Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
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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...
The Palouse Empire Fair is fast approaching. It opens next week. Tuesday exhibits will start to flow into the fairgrounds. Then, livestock will come in Wednesday. Flower exhibits are due Thursday. A key element of the fair is the young exhibitors who bring in their animals that they have worked with for months. They will have spent countless hours feeding, grooming and training their entries. Anticipation is always high for the judging and the stock sale. And, there is still time for entries in nearly every category. Registration is available...
These reports are from the previous four issues of the Daily Bulletin in Colfax. They are reprinted here for the benefit of Gazette readers who reside outside of Colfax. Some accounts have been updated. LEWIS JOINS CHS STAFF Rikki Lewis has been hired as Colfax High School secretary to fill the vacancy left open by the retirement of Anna Schluneger. Lewis has been employed for nine years at the corporate offices of Cenex-Zip Trip in Spokane. Her husband, Tony Lewis, was hired by the district last January to fill the technology coordinator posit...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. Once, when my son was around 8 years old, he asked whether we could go see a movie (one we had just seen the previous weekend), and I said no, we couldn’t. “If we’re not going to see a movie,” he demanded in anguish, “then why did you have me?” He was always pretty good at asking questions — like this one, a particular favorite of mine: “Dad,” he asked, “if I were a werewolf, where would I go to the bathroom?” At dinnertime, my son would leave the table, too full of kine...
No common sense Our nation’s states are blindly adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This national initiative rambles on without any evidence to support its efficacy. This movement to reform schools in the USA is being driven largely by ideology, rhetoric and dogma instead of any evidence. Keep in mind, the CCSS were never, that is never, field-tested in any classroom in the USA! The vendors of the CCSS will gross over three billion dollars in revenue just printing, selling and grading the CCSS mandatory classroom tests. Public e...
New York Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez may be the most hated figure in sports, but he is a man for our time. He is a master at the insincere mea culpa, at self-involvement, at pretense and greed. Not just greed for money, but for fame and glory. If he had only disgraced himself playing for the Texas Rangers, that would be one thing, but he has done it playing for the most storied franchise in sports, whose legends are synonymous with baseball greatness. So let’s consider the tale of two prodigiously talented Yankee corner infielders, s...
Environmental activists claim they want to reduce production of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. If so, they’re going about it in a very strange way. Take forest management, for example. Anti-forestry activists oppose salvaging dead and diseased trees, saying the forests should be left in their natural state. But that debris is volatile tinder for raging wildfires that pump an average of 67 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, according to a 2013 report by the National Climate Assessment Development Advisory C...
A good many people remember when their school blackboard was actually black. Then, the blackboard turned green. Newer yet is the white board, no longer needing chalk, but special pens. Now, the white board is evolving into more than just an instrument for writing. New versions of the white board are being manufactured as self-defense tools. White boards, just large enough to hide behind, are being distributed at one university. They are made of bulletproof material and should protect the user in case a rampaging shooter attacks the school....
Long past due I think it would be great if Colfax had a Community/Senior Center. I think having the two combined would be a great benefit for our community. We do need to consider parking spaces available for people and remembering the needs for Seniors/Handicap people. The CETC Building does not have adequate parking spaces available in my opinion. As a community, where is there space available downtown with option of adding parking next to that building? Please pass suggestions to our Mayor and Colfax City Council to help Colfax find the...
Prison is one of the most important institutions in American life. About a quarter of all the world’s prisoners are behind bars in the United States, a total of roughly 2 million people. It costs about $60 billion a year to imprison them. This vast prison-industrial complex has succeeded in reducing crime but is a blunt instrument. Prison stays often constitute a graduate seminar in crime, and at the very least, the system does a poor job preparing prisoners to return to the real world. Since 95 percent of prisoners will eventually be r...
At a time when too many politicians are obsessed with their poll numbers and their legacy, Pew Research says Gerald Ford will go down in history as just an “average” president. An “average” rating would devastate most elected officials, yet that wouldn’t haunt the 37th president. Far from your “average” leader, Ford was willing to suffer defeat to do what he believed was best for our nation. Much of Ford’s public image was reshaped when he pardoned Richard Nixon one month after Nixon resigned. One of the nation’s most vilified presiden...
