...
Last year, Fotis I. Antonopoulos, a successful Web designer in Athens, decided to set up his own e-business to sell olive oil products. It took him 10 months, winding his way through the city collecting dozens of forms and stamps of approval, including proof that he was up- to-date on his pension contributions, before he could get started. But, according to The New York Times, even that was not enough. In perhaps the strangest twist of all, his board members were required by the Health Department to submit lung X-rays and stool samples, since...
