Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 2641 - 2665 of 3749
When I was in sixth grade, I noticed something wonderful, something I’d never seen before: girls. Well, OK, I’d seen them, but I felt about them the same way I felt about housecats: They did only what they wanted to do, and they weren’t any fun to wrestle. And, like cats, they could be cute sometimes, but they always left me feeling mildly allergic. And then one day the girl in front of me in class smiled at me, and chemicals flooded my brain, turning it into the Love Canal. My immediate reaction was to try to get the girl to perform that...
Amendment I would like to make an insert to show what I believe the definition of the Affordable Care Act should really be. They need to add Catastrophic before Affordable Care Act. This way the acronym would be CACA. I’m quite sure anyone familiar with Spanish would agree it more accurately describes what it entails. It would also clear up any misunderstanding “we the people” and Congress might have, even though Congress gets an exemption. I hope we all remember this come voting time. Mel Mundell, Elberton Samaritan Monday the 23rd, my wife an...
It contradicts the very concept of our nation: One in six Americans goes hungry some of the time — that’s one in six who is “food insecure,” the term used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Forty-nine million in this land of plenty don’t get enough to eat. It’s even more shameful for children: One in five is deprived of adequate meals. But even that is not the worst. That would be the hateful vote by Republicans in the House of Representatives to severely cut the federal program that allows those millions to get the nutrition they need....
After spending a couple of days last week in Washington, D.C., I wonder how Congress and President Obama will settle their differences without hurting the taxpayers or crippling our struggling economy. There is a high-stakes duel going on inside the Beltway. House Republicans have approved a continuing resolution that provides stopgap funding for the federal government after Sept. 30 — except for Obamacare, the president’s costly health care law. Their position is that Senate Democrats and the president can avoid a government shutdown if they a...
As of this writing, the government of the United States is shutdown. Congress failed to fund it and, consequently, certain services are suspended. Some Republicans in the House of Representatives have refused to fund government operations. They want funding approval tied to the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Recent polls indicate that 71 percent of Americans disapprove of holding the entire government hostage over one law. Other polls show that Congress has an approval rating of a mere 10 percent. Despite these numbers,...
Tattoos are how my children’s generation expresses its individuality, which is why they all have one. I’ve got nothing against tattoos: They’ve been used for centuries to identify which sailors on a particular ship got drunk the night before. But at least those sailors, upon awakening and seeing the name Sheila inked into their shoulders, have the satisfaction of being able to say, “Who the heck is Sheila?” My children are not sailors, but they are all of the generation that is determined to do to their own flesh what the Exxon Valdez di...
WHAT ARE YOU going to do about health insurance when Obamacare kicks in Oct. 1, I asked a friend I regard as one of the smarter cookies around. “Keep Medicare,” he replied. I don’t think you can do that, I said. I keep hearing over and over again on television and the radio and reading in the newspapers politicians reminding me of the president’s promise “If you like your present health care plan, under Obamacare you’ll be able to keep it,” and telling me that’s not true. “Well, that’s what I’m going to do,” he said. He happens to be a Democra...
A small critter is causing big problems in the South Puget Sound. It’s called the Mazama pocket gopher. Some 100,000 pocket gophers inhabit prairie lands throughout northern California, Oregon and Washington. Our state is the northernmost part of its range, where separate populations are scattered in pockets throughout the area, including Thurston and Pierce counties. Last December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) proposed to list several subspecies of the Mazama pocket gopher in Washington as a threatened species under the E...
The clamoring to go to war in Syria has subsided. American leaders from both parties who wanted to punish Syria and its leader Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons have quieted down. That is because a plan now exists for controlling Assad’s chemical weapons without resorting to military strikes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has put forward the plan to which the U.S. is subscribing. Putin is promoting the containment and removal of Assad’s chemical weapons. His real aim is to eliminate interference in Syria from other nations. Reg...
Times were tough when I was a kid: We didn’t have the Internet, so when it came to finding information on life’s most challenging questions, we were forced to watch television reruns. From “The Three Stooges,” as an example, I learned lessons such as: Whenever possible, avoid walking into boards. Don’t make friends with people who look like a clean-shaven Adolf Hitler. Never, under any circumstances, allow a monkey to run loose on a train. “Gilligan’s Island” was a trove of life-changing information. For example, I learned that within a three-...
Expressions Since the week of Sept. 15-21 is known as Constitution Week, I feel concerned enough about its proper recognition to offer this timeless and profound quote from Thomas Jefferson, one of our Founding Fathers, in 1731. “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties ARE of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I r...
Now that John Kerry is the secretary of state, his gaffes can launch major diplomatic initiatives. A reporter in London asked what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could do to avoid war. Kerry responded: “He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting. But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done.” The State Department quickly noted that the secretary was merely making a rhetorical point. But the Russ...
Today’s news is filled with images of the massive wildfire that has raged across nearly 400 square miles near Yosemite National Park, threatening San Francisco’s water supply. The Yosemite wildfire started Aug. 17 in the Stanislaus National Forest when a hunter’s illegal fire swept out of control. To date, it has burned nearly 250,000 acres of timber, meadows and sensitive wildlife habitat and cost $100 million. Officials say it will cost tens of millions of dollars more to repair the environmental damage. Federal officials have amassed a tea...
