Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 2832 - 2856 of 3750
There are at least three thinking Republicans in our Congress. My hat is off to senators Chamblis of Georgia, Graham of South Carolina; and McCain of Arizona plus Rep. Peter King of New York. They are ripping up that horrid pledge to Grover Norquist to never raise taxes. Our Rep., McMorris Rodgers, is a sheep who follows Norquist to his feeding trough. Norquist has held the Republican Party hostage for several years and pays himself $200,000 per year salary from his non-profit organization. The IRS needs to check this out. Wake up farmers and... Full story
Every year about this time, we compare the commercial airplane sales of Boeing and its European arch rival, Airbus. Over the last decade, the results haven’ worked in Boeing’s favor. Airbus has posted higher sales numbers as Boeing struggled to get its new 787 into production. However this year, Boeing, which assembles the bulk of its commercial aircraft in the Puget Sound area, is the clear winner. Boeing reported 962 orders placed so far in 2012, more than double Airbus’ 437. For both companies, single-aisle plane sales are pivotal to their...
IT WAS WITH an enormous sigh of relief that I and mine all got though Thanksgiving without any kind of disaster or turmoil. People complain about January as their low point of the year but I don’t know how many times through the years that if some problem arises, it is on or about Thanksgiving. Two Thanksgivings I spent in the emergency ward waiting for the doctors to get around to patching up my husband who on one occasion fell on the deck and cut his head and on another had an asthma attack that required hospitalization. It has not been u...
It is going to be tough month. The long predicted end of the world may be upon us. The Mayans, those geeky ancient meso-American astronomers, ended their calendar on 12/21/12. They either ran out of stone to carve on or they knew something we don’t. Some who have read their carvings and gliphs interpret a cataclysmic end of the world on that date. A giant alligator is supposedly going to spew water and flood the earth. In truth, this may be of minor importance. Before the end of days, we face the fiscal cliff. Many are now saying that if a...
ITEM — Governor-elect Jay lnslee says he will obey the directive of the constitution that the paramount duty of the state is to improve education, and promote the creating of jobs in new businesses built around renewable energy supplies, such as solar and wind power. COMMENT-I don’t expect much in education considering all the recent Democratic governors have kowtowed to what the teachers’ unions want, which is more money and bigger benefits for them. As for energy, I also don’t count on the popularity of solar power in a state nationa... Full story
Grover Norquist has been called one of the most powerful men in the country. He is the one who provided massive financial help to Republicans seeking election if they only pledged not to seek tax increases. That pledge locked many Republicans into a rigid, unshakable position. They would not give up on their pledge. Their opponents, in return, stuck to equally rigid positions. The result has been the gridlock that has paralyzed Washington D.C. and has brought us to the “fiscal cliff.” Both political parties have declared they are speaking for...
Hostess, maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Wonder Bread, was trying to emerge from its second bankruptcy in three years, when a bakery workers’ strike effectively signed the company’s death warrant. When the strikers refused to return to work, the company shut its doors, putting 18,500 people out of work. The bankruptcy judge made one final attempt at mediation, but the union president didn’t attend, sending another union officer in his place. When the sides couldn’t agree, Hostess officials said they would proceed with plans to liquidate the c...
All Students Need Solid Grounding in Math, Science In “the good old days,” schools emphasized “reading, writing and arithmetic” taught to the tune of the hickory stick. But today, we seem to have created a two-tiered education philosophy. College-bound students are encouraged to learn science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). But STEM skills are not emphasized for students going directly into the job market, the military or to a trade school. That’s a mistake. Part of the problem started with our parents’ generation. For example, my... Full story
You’ll Never Guess Who My Mother Saw W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. I recently had a conversation with my mother (no relation). OK, I suppose I’m technically incorrect — about the “no relation” part, not that I had a conversation. But by the time I’d finished talking to her, I was pretty convinced my mother was switched at birth. “You’ll never guess who I saw in person the other day,” she gushed on the telephone. “Who?” I asked politely. “Guess.” This gave me pause. Didn’t she already s... Full story
Two days after Thanksgiving and one day after Black Friday is an important day. It is Shop Small Saturday. Shop Small Saturday is an outgrowth of years of trying to promote small businesses. Many community papers have pushed a Shop Local or Shop your Hometown First theme for years. This is a national, and natural, outgrowth of that. It has been said many times, but small businesses really are the lifeblood of small communities. The downtowns they occupy are often the center of town activity. Local businesses hire local people, and they support...
