Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 947 - 971 of 3749
A few years ago, I had occasion to examine potential threats to our democracy. The national debt, exportation of wealth, and our economic dependence on foreign countries headed my list of concerns. My list was unchanged until recently. I believe our national march toward Socialism is now more of a threat to our future than the debt. I cannot believe that anyone who has taken even a cursory look at world history would suggest we embrace socialistic ideals. At no time in the life of the known universe has it been successful. Yet, we have two lead...
Last week, the 50th anniversary of man landing on the moon was celebrated. Since that famous flight, much of the public interest rapidly ebbed, even though America completed six missions to the moon in quick succession. Despite 50 years having passed, only 12 men set foot on the moon, and none since 1972. In the meantime, several countries have sent probes there. Russia, China, the European Space Agency and India have sent unmanned missions. Some were successful, some not. In fact, a probe from India is on its way to land a rover on the...
It's obvious to many people that our president, Donald Trump, is really Archie Bunker in the age of social media. The problem is, we have to deal with President Bunker. He is our duly elected chief executive, after all. So it's essential that Congress reach an occasional accommodation with him, otherwise do-or-die measures like raising the debt ceiling will be left undone, and the country will continue to wither. Amping up the limit is crucial, otherwise the "full faith and credit" of the United States will become meaningless. Our government...
The American middle class just got a lot richer. Joe Biden, who invariably and tiresomely refers to himself as "Middle-Class Joe," made $15 million the first two years after the end of the Obama administration. According to one estimate, it takes an annual income of $420,000 to be in the top 1 percent of earners. Biden made 26 times that in 2017. He used to be remarkable among top politicians for not being very wealthy, but even in the old days of straitened circumstances, he and his wife were making about $400,000 a year, enough to make the to...
YYYY Outstanding job on Main Street Colfax improvements – murals, window art and fresh storefronts. #!*! Our Government and Citizens that have Champagne and Caviar spending habits when they have a Tap Water and Top Ramen income. 22 Trillion debt?? Wake up America!!!...
With all of the attention on the 50th anniversary of the Lunar landing, many are looking ahead to the next half century of space exploration. Of particular interest is returning to the Moon which may come as early as 2024. For example, Boeing is working on the replacement for the Saturn 5 rocket which lifted the Apollo space capsules into orbit. The centerpiece of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) is the heavy-lift rocket being built to safely carry people and cargo back to the Moon and...
The recent epidemic of drownings in Eastern Washington has generated demands for stricter life jacket laws and stricter penalties. The state law is complicated with different requirements for different ages, different boats, and in different bodies of water. A violation costs the transgressor $76, far less than the cost of an emergency response. I once suggested that those who choose to violate safety requirements should be liable for their own rescue. I was told my suggestion revealed a lack of compassion for victims of tragedy. The recent...
In 1961, President John F Kennedy proclaimed that America would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. That promise came to pass. The Eagle, NASA’s lunar lander, touched down on the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969, fifty years ago, in a place called the Sea of Tranquility. This was the Apollo 11 mission, crewed by Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. The entire mission from earth to moon and back lasted eight days, three hours and 19 minutes. It was a remarkable feat. The mission faced computer overload and the nec...
Let's give the highest praise possible to President Donald Trump: He didn't mortify his country on Independence Day. Other than his Revolutionary War airport thingy, he stuck to the script and gave a vanilla salute to the nation, which tries to overlook that most of its founders were slaveholders. He also choreographed a display of military might, a few flyovers and some tanks scattered around for good measure. Thanks to his staff's frantic efforts, he even drew a good crowd. But it's time to engage in any pundit's favorite pastime, which is...
The women of the U.S. national soccer team are famous for being extraordinary athletes, repeat world champions -- and plaintiffs. The team's lawsuit alleging pay discrimination against the U.S. Soccer Federation has done much to define its identity. A nearly perfect run through the World Cup has been widely interpreted as vindication of the merits of its case, so much so that fans chanted "equal pay" after the U.S. victory in the final over the Netherlands and booed the head of FIFA, the sponsor of the World Cup, during the trophy ceremony....
#!*! If Public Works really wants a response to its survey, try sending a first class letter without threats and blame for the postage cost....
