Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Sorted by date Results 1438 - 1462 of 1862
"Sequestration" is not the term that I consider to be the best to describe what President Obama is trying to do to our nation, but as we are seeing, he plans to do whatever he wants to do! His budget request for 2013 was to retire 300 airplanes while buying 54 new ones. The deletion is after retiring 700 more airplanes than it purchased. At the founding of the U.S. Air Force in 1947, we had 12,300 planes we have 5,200 today. The last time the U.S. bought so few aircraft was 1915 for the aviation section of the U.S. Army...
Over the years, I finally made peace with myself, and God, when He called Tom and I into the ministry. You see, I never, ever wanted to be a "pastor's wife". In the back of my mind, I knew if we were to go into the ministry, taht would lead us to the mission field and I never, ever wanted to go to some place like "Africa". I hadn't heard of missionaries being sent to exotic places, like Hawaii. Between college and seminary, Tom and I were asked to fill in for short term missions. Missionaries who needed to come home to rest...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 2/8/13: The only real surprise in the supply-and-demand report today was that wheat carryovers were reduced instead of getting an increase. Total wheat ending stocks were down 25 million bushels, and soft white stocks were cut by 10 million bushels. Wheat exports were left unchanged despite their tepid pace to date, but feed use was upped by 25 million, which was the reason for the cut to ending stocks. Corn ending stocks were increased by 30 million...
There’s a hole in my living room today. Not an actual hole, mind you. It’s just the space where my piano once sat. You see, I gave my piano away this weekend. My piano was just about the first major purchase I ever made. It cost $750 back in the late 1970’s, when I was a single working woman living in Yakima. It wasn’t a fancy name brand. But it was pretty. For the first few years, anyway. It was moved twice in Yakima, and then from Yakima to Portland. In Portland, it was mov...
Eighty years ago my mother was in grade school where schoolroom paste was made by mixing a little flour and water together. Memories of that simple glue came back to her when she and I recently stood in my kitchen, mixing two small batches of flour and water. First I mixed regular “better for bread” flour with water in a little dish, then I did the same with special test flour made from soft durum wheat. The first mixture was a pasty, lightest-of-light-tan color, the second ha...
Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee last week approved two bills that would reduce the restraints on landowners and county legislative authorities from lethally removing a wolf posing an immediate threat to livestock and/or domestic animals. Both bills have been sent to the Rules Committee for floor-vote consideration. Substitute Senate Bill (SSB) 5187 would allow livestock-owners, their family members and employees to trap or kill gray wolves without a permit from the Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) if their...
Hang on to your hats! President Obama considers that his 52% vote during the 2012 election was a mandate by the people that he was to be granted supreme power. To h*** with the legislature! He believe that his 52% margin (the highest during the last five elections) gives him the right to bypass congress and misuse executive powers. He has already shown his propensity to do this during his first four years. He believes he has nothing to lose. But, the talk by the liberals of a third term should concern us because the...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 1/29/13: For all the volatility in the markets in the last few months things sure have been boring lately. There just doesn’t seem to be a strong catalyst to break this market out in either direction for the time being. Unless exports begin to beat expectations our gains over the last few weeks may begin to erode. 1/31/13: Chicago wheat lost 7 cents today after being up 10 the day before. Yesterday’s rally was sparked by concerns about South American wea...
“The Sequester is coming! The Sequester is coming!” Yup, Congress is in a panic over a problem they created, and many in Congress want you and me to pony up. Again. Some want to cut only non-military discretionary funding – like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, transportation and the like in order to “find” about $1 trillion to balance the federal budget. Instead of planning on cutting programs and raising taxes on you and me to balance the federal budget, Congress already has a known-to-them remedy at their...
Just a few minutes ago, I was more than halfway through a column about my birthday. I paused to read it through, just to make sure it made sense, when I realized I was WHINING. Ouch. I decided I don’t need to do that anymore. Instead, let’s talk about technology. I have some fairly strong Luddite leanings, but am basically too lazy to actually act on them. It’s one thing to despise technology, and quite another to live without it. So I have a smart phone. One of the reasons I...
My father taught me the line when I was a child: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” Those were the words William Shakespeare put into the mouth of King Richard III when he was knocked off his horse in the midst of the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Richard was killed, ending the rule of the Plantagenet royalty in England and ushering in the time of the Tudors. Shakespeare famously depicted Richard III as a hunchbacked villain who murdered members of his own fam...
First of all, we regret to inform you that there is only silence on the IEO front. No word from anyone, except when the Bankruptcy Court sends out legal notices to all of us who are creditors (almost every business in town, it would appear). Odessa's other big project, however, is about to break ground as soon as weather permits. The meat-processing facility under project manager Sue Lani Madsen of Edwall is taking shape, both on paper and in terms of obtaining capital and gearing up for production. Area livestock producers...
