Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 1293 - 1317 of 3750
The Battle of Michigan Avenue is finally over, and it was won by the protesters. The lopsided fight between anti-war demonstrators and the brutish police force of Chicago's Democratic mayor Richard Daley the night of Aug. 28, 1968, in the midst of the Democratic convention, was a debacle for the left. The protests didn't stop the Vietnam War or the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, the sitting vice president who was much too establishment for the radicals. The event, broadcast on TV -- indeed, unfolding right in front of the...
With today’s tension and rancor, we need a dose of Yogi Berra’s wit and wisdom to put things into perspective. Let’s start with “You can observe a lot by just watching” because seeing what is happening now is very disconcerting. We need less sarcasm and to alleviate the vilification of one another that we constantly witness in the news and on social media. To quote Yogi: “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.” Yogi’s humorous way of sizing up a sit...
For now I will let go Frank Watson's suggestion to ignore the rule of law in this country as espoused in his second to last sentence: "One thing, however I would not spend money on is a team of special prosecutors to investigate something that our president may or may not have done, and even if he did, may or may not be illegal." Maybe Cherie Patnode (Being Bullied) can help me with a problem I am having. How do I look on friends who support a man who has demonstrated a lifetime of no morals and no ethics, who seems to want to start wars with...
A lot has been written about Sen. John McCain since his passing. In many ways McCain embodied the United States itself, an embodiment captured by the word “resilience.” Neither McCain nor our nation was, or is, in any way perfect, yet both had the resilience to bounce back from mistakes and hardships. In his farewell statement to America, McCain wrote, “We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals.” Many of those ideals took a while to manifest themselves, and many more are just emerging. In 1776, the Declaration of Inde...
A recent letter titled “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (Spokesman-Review, 9/2/18), that erroneously concludes “This tax cut benefits the middle class”, is a classic example of grossly misleading statistics like those used by Cathy McMorris Rodgers. The letter misleads by comparing percentage cuts rather than absolute dollar cuts. In absolute dollars, a larger percentage cut of a relatively small number (middle class income) is much smaller than a smaller percentage cut of a huge number (top one percent income) Thus the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center...
Frank Watson ("How to Improve our Country" Aug. 30), you make an excellent suggested use of a windfall, using it to increase the development of alternative energy sources and more fully recyclable packaging. However, you lose the argument by suggesting we stop investigating the alleged undermining of our democracy by our current president. Without a fully functional democracy, we would be far less likely to achieve your sustainability goals. Toward the democracy goal, as reported in last week's Whitman County Gazette, the Pullman Chapter of...
Long-serving Senator John McCain died Saturday. His death was anticipated. He had been suffering from brain cancer for months. A week of remembrances is underway. A memorial service is planned for Saturday with his burial on Sunday. Among others, both former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush will give eulogies. Both defeated McCain in his bids for the presidency. This in itself says a lot about McCain. He was revered by many. He was respected by many more. Most importantly, he worked with politicians in both parties. He was also...
President Donald Trump was bitterly disappointed that he was forced to cancel his ego trip down Washington, D.C., streets. The parade of U.S. military units was to be his biggest display yet of people marching in lockstep, bigger even than any gathering of Republicans. He really wanted to stand on a reviewing stand as the troops and hardware did their thing below -- just like they do for Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin and the others he wants to emulate -- but the disclosed cost of $92 million for this Defense Department dog and pony show is...
John Brennan may not know it, but he is acting in a drama scripted and produced by Donald J. Trump. As Eli Lake of Bloomberg perceptively observed, President Trump isn't trying to silence Brennan by revoking his security clearance, as the former CIA director's defenders insist, but elevate him as a foil. Trump couldn't hope for a better poster boy for the so-called deep state than a former CIA director who immediately began to sound like a commentator for MSNBC upon leaving government -- and, indeed, signed up as a commentator for MSNBC. It...
Pet Peeves The people that tell us what to do and try to control us, ran our debt up to 20 trillion. County allowing junk vehicles to sit on county road/right-of-way for weeks, months and years, doing nothing about it. Okeydokes Nice paint job at Les Schwab....
When does the bullying end? When did we start living in a time where it was okay to call people who don't agree with you names and judge them before you know them? How are we supposed to teach our youth that bullying is not okay when all they have to do is open the newspaper and see Trump supporters being called names? I am fortunate that my job lets me work with all walks of people. I am honest when I say that I have never refused to help someone based on their race, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or their political views. I was...
While waiting outside the Spokane Valley City Council in July, I met an elderly woman who was very proud that she grew up in Idaho and now lived in the Spokane Valley. We had a brief discussion about immigration, and she just couldn’t understand why all the migrants were coming to the United States with their children. “Why don’t they just stay in their own countries and fix them, instead of coming here?” she queried. I responded by asking her, “Well, why do you think they come here?” and she said that they want our stuff. Later, I thought of...
Unlike more progressive cities with established goals and realistic expectations, Rosalia has been hobbled for years by questionable financial expenditures that may not have received the much needed input of interested town folk. This has resulted in wasted effort, ill conceived and executed building projects and a general feeling of discontent by locals. Several recent examples come to mind such as the loss of critically needed parking to host tournament and large function events that only the school facilities can accommodate. This needs to...
