Serving Whitman County since 1877
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The state remains in financial trouble. It has made spending cuts, raised taxes and juggled cash and assets from different funds to meet the crisis this year. Still, money problems persist. Another major crisis looms. This time the state needs to find an estimated $3 billion to balance its next budget. The state, promises Governor Chris Gregoire, will look at major reforms in the hopes of shedding the status quo of over spending and short revenues. Some ideas include privatization of certain state functions and the elimination of programs. Addi...
I always thought if you made something with a three-dimensional printer, you’d need to wear special glasses to look at it. I was wrong, though: A 3D printer can actually take something you designed on your computer and “print” the object out in hard plastic — such as, for example, a pair of 3D glasses. 3D printers give us what we’ve all been craving: another reason to talk to technical support. When you finally get the thing working, though, you’ll be able to print out your grocery list as a cube! When you look up directions online, you...
Have the facts I have read in the newspapers about a problem the Colfax City Council seems to be having. That is what this letter will be about. The Council seems to be unhappy with the Mayor and the city administrator. I have strong feelings about what is going on, thus this letter goes beyond the fact that the administrator is my son-in-law. As I understand it, there is the possibility that the mayor may let the Fire Chief go or change his position. Some of the Council members don’t want that to happen so they would like to fire the administr...
The lame argument of this election year is if private stores like Costco are allowed to sell liquor, underage drinking will explode. According to opponents of privatizing liquor sales in Washington, only state-owned and run liquor stores can keep booze out of the hands of teens. Give me a break! Any clerk or storeowner – public or private – who sells beer, wine or cigarettes to a minor can be arrested. The law does not discriminate. Apparently, this ridiculous “threat” is the best opponents to Initiative 1100 can come up with. Initiat...
A BELIEF I HAVE held for years as to a prime reason for the high cost of health care got knocked for a loop the other day by a news story in USA Today. It is not vast numbers of people without health insurance who take their health problems to emergency rooms because they know the law mandates treatment whether they can pay for it or not. This way, I reasoned, they avoided doctor bills and the taxpayers got stuck for the much, much higher cost of the ER. But it has nothing to do with insurance. “People come to the ER when they need to come t...
++++ Jerry Jones for the pots of flowers along the sidewalk entering Colfax from Pullman. ++++ Danielle Klaveano for the landscaping at the Colfax library. Send your Pet Peeves and Okeydokes to the Gazette P.O. Box 770 211 N. Main St Colfax, Wa 99111...
The county is trying to work itself out of a mess. The implosion of the finance department after years of fighting ill-conceived computer software purchases and endless implementation problems has brought the courthouse to the edge of dysfunction. Employees, former employees, county commissioners and significant others are embroiled in a conflict that is distracting attention from the real matter of getting the county books up to standards. If it were not for conflicting personalities, the matter might have been resolved long before it hit the... Full story
My parents are the kind of people who believe that dogs understand full sentences, like this: “OK, we’re going to the store, we’ll be gone a couple of hours, please stay out of the trash and don’t lie on my bed, that’s off limits and you know it!” What the dog thinks: Bed! So my father is perplexed that his two canines continue to bark at everyone who comes to the door, even though he’s sternly delivered his sermon “Thou Shalt Not Bark at the Person at the Door Unless He Is a Criminal.” When it’s my dad at the door, the dogs bark even at h...
Support Chief We, the undersigned, write this letter to show our support for a highly qualified and experienced city employee, Fire Chief Ralph Walter. If you know Chief Walter, you know him to be very friendly, hard working and extremely competent at his job as the fire chief for the City of Colfax. There is nothing he would not do for this city and its residents. He is well respected within our community, Whitman County and even throughout the state for his extensive knowledge and abilities. His skills as an incident commander and leader are...
China is in the midst of a global strategy to move its products to market and obtain the natural resources it needs to fuel its red-hot economy. The Chinese have deals with Cuba, Iran and other oil-producing countries to supply its industries and people with fuel for its growing fleet of cars, trucks, trains and planes. In addition, they have invested billions in places like Angola and Peru to bring needed minerals to their factories. And, if you’ve got coal and uranium, they’ll buy it for their power plants. Now China is bailing out Gre... Full story
SO HELEN Thomas finally got the ax. It’s about time. Hearst should have done it years ago. You never heard of Helen Thomas? Sure you have. Now 89, she was for years the senior reporter at White House press conferences, which entitled her to ask the first question and close it off with a “thank you, Mr. President.” She resigned from UPI when the news service changed hands in 2000 and went to work for Hearst as a columnist, but she never gave up her seat in the front row at the White House from which she asked questions intended to embar...
The greatest single environmental crisis in its history has struck the United States. Millions of gallons of crude oil have flowed into the Gulf of Mexico from an uncapped British Petroleum wellhead a mile under the ocean’s surface. Millions more gallons are likely to continue to flow before the well is capped and the free flowing oil is contained. The damage to the region is already immense. The pristine gulf waters are polluted, both on the surface and under it, to an extent that few are able to even predict what the long term impact will b...