Slavery Wayne Olson, of Moscow, wants to rewrite history. He wants us to believe that the Civil War was all about states' rights, and not about the enslavement of Africans. (Letter, Lewiston Tribune, July 9, 2019). Granted: There were competing understandings of liberty and rights; Northern industry was subsidized by tariffs on Southern harvests -- a kingly style of favoritism. New western states could not be slave states, so Congress would increasingly vote against the slave states' interests, an existential threat to slavery. Nevertheless, th...
Shortly, after Apollo 11 landed on the moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong took his famous first steps on the dusty lunar surface, some comedian in our army unit at Ft. Knox, KY, posted a sign in our barracks: “Sorry, Drill Sgt., No Green Cheese!” Our basic training drill instructor was already “highly agitated” because President Richard Nixon ordered a “training holiday” so we could watch live television coverage of landing. On July 20, 1969, our unit was supposed to take what was called “Mil...
Ross Perot died this week. He was 89. Perot is best known for his independent run for president in 1992. He garnered 19 percent of the popular vote. He, it has been claimed, cost incumbent George H.W. Bush his reelection and put Bill Clinton in office. Perot ran again in 1996 after forming the Reform Party, but his second campaign was not as successful as his first. Perot, a billionaire, was quirky and sharp-tongued. He railed against the nation’s growing budget deficits and the country’s trade imbalance. His first run was a phenomenal shi...
President Donald Trump's itinerary at the G-20 summit in Japan included a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government is accused of using dirty tricks to interfere in the U.S. election to sway things Trump's way. As Trump was leaving the White House, reporters asked if he would bring the subject up and warn Putin and his people not to meddle in the 2020 campaign. Then it happened: "What I say to him," Trump shot back, "is none of your business." With all due respect, Mr. President -- which I'll admit is very, very little --...
My television viewing is normally limited to the news, Mariner’s baseball and Gonzaga basketball. Shut in by bad weather a few weeks ago, I found myself temporarily out of library books, so I was daydreaming while a drama series played on my TV. I’m not really sure what series it was, but an embedded story caught my attention. It seems that one of the characters rescued a dog and had no place to keep it. Her landlord did not allow pets and she couldn’t take it to work. A co-worker came to her rescue with a vest proclaiming the new pet a servi...
We live in an era of public ugliness, of architects who deliberately make their forms unsightly and inhuman, and of public art installations that are invariably ridiculous. The most obvious exception is the ballpark, which has gotten more beautiful rather than less is a great example of renewal through a return to tradition. Paul Goldberger, a former architecture writer for The New York Times, traces this journey in his wonderful new book "Ballpark." He rightly calls the ballpark "one of the greatest of all American building types" and argues...
YYYYY Endicott fireworks were amazing, and it was outstanding that they had it set to music! #!*! Pothole at Zips, someone's going to break an axel. #!*! Retail clerks who call customers “dear,” “honey,” “sweetie,” etc. YYYYY Beautiful flags at Endicott Cemetery, very beautiful, awesome....
What happens in China, doesn’t always stay in China. In fact, when it comes to tough new garbage and recycling restrictions, they may migrate elsewhere sooner than you might think. For example, Shanghai is one of the world’s largest cities with 26.9 million people. It is suffocating under mountains of trash its residents generate daily. It lacks an effective recycling and disposal system. “Instead, it has trash pickers to sift through the waste, plucking out whatever can be reused,” The Economi...
“Failure to complete survey by July 31st may result in termination of water services.” This short message was printed on a bright orange slip of paper which was included with a letter and survey mailed by the City of Colfax to residents. The warning prompted a strong and almost immediate response. Some residents were incensed that the city could cut off their water service even though their water bill was current. A few thought this was an example of overreach by government. Some claimed the threat of stopping city water service was ill...
He actually said it! While talking to reporters on his way to Camp David, he used the phrase "Make Iran Great Again"! Does this mean that President Donald Trump has ordered that Iran will join America in the Greatness Club? "MIGA" as opposed to "MAGA"? Of course, Trump insists that since he's taken over, he's already accomplished that for America. Could it be he's branching out and that it's Iran's turn? Will there be new baseball caps with the slogan embroidered in Farsi? What will we do about the fact that Iranians call the United States...