The Washington State University Cougar football team is on a winning streak. Cougar fans don’t get to say this very often. Let’s face it: our Cougs aren’t known for their winning record. But WSU Cougar fans, if nothing else, are loyal. Last week, motorhomes, trailers and assorted vehicles of all kinds started coming through Colfax, crimson and gray Cougar flags flying high on most vehicles Wednesday afternoon. Traffic didn’t really calm down until almost game time on Saturday afternoon. Photos I’ve seen of the stadium looked like there was...
Check out 522 In “522 bad policy” (letters-Aug. l), Randy Suess writes that “hundreds of studies have proven genetically engineered foods to be safe” and “genetically engineered foods are the most rigorously tested food on the planet”. Genetically engineered (GE) foods have never been proven to be safe. The FDA requires no independent safety testing of GE foods before approving them. It merely accepts the studies provided by the biotech industry. When independent studies have been done, they have found GE food to be at least potentially...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. Superman taught me to read. I’m not sure how old I was when I started reading, though I’m pretty sure it was before I went to high school. My cousin John had a stack of superhero comic books in his room, which drew me like a magnet whenever I was at his house. (Buried in the pile were a couple of magazines with large fold-out pictures of undressed women — these didn’t interest me in the slightest, another clue that I probably wasn’t in high school.) One day I was scrutinizin...
There is a story about a councilman in a Rust Belt city populated by those with Eastern European roots, who took to the floor decades ago to rage against ethnic jokes, decrying them as divisive. That’s hard to dispute. The problem is that he used examples, and each one would bring the house down. That would work him up even more, so he’d tell another one, to more peals of laughter. It’s not all that different from TV news these days. How many times have we watched as one bent-out-of-shape commentator after another has gone bananas over Miley...
For activists intent on stopping all use of fossil fuel, train safety has become their cause du jour. After all, if you can block transport of fossil fuels, you can choke off their use. If they succeed, it’s not clear how we will heat and light our homes and schools, get to work, run businesses, keep the hospitals operating, stock grocery stores or harvest crops — but apparently, that’s an inconvenient question for another day. America’s rail system has undergone a transformation over the last 40 years. In 1970, the once grand railroa...
Saturday Washington State University beat the University of Southern California in football. The score was 10-7. The Cougars had to travel to Los Angeles to play the Trojans in the L.A. Coliseum, a storied sports venue. Reportedly 90,000 fans crowded the venerable stadium. At least, there were that many at the start of the game. This was an important game for the Cougars. After a long drought, they are on the comeback. Everything is in place. Martin Stadium is improved, alcoholic beverages are available for those able to afford entry into...
Henry Adams said that politics is the systematic organization of hatreds. For the left in the past year, it has seemed at times to be the systematic organization of hatred of Ted Cruz. The freshman senator is not the first Texan to be so honored. In fact, the state isn’t holding up its end if, at any given moment, it isn’t throwing onto the national scene at least one Republican reviled by the other side. The party’s highest-profile Texans, George W. Bush and Rick Perry, tended to match inarticulateness with cowboy swagger and lend thems...
The SeaTac minimum wage initiative is in limbo. The central element of Proposition 1 is a $15 per hour minimum wage for workers at SeaTac Airport and area hotels, restaurants and car rental agencies. But, it also includes a complex web of employee work rules enforced by the City of SeaTac. On August 26, a King County Superior Court judge ruled that Prop 1 did not have enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot. Proponents have gathered additional signatures and appealed the judge’s ruling. Regardless of what happens in SeaTac, the i...
He won the 1963 Heisman trophy. He played in five Super Bowls and won two. He has one of the most successful post-NFL careers in business, or otherwise. Still, Roger Staubach, the Dallas Cowboys and Naval Academy legend, has said that the games he remembers most distinctly were played in a small stadium as a teenager in Cincinnati. While high school football begins another season in Whitman County, Staubach’s experience will likely be shared by a few hundred other 16, 17 and 18-year-olds right here in our 1B and 2B districts. No matter what t...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. My father is taller than I am. I take after my mother, who is descended from a long line of tiny people who were bred by German royalty to climb into tunnels to hunt rodents. This means it’s awkward to hug my father — but it was always awkward, because we’re from the part of the country where men can show affection only by insulting each other’s snowmobiles. When greeting each other, my father and I first exchange stiff handshakes, as if we’ve just negotiated a government...
Anyone who doubts that Hillary Clinton is already in fine fighting trim for a presidential run should consider her speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco. She assailed an alleged “assault on voting rights.” She took aim at the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down a portion of the Voting Rights Act and excoriated states that have recently tightened their voting laws. She declared that “anyone who says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention.” Madam Secretary...
There’s an old saying, “There’s more than one way to catch a cat.” It means, if you don’t succeed one way, try again using a different strategy. In this case, the “cat” is the Columbia River — or more precisely, eliminating the dams and commercial use of the river. The activists’ vision of a wild, free-flowing Columbia River has great emotional appeal, but it would have dire consequences for our state. Those dams produce 75 percent of our electricity, making Washington the largest producer of clean, affordable hydropower in the nation. How w...
