Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 2922 - 2946 of 3750
THERE SEEMS to be a “deteriorating relationship” developing between the media and politicians, Reliable Sources talk show host Howard Kurtz opined the other day, as if he hadn’t noticed it had deteriorated a long time ago. Depending on who the candidate is, of course. Mitt Romney was hassled in Poland while walking back from laying a wreath on their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by reporters who shouted “What about the gaffes?” not once but twice, first a male reporter, then a woman. Romney wisely kept his mouth shut but one of his aides responde...
Commissioner Greg Partch did not garner the support he needed in last week’s primary. He finished third in a three-man race. As a result, the sitting commissioner will be out of office at the end of his term. Now, the District 1 race for his seat is down to Art Swannack and Bill Tensfeld, both Republicans. Commissioner Pat O’Neill, Democrat representing District 2, will again face Dean Kinzer, a Republican, in the general election. Kinzer received the most votes in their first contest. Rarely has the county seen such emotion and potential tur...
A Hypochondriac’s Compendium W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. Because I’m technically over 40, it’s been a bad year for me health-wise. I’ve had a host of ailments, including an appendicitis attack, spleen disruptions and liver migrations, all made worse by the fact that my doctor doesn’t agree that I’ve had any of them. Instead, he says I have mild hypochondria, which is silly — I have major hypochondria! A hypochondriac is a person who gets a disease by hearing about it. So when, for ex...
It’s hard enough for employers to cope with hundreds of new regulations passed each year, added to the tens of thousands of regulations already on the books. But now, agencies are adding insult to injury by imposing standards that are impossible to meet. The Small Business Administration estimates employers spend $1.75 trillion dollars a year complying with federal regulations, a burden that falls heaviest on small businesses, America’s job engine. The SBA reports it costs small employers more than $10,500 per employee to comply with federal re...
I CONFESS that I turned the television set off and hit the sack as the Andorra athletes were marching into the stadium for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. I knew there were 90 some countries yet to follow with the United States near the end and Paul McCartney as the piece de resistance of the finale, but I was already bored stiff. England had a tough act to follow in being expected to if not exceed, at least match the splendor of what China did but I expected better. Some of the best movies ever made have been English films and s...
Something special happened this week, and it had nothing to do with the Olympics. Nor was it in London. Actually, it was 350 million miles away. It was the landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover. The Curiosity rover itself is an amazing piece of equipment, able to perform a variety of scientific experiments. Its delivery on Mars was even more amazing. First, the rocket launch from Earth to Mars was precise, and the module entered the Martian atmosphere as planned. There it plummeted to the surface at speeds up to 13,000 miles an hour. A heat...
Some activists believe there is no such thing as a good dam, that we should destroy all dams to restore fish runs, no questions asked. A more balanced approach would be identifying dams we can live with, and dams we can live without. When the Elwha Dam was completed in 1913, people cared more about electrifying the Olympic Peninsula than protecting migrating salmon. After all, salmon were plentiful and electricity was the force driving economic growth. But the dam denied salmon and steelhead access to their traditional spawning grounds about...
DID YOU EVER see an election year before where so many candidates worked so hard to paint themselves as members of the middle class? It’s because the middle class is where the majority of voters are, of course. And in these days of high unemployment and escalating food prices, it’s not exactly conducive to be above the rest of us in earnings and status. Millionairess Susan Delbene, who wants to be the new 10th district congressman, refers to being successful in business and says she’s running “to rebuild the middle class.” Every candidate...
Robert “Bob” Russell Curtis died last week. He was 87. Bob was the long-time announcer for the University of Idaho Vandals. He called Vandal sports for 51 years, covering hundreds of football and basketball games. He rightfully was known as the ‘Voice of the Vandals.’ His broadcasting job brought him celebrity and many honors. Some people knew him only as a vibrant sports announcer and a true supporter of Vandal sports. He was dedicated, tenacious, tough and respected. His death has prompted many prominent sports figures to recount stories...
Flooded streets I heard about and read in the paper about Colfax having to clean mud off certain streets in town. I am surprised that all seem to accept this as a quirk of nature and no one can do anything about it. The purpose of this letter is to make the claim that there is something that can be done about it and that it doesn’t have to happen. Farmers learned more than 30 years ago how to summer fallow a field and not have huge gullies in it the next spring. Conventional summer fallow can even have runoff from a hard summer rain. We saw t...
In 1975, Central Washington University President Jim Brooks approached the Association of Washington Business with a concept of linking business leaders, teachers and high school students together to learn first-hand about what makes our free enterprise system tick. Brooks proposed that employers not only sponsor students and teachers but spend a week with them on the CWU campus. They would form 10-person companies, compete against one another in a computer simulation game and actually invent and market creative new products. That formula has w...
ITEM—Debate continues over how to punish Penn State University following release of the Freeh Report on the child sex abuse scandal in which it was found that top university officials, including beloved football coach, the late Joe Paterno, focused on protecting assistant Coach Jerry Sandusky to avoid endangering the football program. A decision is awaited from the NCAA on whether to cancel this year’s season or longer which would result in loss of millions of dollars amidst pleas that this year’s players were not part of the problem. COMMENT—I...
