Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Sorted by date Results 1667 - 1691 of 1862
It was a magical Monday this week. It was 3 degrees in Irbydale when I got up. Brrr! The car didn’t want to start, and once it did, it complained. Ten minutes of warming up barely made it better. Going up the Irby hill, all I could think about was that the thermometer in the car said that it had made it all the way up to 8. Then I crested the hill and entered fairyland instead of the cold gray desert. Every sagebrush, grass and weed was wearing diamonds. Big ones. I don’t thi...
Little kids are amenable to learning new habits - generally much more so than those of us who are set in our ways because this isn't our first rodeo. That's why it's sometimes more effective to teach children health science information rather than to do outreach aimed directly at their parents. That's part of the background to the Global Soap Project. It's a project that rests on some simple science long ago worked out by biologists and medical researchers. The basic fact is...
We have a top-rate medical facility in the Odessa Clinic and Hospital. At 10 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 5, I had an appointment with Mark King, PA-C, at the clinic to evaluate my shortness of breath. With testing at the hospital and evaluation by Mark, I was diagnosed with a critical heart condition. Working as a team, Mark, the hospital ER and the Odessa Fire Department combined forces with the Heart Institute and Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane to get me to the Cardiac Critical Care unit by 2 p.m. In Spokane, I received...
According to the Seattle Times, "Next time the cashier says 'paper or plastic', think outside the bags. Think about ocean pollution, giant landfills and global warming," Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols says. Then think to the near future when you might have to either pull out a reusable tote or pay 20 cents a bag. Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin proposed a 20-cent "green fee" on all disposable bags to encourage customers to carry their groceries home in their own...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 1/11/12: The USDA stocks report will be out in the morning and then it's all over but the crying. Actually there's really no way of knowing whether the report will be good or bad just that it will probably be a big market mover one way or the other. The trade is mostly expecting small cuts to corn and wheat stocks but we'll have to wait and see what the government thinks about that. Should the report be benign the focus will quickly return to the weather...
Most people recognize Martin Luther King, Jr., as a civil rights leader who fought for equal rights for black Americans. Many, however, are not as aware of his fight for economic justice for the working poor. When King went to Memphis, TN, on 3 April 1968 – one day before his assassination – he focused on protesting the economic injustices against black garbage collectors, who received significantly lower wages than whites. [To put this in context, the minimum wage was $1.25. I know because during the summer of 1968 I worked...
Numerous studies have shown that our balance becomes impaired as we age. Numerous other studies have shown that regular exercise can help us maintain our balance, and even improve it. This week we’re going to exercise. To begin, stand up (if you can) and stretch. Reach for the stars, one arm at a time. Lean first to the left, then the right. Or vice versa. Wriggle your fingers and tilt your head one way, then the other. Great. Now, find a piece of paper and a pencil. First, d...
It was frustrating to watch the redistricting process as the New Year’s Day deadline for adopting new legislative maps approached. Now the Redistricting Commission has acted, and Lincoln joins Grant, Kittitas and a sliver of Yakima counties in a new 13th Legislative District. It would be easy to glumly complain about how the Commission must have worked up from Oregon and down from Canada, and our skinny new district running from Spokane to Snoqualmie was the leftover pieces. It would be easy to question the decision to c...
The high school juniors will soon begin gathering photographs and stories about the Old Town Hall. In an effort to preserve some of the history and artifacts associated with the Old Town Hall, the junior English class plans to scan the photos to put into a DVD or video for the school library, town library, and museum. Students will need to know the approximate date of each photograph, the occasion, the names (if known) of people in the photo. The juniors will also gather stories about dances, celebrations, and other events...
In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign slogan was, “It’s the economy, stupid.” In 1993, Washington employers modified the slogan to, “It’s the economy, don’t kill it,” and emblazoned it across a huge banner draped from AWB’s building near the state’s Capitol Campus, where it could be seen by elected officials driving by. But lawmakers didn’t get the message 19 years ago; they left employers holding the bag for new taxes and fees as well as added costs for unemployment insuranc...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 1/4/11: South American forecasts looked a little wetter at the start of the day and the grain markets sold off accordingly. Later in the day things started looking a little drier and the corn and bean markets recovered most of their losses with Chicago wheat finishing down 7 cents. White wheat was down seven on the day as well. Still not much else to report. 1/6/11: Parts of Argentina will be getting some rain in the next few days but the weather will...
For years, energy experts warned us that regulations and policies that reduce the supply of affordable conventional energy would result in higher prices for American families. Now it is clear the warnings were well-founded. The USA Today recently reported that electricity bills have skyrocketed. The newspaper reports that American families paid, on average, a record $1,419 a year for electricity in 2010. Demand for electricity remains high even as energy supplies shrink. In...
