Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 861 - 885 of 3750
Endorses Parks Like other Pullman residents, I received my ballot for the upcoming election. Among the issues we will be voting on is the selection of new members to our City Council. I am a resident of Ward 1 and am presently served by Ann Parks. I have decided to vote for Parks for a second term. She has proven to be the type of councilor that a city as diverse as Pullman needs. Always a thoughtful listener to constituents and fellow councilors alike, she is respectful of the ideas and opinion of others, even while forwarding her own ideas, m...
Imagine tuning into the Sunday morning talk shows and wondering if the politicians and commentators could possibly find something positive to say about one another or the state of affairs in America. Unfortunately, there is a better chance of snowball lasting in a sauna. But suddenly on Oct. 20 there was a surprise: “BREAKING NEWS” moving across the bottom of the screen about an apple developed in Washington State. Television pundits ignored it; however, the internet was stocked with sto...
There is a branch of our government that is independent of the three branches we study in school. This branch usually operates in the shadows overlooked by both the people and the legislature. It makes its own rules with the same force as law. It has the power to levy fines and seize property. No one in this branch is elected and, therefore, is generally unresponsive to public opinion. It is virtually independent to do whatever it pleases, and I have never known it to admit a mistake. This shadow government is made up of the various...
The Sean Spicer show continues. Remember Sean? He was the press secretary for President Donald Trump. He was contentious and madly loyal to Trump. Spicer was the one who claimed that the crowd for Trump’s inauguration was the largest ever. This despite evidence to the contrary. He never backed down from this and other falsehoods. Spicer left the post and has made a few appearances on television, but his reputation has never been redeemed, especially since being savaged on Saturday Night Live skits. For the last several weeks he has been on a n...
In his "Gettysburg Address," Abraham Lincoln described a "government of the people, by the people, for the people." The problem for any democracy is that those people can make a mistake -- a dangerous mistake -- by electing someone who's severely unqualified or a bloomin' nutcase. Look no further than Donald Trump, our president, who possesses the power to wreak terrible damage. In fact, he's doing just that, both with his policies that roll back decades of progress, returning America to a menace to the planet, and even more so with his...
Little did Dr. James Naismith know when he invented the game of basketball in Springfield, Mass., in 1891 that, more than a century hence, it would become beholden to its Chinese overlords. The NBA disgraced itself kowtowing to Beijing after the general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey, tweeted his support for Hong Kong protesters. The words he associated himself with -- "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong" -- would seem uncontroversial. Who doesn't hope for the best for plucky demonstrators trying to advance democracy against...
YYYY Men that still open car doors for women. #!*! Stop with the Christmas lights, Christmas anything. Let us have Fall, please....
It is time It would be wonderful to see President Trump’s tax returns and a breakdown of all expenses of his and his family’s trips to their golf courses and hotels since taking office, along with a tally of the profits he is making while disregarding the Emolument Clause in the Constitution. How much has the Security Detail for Trump, his family members and Vice-President Pence cost us taxpayers (some now being used for Campaign Rallies for the 2020 election)? In the meantime, he and his buddies are so heartless they can’t provide basic human...
The Oregonian characterized the 2019 wildfire season as the “season that wasn’t!” That’s good news for west coast states; however, it doesn’t mean we are permanently “out of the woods!” Worldwide wildfires are down as well. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there were 6,000 fewer wildfires this year compared with 2018 and about 4.4 million acres were burned compared with roughly 10 million acres in 2017. The previous two years featured bad fire seasons in Washington, O...
The United Auto Workers Union strike against General Motors has entered its second month with no end in sight. They are using tactics developed years ago when the big three automakers ruled the industry. Rather than strike across the board, the union would target only one of the three. That way they could keep 2/3 of their members employed while they brought one to heel. Then they would use the results to bargain with the other two. I’m not sure those tactics would work today. Times have changed. Big corporations are no longer allowed to run r...
During a jury trial in superior court, all people in the courtroom are asked to stand to recognize members of the jury when they file into the room and take their seats in the jury box. The practice is a recognition of the power which has been bestowed on the jury to rule on whether or not the state has proved beyond a reasonable doubt its case against a person who has been charged. After hearing evidence and arguments in the state's case against former Pullman Police Sgt. Dan Hargraves, the superior court jury reported the state failed to...
Latin is supposedly a "dead language", meaning no one speaks it as their native tongue. Except attorneys, of course, who use it to make law indecipherable so that they can charge exorbitant billable hours to untangle the messes they create. English, in this era of antisocial media and texting, is on its way to being another dead language. But I digress, which, by the way, is from the Latin "digressum." Let's regressum: Back when kids were forced to suffer through a Latin course in high school, we all were required to ponder the Roman forces...
