Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Sorted by date Results 1551 - 1575 of 1864
7/27/12: For all the action this week, Chicago's December corn futures only closed 2.5 cents lower than they did last week. Wheat futures weren't quite as fortunate, as Chicago's September futures lost 45 cents, and white wheat lost 30 cents. At some point, corn is going to be less subject to the weather as the critical yield-making time has mostly passed. However, another hot and dry week in the western corn belt could add some juice to next week. Soybeans are much more weather-dependant at the moment, and the weather is...
This week my brain has been more like “Wheel of Fortune” than a pinball machine. The wheel spins ‘round and ‘round and stops on an idea, but before I can get a firm enough grasp on it to actually squeeze a column out of it, the wheel is spinning again. A few weeks ago, I addressed some problems I was having with my sciatic nerve, which was causing quite a bit of pain, as well as numbness and weakness in my right leg. The last time I had sciatic issues, I went with traditi...
I don’t know about you, but I tire of hearing how terrible public schools are and how charter schools will solve all public-sector educational problems. Recently, I attended a celebration with family and friends. One of my friends asked if students know less now than in the past, because he had been told by several college professors that this was the case – “Students don’t know anything anymore.” I assured him that was not the case. I had read enough Gerald Bracey to know that the basic trend nationally was upward and had s...
7/18/12: Chicago grain futures traded lower most of the morning on profit-taking, but no significant changes were made to the weather forecasts. Things reversed higher after the Ag Secretary said there would be no revision to the renewable fuel standard. For now the government is standing pat, but they could always change their mind down the road as the corn crop continues to deteriorate. 7/19/12: It’s starting to get weird out there. There was lots of action in the spreads in the grain futures markets, especially on the c...
Kim Ramm of Odessa is the third candidate running for the Lincoln County Commissioner District #1 position in the August primary. Ramm and her husband Dale Ramm are the owners of Ramm Hardware in Odessa, a franchise of the Do It Best corporation. Kim Ramm is also known locally for her political activism. She says that she has been interested and involved in politics for almost as long as she can remember. She was on the Odessa Town Council for eight years, retiring at the end...
Congress doesn’t seem to agree on how to handle the unrealistic and unpopular “no child left behind law” that came into reality in 2001. President Obama sees the 2014 date approaching and he must be assuming he will still be in office. He added eight more states and Washington D.C. to the eleven who no longer have to abide by the main tenets of the unpopular legislation. It is especially unpopular with the N.E.A. and the W.E.A.! The law requires schools to test students for math and reading annually in third through eight...
Today I’m rethinking my position on illegal immigration. Some undocumented aliens have set up housekeeping in my front yard. They’re not unattractive, until they open their mouths. They certainly don’t speak English. And they talk A LOT. LOUDLY. Their conversation always sounds urgent, unlike the measured, almost sweet cadence of their northern cousins. They’re driving me crazy. Or at least they will unless I find some way to live with them. Because, you see, I realize...
I swim laps at noon several times a week. I enjoy the water, and the gentle exercise is good for my aging joints. Like other old ladies in the pool, I’m no speed demon. Even a bucketful of performance-enhancing drugs would not make me slice through the water quickly. But like all the lap swimmers I know, slow or fast, I take an interest in Michael Phelps and the other American swimmers soon to compete in London in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Phelps is famous for the eight gold m...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 7/11/12: Holy cow what a morning! Chicago wheat futures ranged 45 cents and soft-white prices fluctuated 25 cents during the morning market hours. Chicago corn futures ranged 63 cents on the day and closed 14 cents lower, which was 44 cents off their highs. The supply-and-demand report was not bearish, as the USDA cut the national corn yield more than expected but down to where the market was figuring it was anyway. They went from their early,...
On April 29, 2007, my life was changed irrevocably. It was on this day that my husband Brian and I brought a beautiful baby boy into the world. Today, we are the proud parents of Cole Rodgers, whose influence on our lives has been immeasurable. Like any 5-year-old, his heart is full of love. He’s active. He’s inquisitive. He’s at the top of his math class. He dances to Bruce Springsteen, watches Navy games with his dad and loves to play on the iPad. Cole has an infec...
Hot enough for you? I’ve been thinking about heat lately, and not just because of the nation’s mostly torrid weather. We all can easily verify that hot air rises – when you change a light bulb near the ceiling of your living room, you find the air up there is warmer than it is near the floor. Another fact about heat rests on a simple experiment. If you rub your palms together you’ll feel some warmth. Then, if you bear down on your hands, pressing them together hard, you’ll cre...
A wonderful person passed away recently, and I feel compelled to remark upon it. Not only because this particular person is now gone, but because, with her, a bit more of a particular ethos, one that we see too little of today, died as well. I don’t remember the particular circumstances of the conversation, but something this woman said to me several years ago, when she was already in her eighties, has stuck with me. And not always in a comfortable way. She told me that she h...