Debates continue to rage over the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. It is complex legislation. Many questions remain over its ultimate impact on individuals, families and the economy. Portions of Obamacare go into effect soon, but the provision for small businesses has been postponed for a year. Implementing it has proven extremely complicated. On top of that, some states are not establishing a core element of the program—health exchanges. Another complication with the bill is the requirement that Congress give up its federal health i...
The governor recently signed a new law tightening the punishment for drunk driving. That is good. It was an easy thing to do politically. Nobody likes intoxicated drivers. They are a danger to other drivers and to pedestrians. Gradually, over the years, awareness and penalties have grown. Extra money has been made available to form special task forces to crack down on drunk drivers. While intoxicated drivers have long endangered others on the roadways, new dangers are emerging: Inattentive drivers. For years, drivers have put on makeup,...
In football, players who jump on the ball carrier after he’s been tackled get a 15-yard penalty for piling on. But in a courtroom, piling on can get you billions of dollars. That’s exactly what the trial lawyers are doing in the lawsuits against BP for the Deepwater Horizon spill. In 2010, BP’s oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and spilling almost five million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days. It was a disaster for BP and the Gulf states, but since then, the company has attempted to make amends. In 2012, BP agree...
The case of the city of Detroit isn’t much of a murder mystery. Various suspects have been fingered in its demise: The global economy. The fall of the auto industry. The decline of manufacturing generally. But it’s simpler than that. Detroit died of its own hand. The city undertook a controlled experiment in what happens if you are governed by a toxic combination of Great Society big spenders, race hustlers, crooks, public-sector unions and ineffectual reformers. It spent and misgoverned itself into the ground. Detroit discovered that all the...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2008. An alert reader recently sent me an Associated Press story about a pig named Bruce and asked me if I were somehow related. By “alert,” I, of course, mean “smarty pants.” The story, though, is one I think a lot of women can relate to: Caroline Hayes, 63, of Uki, New South Wales, Australia, had a pig move into her house with her and demand she feed it and take care of it. When Caroline complained, the porker grew hostile, until Caroline felt that she was virtually hostage i...
Colfax CRF rated great We certainly appreciate the work of all those who played a part in bringing back Concrete River Days. It was great! Glen & Nancy Stanard, I-522 bad policy Despite the fact that hundreds of studies have proven genetically engineered foods to be perfectly safe, the promoters of Initiative 522 are trying to make Washington the first-and only-state in the country to mandate costly labeling regulations on these foods. Genetically engineered foods are the most rigorously tested food on the planet. They are also incredibly...
Racial Misunderstanding Maybe it’s time for a modern-day John Howard Griffin to write another “Black Like Me.” In 1959, Griffin, a white man, medically darkened his skin. He spent six weeks traveling through the rigidly segregated Deep South and kept a journal of his experiences as a black man. In the bestseller he wrote afterward, he described how accustomed he became to the “hate stare” he constantly got from whites. Fifty-four years later, it has been replaced by the “fear stare,” according to most blacks and other dark-skinned males of succ...
Washington’s High Cost of Doing Business Gov. Jay Inslee was in New York for the world rollout of BMW’s new electric car, the BMW i3, which is partially built in Washington. We are all justifiably proud of our state’s role and see the car as a harbinger of Washington’s economic future. The BMW i3 features parts made from carbon fiber processed at the SGL plant in Moses Lake. Because it is strong and lightweight, carbon fiber is used in the production of jetliners, fighter planes and racecars. Now, it’s making its way into the retail market to...
It started as Crazy Days and eventually evolved into Concrete River Days. Whatever its name, the Colfax summer festival was a longstanding tradition. Then, it fell out of favor for a few years. This year it was revived as the Concrete River Festival, and it was hit. The reincarnated festival had elements of the new and the traditional. A parade worked its way down Mill Street. Kids frolicked in a playland. The pool was open late. A variety of food was available, and merchants throughout the city offered specials. Small vendors offered their war...
Supports Obamacare With the continuing attempts by the U.S. House of Representatives to try repealing the Affordable Health Care Act, otherwise known as “Obamacare,” it is time to speak in support of it. In comparison to the way health insurance was before, ACA is an improvement. How can it not be? Now, 80 percent of health insurance premiums is spent on customers’ care, where before you never knew; no rule, no telling. Here’s what happened to me in the past when I had to buy an independent policy: I had to pay upfront for all medical expense...