If you've made a New Year’s resolution to eat right and trim down, be forewarned that medical science shows your brain has it in for you and will actively promote your failure on two different fronts. That’s not good news, of course, but you should know about it so you can strengthen your resolve as best you can. Here’s the scoop. It’s relatively easy – particularly if you are significantly overweight – to lose a few pounds by reducing the number of calories you consume eac...
Happy New Year. Have we all turned over a new leaf? Or are we still trying to get a few more uses out of that old one? There are lots of pitfalls out there for those of us who are prone to believing that we can change our selves or our behavior just because of a date on the calendar. I know this, because I spend more time in the pits than I do out of them. Sometimes its easier to just stay in the pit because climbing out is so difficult. And unrewarding, because it seems...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 12/21/11: White wheat prices stalled out Wednesday but Chicago wheat futures managed to tack on 9 cents after trading lower to start the session. Some weather models are reducing the chances for rain in Argentina over the coming days which helped March corn futures move above the 30 day moving average for the first time since the middle of November. If prices can hold or move above these levels then it could generate more short covering by speculators and...
It’s that time of year again. Resolution time. I should probably just save myself time (and self-recrimination) by resolving not to make resolutions, but I don’t seem to be able to help myself. A new year just seems like the perfect time to work on perfecting myself. Now, before you get excited, I am aware that perfection is unattainable. Mostly I just want to be a better person. I would really like to be less judgemental of others, and maybe even a bit less judgemental of mys...
We hear so often that the schools are failing that we begin to believe such claims. Recently the media reported that 42% of America’s public schools are failing. The newscasters, however, did not look behind the curtain to see the larger picture. Children are more than tests and statistics. When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind or NCLB) of 2002 was re-authorized, the aim was to help all pubic school students succeed. Translated, this means that by 2014 ALL public school students – 100% – m...
Washington is one of only 10 states that effectively prohibit low-income parents from choosing where their children go to school. The battle lines over alternatives such as charter public schools or school vouchers have been sharply drawn in our state. Supporters say the issue is choice; that education is the key to a child’s future and parents — particularly low-income parents — should be able to send their children to the best possible schools. Opponents argue that alter...
Now here’s a Christmas story for you. Just this past weekend, an elderly Odessa resident answered the phone to find a Canadian police sergeant on the other end of the line. He told her that her grandson had been picked up and was in jail. The story was that the grandson and two friends had been on their way to a funeral in Canada when they were stopped for a traffic violation. The caller went on to say that drugs were found in the car, although none of them apparently b...
Officials at Big Bend Community College recognize they have a message problem. The college is receiving recognition in the media for doing great things, but too many people aren’t aware of BBCC’s dire financial situation. Too many close friends of the college are making comments like, “Sounds like the college is doing great.” The fact is: Big Bend Community College is in a state of financial emergency. It is true BBCC received a federal grant to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. The college...
One of the best parts of baking for me as a kid was the process of “helping” my mama roll out and cut cookie shapes for the oven. At this age I know that I actually hindered her work, and she was just being kind in letting me participate, but at the time I thought I was an aide in the process of transforming a lump of material into a thin sheet of ginger-rich dough that we could cut up into the barnyard animals of which I was so fond - and for which we had many different cutter shapes. One of the goals in the overall pro...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 12/14/11: Things got ugly pretty quickly last Wednesday as the crude oil and gold markets tanked and took the rest of the commodity sector with them. The euro tanked on further concerns over the state of the European economy, as Germany indicated it was unwilling to increase its commitment to the region’s bailout fund. The only grain news floating around at all is mild concern about a drying weather pattern in South America potentially affecting soy and c...
With a bad economy, political bickering in our nation’s capital and daily news coverage of raucous protests here at home, it may seem harder to get into the Christmas spirit this year. But if you look closely, you will see countless examples of generosity, courage and hope. Just a few weeks ago, more than 18,000 motorcycles rumbled down I-5 for the 33rd Annual Olympia Toy Run. A tougher band of softies was hard to find, as the state’s capitol filled with leather-clad mot...
With the European debt crisis dominating the news and threatening to pull the world into a double-dip recession, there are growing calls for Uncle Sam to come to the rescue. The U.S. is already committing untold billions to the $1.4 trillion European bailout fund, but that’s not enough, according to some European leaders and even U.S. politicians. They say that while the EU bailout is costly, it’s also necessary. They are only right about the cost. These endless bailouts are not only unnecessary, but are in fact dan...
There is a brighter side to Christmas this year, despite the weak economy and lawmakers bickering over how to patch the $2 billion hole in the state’s budget. The good news comes from Boeing. Boeing and its machinists recently ratified a new four-year contract which averts a strike through 2016. Even though the plum in the pudding was the accompanying announcement that Boeing would produce its new 737 MAX at its Renton plant, the agreement has much broader significance. Early ratification of a labor agreement is hugely i...