Last April, Washington wheat, apple and cherry growers hoped U.S. and China trade negotiators would resolve differences and prevent imposition of damaging tariffs on our state’s leading crops. Unfortunately, that did not happened and the costs are adding up. Thousands of Washington farmers now find themselves on the front lines of a battle between the two largest economies in the world. Here’s what has happened so far. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on $34...
A friend and I were engaged in a bit of fanciful wishful thinking the other day when he asked me how I would improve our country with a hundred million dollars or so. I quickly ran down the list of national problems we are rapidly leaving for our grandchildren. A hundred million wouldn’t do much for the national debt, so I scrolled down to our utter dependence on fossil fuels. I’m not concerned that our oil and coal reserves will run out in my lifetime, but the supply is finite and will eventually be depleted. In the long term, we have onl...
The wonders of television news programming surfaced again last week with "the girl who was pushed off the bridge." The episode rocketed to the national news level when a cell phone video showed a young girl hesitating about leaping off a bridge and then being pushed. Jordan Holgerson, 16, sustained five cracked ribs and a punctured lung when she hit the Lewis River in the Vancouver area, and Taylor Smith, the girl who allegedly pushed her, has been charged in Clark County with reckless endangerment. The intent here is not to dimish the impact...
Networking in Washington is even more important than it is elsewhere. One would never go to a party here inadequately dressed, which is to say without carrying a resume, ready to hand out at a moment's notice. Socializing is not personal; it's hard work. Ambition is a good thing, and we're swarming with those who have brought their principled beliefs to government to make a difference. At least that's what they say. Count me among those who say "Balderdash!" (That's not what I actually say, but we have to remember the kiddies.) The point is...
It's never a good idea to negotiate with a hostage-taker, but when it's a NATO ally, there isn't much choice. The Trump administration has been trying to get back a Christian pastor detained in Turkey since October 2016, and when a possible deal at the sidelines of the NATO summit fell through, decided to drop the hammer. The administration sanctioned Turkey's justice and interior ministers -- remember, these are top officials of a fellow NATO country. The action hit the Turkish currency and stock market hard. Then President Donald Trump interv...
Pet Peeves Truckers, not grain trucks, using Main & Fairview as a bypass. Residential area gone to hell!!!!! Dusty and Rosalia rest areas. Anybody ever clean them? People who don’t turn on their headlights when it’s smoky. Okeydokes Citizens of North Flat for their generosity and kindness toward construction workers....
We are writing this letter to address our concerns with the notion of a roundabout or a “T” intersection being installed in Colfax. This idea of a roundabout, or “T,” will not only be a public relations nightmare for Colfax, but will result in the loss of traffic capacity for the vital shipping intersection Colfax is. To properly address this issue, we need to build for future capacity, not settle for what’s convenient. A single bridge with a “T” design will force eastbound 26 to southbound 195 (west side to WSU) to stop. Worse yet would be a r...
While most of our attention in the Pacific Northwest these days is on trade wars, tariffs and wildfires, there are critical talks underway between the U.S. and Canada over future allocations of the Columbia River system’s water. The two countries are renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty which went into effect in 1964. It is a 50-year agreement under which both nations can redo providing there is a 10-year advanced warning. That occurred and negotiators are now busy meeting. A new agreement w...
There is a letter in the Gazette Aug. 9 issue, entitled "Thumbs down," criticizing the lack of information about candidates in this year's election. I am sure the Gazette and other newspapers would not object to publishing political ads, either. I would say that our area newspapers have done pretty well in covering the candidates, but those who would like much more information in depth can log onto http://lwvpullman.org/forums.html. I was able to attend the voter forum put on by the Pullman League of Women Voters in Colfax. I was unable to...
Recently I sent a letter to Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Part of the letter says: ‘I just needed to tell you how encouraged I was when I met some young people from your campaign at the anti-racism rally at the County Courthouse on Aug. 2 and while we were talking they told me that racism has no place in American politics and is in fact un-American.’ On Aug. 4 I bumped into Cathy at the Hillyard Parade and she told me that our land should be the land of opportunity for everyone. I was encouraged again by that and reminded of the Chr...
In America, when people invent things, they expect their trade secrets to be protected by federal law when their government patents are approved. However, that isn’t always the case. Patent infringements are life and death for inventors especially when their ideas are incorporated into products made by larger and better financed competitors who avoid paying licensing fees. Too often the originators sue, run out of money fighting off competitors, and simply fade away. Until recently, our c...
A few weeks ago, I was in a serious discussion with a young friend who claimed that the Washington State tax system is unfair to the poor. I asked how he came to that conclusion, and he said the rich in Washington pay a lower percent of their income in taxes than the poor. I pondered that for a second and asked where he came to that conclusion. You guessed it. He said, “Well, everybody knows that.” I told him that I didn’t know that and would need to think on it. He got mad and stomped out. I knew that his claim had to have some basis, so af...
