Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Sorted by date Results 938 - 962 of 3749
Life skills I learned in the 1950's might be well applied in present day. Recently while decorating at the Bethel Cemetery in Steptoe it brought back memories of my youth. My Mom was the caretaker when I was five. No Kindergarten then, so I would go each day to help her on the hill. We had hoses, sprinklers, a power reel mower and hand held clippers. Those were the tools we used, along with our desire for a job well done. Today the grounds are serviced with a riding lawnmower, in-ground sprinklers and weed eaters. I know times have changed,...
Sweden and Washington State are very similar. Both have strong “green” movements and are quickly moving to eliminate all carbon-emitting fuels from cars and power plants. The caution for Washington elected officials is not to jam through hastily mandated programs which have significant unintended consequences such as has happened recently in Sweden. Washington and Sweden are aggressively working to put more electric vehicles on the road. Transportation is Washington State’s largest source of gr...
When our legs began to complain about the climb into the overhead bunk of our camper, my wife and I bought a year-round cabin on the Pend Oreille River. It has become our get away when the normal pressures of life need release. One such day last March we decided to go to the cabin and take a day trip to the Kalispel Swan Festival. The newspaper told us the ice was still on the lake where the swans normally stop. We were a little bummed, but decided to come anyway. To our delight, the swans had decided to settle on the open water across from...
A privately funded report on the Snake River Dams has just been released. The report recommends that the dams be taken out and the river be restored to natural flow. The study is called the Snake River Dams: Economic Tradeoffs of Removal. It will be discussed at a press conference today in Seattle. The study reports on all aspects of the consequences of the loss of the dams, including transportation, irrigation, recreation, power generation and fish. Although the study discusses the negatives of breaching the four lower Snake River dams and poi...
What a sad debate between those who contend that Donald Trump fires off his increasingly hateful comments because he's cleverly trying to distract and those who insist it's because he simply has no impulse control. Is his racism uncontrolled or is it calculated, the worst form of demagoguery? In spite of his halfhearted claim -- "I don't have a racist bone in my body" -- he really makes no bones about the fact that he's an out-and-out bigot. And here's the scary part: It works. Look no further than his massive rallies, where thousands of his...
Beto O'Rourke, the losing Texas senator candidate who bootstrapped his way into becoming a losing presidential candidate, had a message for refugees who had come to America: Your new country is a hellhole. The former congressman told a roundtable of refugees and immigrants in Nashville, Tenn., "This country was founded on white supremacy. And every single institution and structure that we have in this country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and suppression." Just in case the newcomers were inclined to believe...
Franken non fan I have been getting the Gazette for about one year. I am satisfied with the reporting of the local news. My only complaint is about the Emmy award winning reporter who is nothing more than a gossip columnist. Any employee of the Gazette can write better articles than Mr. Bob Franken. He is so fascinated by everything that President Trump says or does, most of which isn't even worth reporting. He never writes of any of the important things that are happening in Washington D.C. He doesn't even seem to know of anything else. The...
In oil rich West Texas, shale producers and pipeline owner Williams Co. are fighting over whether new “burning off of natural gas” permits should be approved. It is a battle between companies which are usually aligned. Flaring happens primarily when there is insufficient pipeline capacity to carry natural gas from wellheads to natural gas markets. Allowing the gas to build up at the derrick is a serious safety risk. Even though Williams already has an extensive pipelines network in western Tex...
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...