Thank you for getting us in touch with Lydia and Helmut Kieß, our German cousins who visited in Odessa last summer. We have been enjoying their correspondence, and maybe we can help each other in researching the history of our ancestors. We appreciate the coverage in The Record. Larry and Della Kiesz Ritzville...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 1/22/13: Chicago wheat fell 12 cents, posting a larger trading range than Friday and then closing lower. This seemingly puts a stop to our rally, as it gives off a pretty negative technical signal on the price charts. There wasn’t much news driving prices down today, but Northern Plains forecasts are a little wetter than they were last week. Corn was unchanged on the day and soybeans strongly higher on drier weather forecasts for Argentina. 1/25/13: W...
There’s that song again. My unwanted, inadvertent, unloved theme song. “I’m just a girl who cain’t say no . . .” Well, wait a minute now. Yes, I can. Or is that “cain?” I do. Say no, that is. I’m saying no to the voice that says I’m crazy to try to continue Odessa’s tradition of having a quilt shop. I’m saying no to the voice that says Old Town Hall is past redemption, or that its future is unalterably linked to the success of existing organizations. I’m saying no to the...
We are still trying our best to figure out what transpired at the Inland Empire Oilseeds facility just prior to Christmas. Well, actually, what transpired was that the workforce was laid off and the plant was shuttered. Chapter 7 bankruptcy was filed. What we don't know is the why. And with many issues to be resolved in bankruptcy court, the principals, on advice of counsel, are not yet talking about the why question. We attended this week's meeting of the Odessa Public Development Authority. We learned that there is at least...
Lately I’ve been thinking about what advice the old me (that is, the me I am today) would give the young me. The first thing that popped into my head was, “Don’t wear shoes that hurt your feet.” Right after that came, “Don’t wear shoes that make you walk funny.” And right after that came, “Why would I listen to the old me when I wouldn’t listen to my parents?” I’ll admit, I have an obsession with shoes. So did my mother. It may be because, shaped the way I am, the only clothe...
A few weeks ago I lost the use of my toilet and learned first hand just how much I missed it when it wasn’t there. My plumbing went out of order when the pipe between my house and the city’s sewer line in the street collapsed. It was about 60 years old and made out of compressed fiberboard of some sort – I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. Pipes like that belong to the homeowner, so it was my responsibility to get it fixed. It took about a week for the workmen to come...
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire reflected on her eight-years in office in her State of the State address at the Capitol Tuesday morning, her last official act before relinquishing the reins of that office to Gov.-elect Jay Inslee. Among the issues she touched upon were her administration's achievements and involvement in industry, education, transportation and economic recovery. Gregoire also offered advice to the legislature, outlining her suggestions for the next administration. Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks...
I have a genuine concern about the young men and women of America! We have tens of thousands of young people in our state looking for work. However, the Washington State Patrol is facing a crisis because they can’t find enough good candidates to fill a class. They prefer to have 60 people in each class, as that is the optimum size for their facilities and instructors. They recently advertised extensively, and they did not get enough candidates to fill a class. The chief of the WSP said in a recent interview that they had e...
Personally, I blame it all on Walt Disney. Seriously. Before Walt came along, fairy tales tended to be not just cautionary, but downright terrifying. I’m pretty sure that prior to being introduced to the happy-ever-after brand of storytelling perfected by those at the Disney company, I was too scared to do anything wrong. After all, being baked in someone’s oven or eaten by a wolf didn’t sound particularly pleasant. Then here came Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinde...
On Monday, January 21, we celebrate both Martin Luther King, Jr., Day and the inauguration of Barack Obama. Much has happened between the Civil Rights Movement, which began in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education, to the election of America’s first bi-racial president to another term in office. In April of 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, to support the sanitation workers striking for better working conditions and a living wage. Not only had he fought discrimination against all minorities in this country, he also c...
After the recent theatrical charade about the fiscal cliff given to us by the people elected to lead this country, I would like to inform them what Winston Churchill said regarding what they accomplished. “I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle." Joe Wollman Odessa...
In light of Duane Pitts’ piece about labor unions, maybe we should tell the rest of the story. I am including something I found in the Jewish World Review by Thomas Sowell and please note the place where he points out that labor unions do not create wealth. Dave McClanahan Odessa Union Myths By THOMAS SOWELL The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians. Nothing shows the utter cynicism of the u...
When I lived in Portland, I had (what I considered to be) a glorious garden. My house, which was quite small, sat on a standard city lot. In the eight years I lived there, I dug out most of the lawn and planted things that bloom. I planted heirloom roses, daylilies, bearded iris, crocus, tulips, daffodils and peonies. I planted daphne, heather and creeping phlox in the rock garden, along with basket of gold and clove pinks. Delphinium, coreopsis and echinacea bloomed all...
