Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Sorted by date Results 1657 - 1681 of 1962
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...
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...
I have a question about the Memorial Day ceremony. Why is it you never mention the names of the veterans and picture of them placing the wreath at the World War II tank memorial? Nice to know who these men are and what they look like. I’ve always been asked by American Legion member Robert Kissler to place the wreath at the memorial, being a veteran and an American Legion member of Odessa Post #105 for 14 years, and my father, Reuben Els was for 50 years. He’s deceased. I feel proud and honored to do this small task, but my...
I have a new standard I’m planning to use in this year’s election. I’m not voting for any parrots. I don’t care what political party a candidate belongs to. If, when speechifying, a candidate repeats, word for word, a statement that I’ve already heard from another politician, they will lose my vote automatically. I want candidates who are capable of speaking (not to mention thinking) for themselves, and don’t just spout a party line that has been written for them by someone...
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...
The claims The movement for national standards and tests is based on these claims: (1) Our educational system is broken, as revealed by US students’ scores on international tests; (2) We must improve education to improve the economy; (3) The way to improve education is to have national standards and national tests that enforce the standards, and rate teachers on the basis of student performance (value-added measures). Each of these claims is unfounded. Not true (1) Our schools are not broken. The problem is poverty. Test s...
It’s the same old song. “Second verse same as the first; a little bit louder and a little bit worse!” I had to shop for bigger clothes last week, because I have regained all but 2 of the 20 pounds I lost last year. And still I don’t stop eating as if all food may vanish from the planet tomorrow. My feet hurt. My right knee seems to have decided to punish me for all the years of abuse. My cholesterol just topped out at 234. It’s hard to get moving. It’s hard to keep moving...
There comes a time when enough is enough. No more excuses, no more delays. In 1986, hospitals, local governments, schools, small businesses and doctors were fed up with the high cost of personal injury lawsuits and liability insurance. They successfully lobbied for tort reform legislation, which was signed into law by Gov. Booth Gardner. Fast forward to 2012 and you see that same tipping point with our public schools. Taxpayers are tired of hearing, “Just give us more money a...
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings. Every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the dead in the 1860s tapped into the general need to honor our dead. Each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in the first o...
Over 20 years ago, in 1989 to be exact, a movie titled “Do the Right Thing” was released. There was quite a bit of controversy surrounding it at the time. Directed by Spike Lee, it was a social statement about racial tension. That’s really all I remember about the movie itself. What has stuck with me for all these years is the title. It’s a phrase I use a lot to try to improve my decision-making. Doing the right thing is often not readily discernible. In fact, sometim...
The next time you eat a baked spud you might want to think of the agricultural scientists who are hard at work trying to help the humble potato deal successfully with some significant diseases. Students of history will remember the Irish potato famine of 1845-1852. The denizens of Ireland had come to depend on potatoes as their main staple crop. The plant did well in the wet Irish climate, and the potato produced a lot of food for each acre that was planted. But a crisis...