The country has been thrust into sorrow and grief over the mass killing at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. The death toll is 12. Another 59 were wounded, some critically. The ages of those killed run from six to 52. It all happened at a midnight showing of the new Batman movie last week when a lone gunman entered the theater and started shooting. Apparently, the shooter had planned his massacre for months, assembling an arsenal of weapons and ammunition and constructing explosive devices. He also had hoped to lure police into another killing...
Backs Tensfeld Whitman County is facing one of the most critical elections in a decade. The Commissioners’ seats for District 1 and 2 are up for grabs and the time is nearing for voters to decide who will lead our county in this time of economic uncertainty. With the Washington State Primary in sight, voters of District 1 will have to choose which two of the three will continue to the General Election. All the candidates have an interest in serving their citizens through dedication and hard work, but between the three I believe the man who best...
The First Healthy Day W. Bruce Cameron Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007. The first day of any health regimen is always the hardest for me, because by the second day I’ve given up. The problem isn’t me, it’s my body. I set the alarm for an hour earlier than usual, figuring that the easiest thing to do is to start exercising before I wake up. My brain is the first to react. Brain: The alarm’s broken. We need to shut it off and call in sick. Me: No, let’s get out of bed! Eyes: It’s still dark outside. The...
Apparently, the battle for clean energy can be a very dirty business. For years, the Sierra Club has been waging an all-out war to end the use of coal. Dubbed “Beyond Coal,” the campaign includes a hit list of coal projects the Sierra Club is targeting, including “green” projects designed to reduce coal plant emissions to zero. The Sierra Club is getting help in its war on coal from the Obama administration. Not surprising, since candidate Obama famously warned that, as president, he would endeavor to bankrupt the coal industry. As The New Yor...
It is already time to think about the new school year. Families must get their children ready. That, as everyone knows, means clothes and supplies. It can be an expensive process. Getting the required school supplies can be a daunting exercise for some parents. Finding the different class-by-class and school-by-school requirements is not hard. Often, what is hard is buying them. This is true for parents in every school district in the county. According to the Colfax Chamber of Commerce nearly 30 percent of the children in the Colfax School...
MAYBE something’s been done that I haven’t heard about yet, but somebody missed or is missing a chance to make a bundle in San Diego. That’s where the collection of fireworks for the big Independence Day show all went off at one time in one gigantic explosion. It was all over TV the next day. I have yet to read what went wrong, just the disappointment of the crowd, which expected to see a half hour at least of timed fireworks and music to enjoy them with. My thought was boy what an opportunity for a tee shirt that has a picture on it of the e...
The 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision to uphold the federal health care law doesn’t close the book on health reform. The court ruled that the individual mandate requiring everyone to purchase health insurance is constitutional because the fines for not purchasing insurance are taxes, not penalties. That may have resolved the legal issue, but it did nothing to make health care more affordable. How does ordering people to pay for something they can’t afford solve the problem? Despite its name (Affordable Care Act), the federal law focuses alm...
IT’S GOING to be awhile yet before there is a consensus on Obamacare. That is, whether it was a Democratic victory because it was upheld by the Supreme Court, thus improving the president’s chances for reelection, or a Republican victory because it turned out to be the biggest tax increase in U.S. history, providing ammunition for Republicans retaking Congress and the presidency as the only way to rid ourselves of an unpopular bill. Also, whether Chief Justice John Roberts is a statesman for casting the deciding vote affirming its con...
The Colfax Relay for Life kicks off this Friday at the Colfax High School track and runs through to Saturday morning. The Relay is a big, important event and has evolved over the years. There are more activities, more participants and far more money raised for the American Cancer Society than ever imagined possible at its inception. The event started with the inspiration of Karyn Johnson. She was a local wife and mother. She was also suffering from cancer. Karyn became the guiding light of the first Relays. Upon her death, she became the spirit...
Lives in danger Colfax pedestrians beware! Your life is in danger. It appears the pedestrians of Colfax have a bullseye on their backs. It does not matter if a person crosses Main Street in the crosswalk or the middle of the block, they are taking their life in their own hands. I have had to stop in the middle of the street to keep from getting hit by drivers who disregard the law. In the past two weeks I have been almost run over three times. First time was while in the crosswalk at Main and Upton. The female driver who was two blocks away...
Any realtor will tell you people looking to buy a home want good schools and safe neighborhoods. They also look for decent roads for when they head to the mountains or the beach during holiday weekends, such as Memorial Day or July 4. They want to know that if they are in an accident, someone will respond quickly to help them. While Washington needs more money to build new highways and repair existing roads, streets and interstates, one area in which our state excels is emergency response. In our state, if a vehicle is stalled in the middle of...
We just celebrated America’s birthday. Actually, it was a theoretical birth only. Although the American colonies declared their independence from England on July 4, 1776, it took years to achieve that independence and years more to form the new country. Prior to 1776, tensions and violence between the colonists and England were already decades old, and armed conflict had already started. The colonists realized that trying to simply win concessions from the British by force would not be successful. The violence had taken too great a toll. Their...
GLOBAL warming is one of those topics people, particularly politicians and academics, like to be on the right side of, i.e., man is the chief cause of it and must be restrained or the planet will be unlivable, but there are a lot of things we aren’t being told or don’t hear enough about. Which is why I take the Wall Street Journal, the most liberal newspaper in the U.S., except for its editorial pages, God bless ‘em. About all the average American knows about electric cars is that they are being promoted as the solution to what do we do when...