THE THING that annoys me the most about General Petraeus is not that he had an extramarital affair, it’s that he lied to us about Benghazi. At the time, that is, when the President, the secretary of state, the ambassador to the United Nations and others including Petraeus, were telling us that the attack on our consulate was triggered by rage over a video movie made in the U.S. that insulted Muhammed. Everyone who spoke knew it was not true. Knew that the attack that killed four Americans was by terrorists. Your average spontaneous riot d... Full story
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. Over the years, I’ve pretty much convinced myself I can influence the outcome of a football game by yelling at the television. This tendency to hang on to a cherished notion despite hard evidence to the contrary comes from what most people would call “testosterone.” I also use my testosterone on the newspapers, shouting comments at the headlines because, as everyone knows, the people in the articles can’t hear you if you speak quietly. For example, this story caught my... Full story
Before the campaign promises of more jobs and renewed prosperity fade away, elected officials need to understand that those promises must be kept. Our nation needs jobs and new revenue, but the critical question is, “How?” Make no mistake, President Obama and Congress have a daunting task ahead. First, they must understand that our problems won’t be solved by just heaping more taxes on families and small businesses making more than $250,000 a year. Families need to be able to save for their retirement or their kids’ college tuition; small b... Full story
WELL, WE DIDN’T do too badly this time, our little gathering of political junkies at an election day luncheon. We’ve been gathering for many years, two or three dozen of us, current office holders, ex and retired officials, some lobbyists. Most of the group are Democrats simply because we have more of them here on the Left Coast. We take a vote on the more important races, not voting as we would do personally, but the way we think it will come out We might leave a race off the ballot if a participant is there and might suffer hurt feelings on... Full story
I noticed what, on first glance, was a voting anomaly in Whitman County. The vote tally on most issues was not a surprise. But the positive vote on Initiative 502 Marijuana reveals a strong unstoppable political force—the melding of college students and farmers. Lee Pendergrass, Puyallup...
YYYY Our veterans. We owe them a lot. #!*! The fiscal cliff—the result of stupid politicians, many of whom we just re-elected.... Full story
Veterans Day was Sunday. The nation took a holiday Monday. Solemn ceremonies were conducted across the nation. Vets and soldiers shared personal stories with the country. Some were heart wrenching and some heart warming. Politicians, of course, jostled to declare how they had personally persevered to support vets. No effort, they pronounced, was too great or too demanding to support these national heroes. And, heroes, many of them may be. Over the years, our military and veterans have changed. Our new, young veterans are different than our...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. I suppose it is a sign that I am finally being taken seriously by the literary community — have, in fact, risen to the pinnacle of my profession — that I recently was asked to judge a Halloween-costume contest for dogs. To be entirely accurate, I wasn’t an actual judge. Apparently, I’m not qualified to render a decision on matters such as which miniature poodle looks most like Batman. Instead, I manned a microphone during the competition and made announcements like, “Pl...
YYYY Thorn Hill residents for being so generous and such good sports every Halloween. #!*! Not being able to vote at a neighborhood precinct....
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) recently reported that, if Congress fails to avert the “fiscal cliff” by the end of December, six million jobs will disappear over the next two years, sending the unemployment rate soaring to near 12 percent. NAM says companies are bracing now for the fallout by laying off workers, leaving jobs vacant and postponing major purchases.“Fiscal cliff” is the popular shorthand term used to describe the conundrum the U.S. government will face at the end of 2012 when the terms of the Budget Control... Full story
Eventually social science works its way around to confirming eternal verities. So it is with gratitude. An article in a psychological journal a few years ago noted that “throughout history, religious, theological and philosophical treatises have viewed gratitude as integral to well-being.” Psychology has recently worked to quantify the wisdom of the ages and confirmed — sure enough — it was correct. A raft of recent research has established that grateful people are happier people. They are less depressed and less stressed. They are less likely...
The presidential election is over. President Barack Obama has been elected to a second term. Now it is time to decompress and let the emotions of the campaign subside. Roughly half the nation will celebrate. The other half will not. Then, and soon, the entire nation must come face to face with its greatest challenge. That challenge is to get the country and its government working again. And, that can only happen if the country unites to solve some pressing problems. There will have to be compromise and a spirit of working together for the... Full story
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. I went to what was considered the third-toughest junior high school in the area, not counting the private schools but including the school for the musically gifted. As such, there were always a lot of fistfights between the boys who were insecure in the pecking order, something I didn’t participate in because I knew I was a coward. When boys at the very bottom of the hierarchy challenged me to a fight, I would affably concede the contest on the spot, giving them a bye so the...
When you peel off the layers and get beyond the rhetoric, this year’s presidential election is about government control. President Obama wants government to have a greater say in our daily lives, while Gov. Romney advocates for greater personal responsibility and private-sector solutions. The path our nation — and to a lesser extent our state — takes on Nov. 6 will have repercussions far beyond this one election. Before we opt for more government control, we should look at what happened to Poland, a country of 38.5 million people, nearly twice...
OK, TIME’S UP. The ballot is at hand and we must choose who we think will do the best job of running the country and the state. Our president has had four years to do something concrete about the fact 26 million people are out of work with little to show for it. He reminds me of that Indiana Jones movie where Indiana and his father are captured by the crooks and the father learns his son has with him the book he had sent to him that tells how to find the Holy Grail and snaps, “I should have sent it to the Marx Brothers.” If we could have elect...