What a wonderful feeling I had when I saw Anona Heimbigner's Thank-you in the Odessa Record several weeks ago! It doesn't seem like 69 years ago she so ably taught us in sixth grade to diagram sentences. I taught the same thing to my sixth-grade students my last twelve years of teaching here in Washougal. I often visualize sentences in their diagrammed form, especially when proofreading. Joyce (Napier) Goodale Washougal...
I urge your readers once again to contact their members of Congress and demand that Congress fix the problem it created in 2006 for the United States Postal Service. In 2006, Congress decreed that the USPS must fully fund current and future employees’ pension and health care costs to the tune of $5.5 billion a year. The Republican-dominated Congress required this funding to be done in 10 years to cover the costs for the next 75 years! No business pays 75 years into the future for its employees’ pension and health benefits. No...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 7/5/12: The grain markets continued their streak on Thursday as the hot weather continues. Next week is supposed to bring some relief from the heat in the corn belt, but rain is still lacking. New-crop corn traded out to a new contract high and Chicago September corn futures touched limit-up late in the day. Chicago wheat futures gained 38 cents, and white wheat gained 35. Export sales will be out in the morning. 7/6/12: Grain prices finally broke on...
I’ve always been attracted to the concept of self-sufficiency. I think that’s the underlying reason my garden is stupidly huge. Somewhere deep inside is the soul of my one of my forebears who were, according to my parents, ants instead of grasshoppers. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out Aesop’s fable. I used to think I had been born in the wrong century. Whenever modern life got too complex, I would retreat in my imagination to the late 1800s, about the time...
Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof, according to Article I of the Constitution. Before 1913 various forms of money were tried. So in 1913 the Federal Reserve Act was formed. Many members of congress were away for the Christmas holidays and the appointed board was made up mostly of bankers. The national debt was just over $1 billion dollars. By 1920 after World War I the debt had risen to $24 billion. By 1960 after World War II and the G. I. Bill the debt had reached $284 billion, or...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 6/20/12: Not much changed for the grain markets, and the rally continued. Export sales will be out in the morning. Japan is in for 1.4 million bushels of western white. 6/22/12: Grain prices were strong out of the gate but moderated later in the day, as some forecasts put more moisture in the picture 6 to 15 days out for the corn belt. Changes to the forecasts and economic conditions in Europe over the weekend will determine our direction on Monday. A week...
In the Columbia Basin we are dependent on groundwater to provide over 90% of our drinking water and over 25% of the irrigated farming. The problem is that the deep basalt aquifers that provide our water supply contain ancient water and are not being recharged (see video http://www.youtube. com/watch?v =2cFOYvtJejw). The cities and towns in the Columbia Basin will soon receive a report of their groundwater conditions and future water supply. As a former Adams County Commissioner, irrigation supplier, orchardist and member of t...
The morning of March 5 seemed like any morning. It was a Monday, and as usual, I was moving too slowly to accomplish everything I wanted to do before leaving for work. I intended to chain the dogs that day, as a part of my (renewed daily but rarely acted upon) intent to stop their wandering. But the clip was rusted shut. “I’ll fix that when I get home,” I told myself. The dogs were kind of subdued that morning, and I was sure they weren’t going anywhere. I haven’t seen them...
Avista and the Better Business Bureau (BBB) serving Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Montana are warning customers to be alert to a scam that has impacted utility customers in several states across the country. According to reports, imposters are claiming that the federal government is providing credits or applying payments to utility bills. The imposters then attempt to obtain social security numbers and bank routing numbers. Utilities impacted by the scam also report that scammers have visited customers in person,...
I work just a couple of blocks from a special kind of bank. It doesn’t accept money for deposit, it won’t finance a new car, and it wasn’t part of the housing bubble. This unusual kind of bank deals mostly in seeds that it preserves, sometimes propagates, and often disperses without charge to anyone who has a research use for unusual strains of crop plants. Seed genebanks are part of the unseen work that helps increase the chance more people will have enough to eat for suppe...
Recently I’ve had a look at another world. It’s a world that many people already inhabit. The world of infirmity. We all know people who live in that world. Some are in a constant state of pain. Some teeter on the edge between being able to move and not. Some live under the burden of incurable and/or terminal illness. I’m not even close to any of those situations and yet here I am, complaining again! Please don’t be offended when I tell you that I don’t like this world and...
Students from Gonzaga University’s MBA program recently provided the Lincoln County Economic Development Council with an outstanding statistical analysis of our retail sales history. The results of their study are positive. The students used two different resources for their analysis. The Washington State Retail Survey, a compilation of data from the Department of Revenue published by the Eureka Group of California, was used to analyze retail transactions subject to state sales tax. The USDA Census of Agriculture was used t...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 6/6/12: The grain markets have been choppy so far this week as Monday saw solid gains which were promptly given back on Tuesday, only to be partially recouped on Wednesday. It still seems to be more about the value of the dollar and other economic factors right now rather than grain news. Soybeans got a bit of an extra boost today which was based on some fundamental information, as it was announced that China bought another 4 million bushels of old crop...