When the Hunter Meets the Gatherer As George Santayana famously said, those who fail to study history are condemned to repeat it — unless they get lucky on the final. This is especially true for “pre-history,” which is a combination of the suffix “pre,” meaning “before,” and “history,” meaning “what has occurred” — so “pre-history” literally means “things that happened before they occurred.” Pre-history tells us that our species used to be a hunter-gatherer society. This means that the job of raising a family was split 50-50 between the men...
Diphthongs After reading the article about the firing of the county Finance Director, I found I was faced with two choices. I could do like most and say, “Why am I not surprised?” and carry on. Or I could voice my displeasure about our three commissioners and how they are doing their job. I have chosen the second option, as it is apparent that they are not fully committed to doing our work that they were elected for. But are engaged in some kind of struggle between themselves. It is also easy to see that by their own words, they do not tru...
Massachusetts health care is a bellwether If you want a glimpse of what health care will look like under Obamacare, look at what is going on in Massachusetts. In 2006, state lawmakers passed the Massachusetts Health Reform law. It was touted as a wave of the future and was the model for the new federal health reform law. But after a few short years, the law seems less like a wave and more like a sinking ship. Like Obamacare, the Massachusetts law requires individuals and employers to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine. Like Obamaca...
A lesson for political candidates WELL, HERE comes another one. The Republican candidate for President Obama’s old Senate seat has admitted to inaccurately claiming he received the U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO’s conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s. Translation: U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, a Navy reservist elected to Congress in 2001, lied about an honor for outstanding service that went to his unit and not him individually. Source: A story by the Washington Post in the Seattle Times. The “erro... Full story
County government is in a mess, and the mess is of its own making. The current crisis is swirling around the New World software purchased for its finance department years ago. It has never been used, despite having cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is just the hard cash. The total cost of the software, including all the disruptions, delays and turmoil it has caused, may never be known. And now there is nobody to operate it. The financial services department has been gutted. The New World software and the difficulties of...
Planter theft We’d like to thank the person who removed our Memorial Day planters from the graves of our Wagner family members at the St. John Cemetery. Your generosity was so thoughtful. You managed to do it before Memorial Day weekend was over too!! Oh by the way, the plants on Fred Wagner’s grave were to show our respect and love to a WWI veteran. Obviously he wasn’t deserving of any recognition at all. Your intelligence is eclipsed only by your kindness! So thank-you, anonymous friend. You’ll be in our thoughts a long, long time. Linda S...
World War II veteran This article begins with the worldwide headlines Dec. 7, 1941 announcing the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. I imagine at least three-quarters of the men in our country responded with “We will get those S.O.B.’s”. The next morning another shocking headline announced President Roosevelt had declared war against Germany and Japan. Germany’s new dictator Adolph Hitler no doubt jumped for joy. He was a corporal in the First World War and his country was winning before the U.S. joined the Allies and defeated Germany. Now was...
I’ve often said that there’s no sense in dwelling on past mistakes because I’m just going to repeat them anyway. There are a couple, though, I can’t seem to forget — mistakes on the “hey, let’s steer the Titanic over to take a look at that iceberg” level. Here is a countdown of the five dumbest things I’ve done in my life — so far. No. 5 concerns the very first time I came up with an “invention,” because I am an inventor the way Lehman Brothers is a “success.” My father claimed the coffeepot worked poorly because it was a wedding gift from a T...
Most people know that our $13 trillion national debt is endangering America’s credit rating and pushing the United States closer to bankruptcy. But hidden beneath the surface is another ticking time bomb that threatens economic collapse in cities and states across the country: unfunded public employee pensions. Historically, increasing public employee pensions has been a practical way to resolve a budget crisis. For many elected officials, voting to approve richer pensions is easy because they know they’ll be long gone before the bill com... Full story
ITEM—The mothers of three American hikers jailed in Iran for spying when they were arrested at the Iraqi border last July visited them and asked their captors for their release. The three said they were hiking in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region and inadvertently crossed the border. Iran officials say they might be open to a prisoner swap. COMMENT—What are three guys from the U.S. doing hiking on the border of Iraq and Iran? That’s like the idiots who want to reach into a zoo cage and pet the lion and are shocked at pulling back a stump. I’d lik...
++++ The Colfax Cemetery was beautiful. The grounds were mowed and trimmed and the vases were up and ready to fill with flowers. The flags are a wonderful remembrance to our military who fought for our freedom. Send your Pet Peeves and Okeydokes to the Gazette P.O. Box 770 211 N. Main St Colfax, Wa 99111...
The new taxes in Washington on candy, beer and bottled water have started taking their toll on both the consumer and the vendor. The taxes represent a ridiculously complex system of standards determining what gets slapped with the new taxes and what does not. The new taxes may drive some to drink. That is okay. The new tax on beer is the easiest to figure out. Only some specialty beers are exempt from the tax, making this tax a sure winner for the state. No real beer drinkers drink that stuff anyway. The tax on candy is a different story....
My father is worried my mother might fall down in the yard while he’s watching TV because there’s no way to guarantee it would happen during a commercial. My mother isn’t as concerned, because she has fallen a couple of times before and didn’t like it. Apparently, she believes she has developed an aversion. A dutiful and caring son, I’m worried, too — and my solution is that they should both go live with my sister. My sister says this is fine as long as she can simultaneously move in with me. Otherwise, she doesn’t think it makes sense for my p...