Impeachment is about to make everything worse. If our politics seems overheated, our institutions beleaguered and our public debate degraded, just wait until we are in the midst of the impeachment debate. Democrats have had an impeachment itch that they've been desperate to scratch ever since Donald Trump took office. For them, Ukraine is equal parts a genuine outrage and an excuse, the release valve for nearly three years of fear and loathing. Rather than conducting himself as if he's aware that a hysterical opposition is eager to impeach...
Too often, elected officials overlook the cumulative costs of regulations, taxes and fees on taxpayers; however, it comes back to bite them hard when people move, or take matters into their own hands by initiative. Consider what is happening in high-tax and cost-of-living states, such as California, New York and Connecticut. Florida recorded the highest level of net domestic migration in 2018 and added 1.2 million people from other states since 2010. “Many Florida transplants are retirees and t...
To Rich Lowry’s National Review column last week, I respond, “You bullied well.” Lowry wrested the message from the messenger and twisted it into the voice of his political opponents. Not a new trick, but despicable, nonetheless. His victim was Greta Thunberg. Last year in August, at 15, Thunberg started skipping school Fridays to sit on cold cobblestones outside the Swedish parliament inside the Arctic Circle. A lone waif with sad, downcast eyes, she hunkered beside her hand-lettered sign: “Skolstrejk for Klimatet” – School strike for the Clim...
With all the things going on on Earth, attention to the stars has been subdued. Elon Musk is trying to change that. At his launch site in Texas, he held a press conference to introduce his new SpaceX Starship, a prototype of a soon-to-be full scale version. This design is intended to fly passengers to the moon and beyond, then return them safely to earth. Musk, of course, is hyping his machines and their possible contribution to the future. Musk reportedly called it “the most inspiring thing that I’ve ever seen.” The real key to extended and e...
Let's take a break from our society's normal crudefest for a brief moment to honor civility. Cokie Roberts epitomized civility. She was no pushover -- far from it. When it was required, she was as hard as nails. In today's nasty society, she sometimes needed to be. But somehow, she maneuvered through all of our disagreements in ways that were entirely agreeable. Yes, I know: By now, you might be tired of hearing about Cokie from her colleagues and buddies. But Cokie's life is a symbol of what it will take to prevent the toxic atmosphere from...
Greta Thunberg needs to get a grip. The celebrity teen climate activist addressed the United Nations and excoriated the assembled worthies for coming "to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words." Someone may have stolen her childhood, but the guilty parties can't be found at Turtle Bay. A 16-year-old from Sweden, Thunberg thundered, "I should be back at school on the other side of the ocean," which would have been easy enough to achieve, beginning with not taking two weeks to...
Curry letter People have been identifying income inequality as one of the top three problems facing our country. Of course this means wealth inequality, but most are not wanting to acquire wealth for its own sake, but to smooth out the bumps from ridiculous medical expenses, etc. Frank Watson is wrong about $15/hr being a living wage. Maybe a single person could live on that, but not support a family. I have always been willing to pay more for goods and services so that employees can be adequately compensated. In this context, a statement I...
Assuming that reducing greenhouse gases are an ongoing challenge, we need government policies and the “political will” to turn our nation’s entrepreneurs and researchers lose to take risks and innovate. We must establish reasonable laws and regulations that also protect our environment and our citizens’ health and safety while providing jobs and affordable products----no easy task. Science Daily has published some promising research relating to carbon dioxide. Here are three examples: First, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech...
In the free bin at Main Street Books in Colfax, a few months ago, was a book with a picture of a building inside. “A Day In the Life of America” was part of a series that sent photographers across one land mass on one day to capture its essence. This was the United States on May 2, 1986. No people were in the full-page picture, just a building. How could that make the cut? The picture showed terraced glass floors and on each, a young tree. Trees growing on the sides of a building. The thr...
I always worry when people on one side of an issue praise a story I've done. Ideally, at least in the twisted mind of a journalist, all the parties should be upset. We should be viewed as equal-opportunity jerks. But if one side was filled with praise, was I being fair to the other side? And what does being fair really mean? Can it be defined that we need to bring a 50-50 approach to each report? Should we deliver only "he said, she said" reporting? Should we give equal weight to a known constant liar on one side and the occasional liar on the...
At least Bernie Sanders is an equal opportunity misanthrope. He doesn't like rich people, and it turns out he doesn't necessarily like poor people, either. At the recent CNN town hall on climate change, a questioner asked the socialist senator if he'd be "courageous" enough to endorse population control to save the planet. Sanders answered "yes," and then, after referring to abortion rights, endorsed curtailing population growth, "especially in poor countries around the world where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of...
