Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Sorted by date Results 1692 - 1716 of 1862
The more we learn about animals, the more complex and interesting is the behavior they exhibit. My faithful mutt-from-the-pound, a dog named Buster Brown, impresses me from time to time with complex behaviors aimed at getting what he wants out of me. Most people who live with animals can tell you a tale or two of diabolical - or thoughtful - animal behavior they've witnessed. But even knowing all that, a recent study on lab rats took me by surprise. The research makes it...
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . . And so am I. It’s odd. Not that I’m gaining weight during what has, relatively recently, become a season of excess. Excess blessed by retailers, Wall Street, the government, the media, and perhaps most of all –China. Now, I frequently say that “everything to excess” is my personal motto. I’ve lived in that mode for a long time, regardless of employment or income. But always lingering in the corner of my mind is that little...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 12/7/11: Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Grain prices backed up, as concern developed that Germany wasn’t on board with all aspects of the new European bailout plans. Japan’s in for western white. Egypt bought Russian and Argentine wheat earlier in the week. Friday the USDA drops another supply and demand report in our laps. The concern is they will further reduce projected demand numbers and correspondingly increase grain ending stocks. 12/8/...
I don’t know about you, but I know that I have more questions than answers. And the questions I have are persistent and demanding. Things like, “Are men born knowing how to spit?” “How many roads must a man walk down?” “How much fossil fuel can we take out of the earth before everything falls in?” “Where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?” And one that’s been bugging me for several years, “Who defines the American dream?” Marriage to a politically active pers...
I urge your readers to contact their members of Congress who are discussing whether to extend the Bush tax cuts. If those payroll tax cuts are not continued, then those who take home a paycheck need to get ready to lose 2% of each paycheck beginning January 2012. According to Senator Patty Murray, “the median Washington family has a yearly income of $56,479. Under the current 2% payroll tax cut, that family is saving approximately $1,130 per year on their tax bill. If the current tax cut expires, their yearly tax bill will g...
As the long season of darkness sweeps over the country, it’s a natural time to think about lighting – and how dependent we are on electricity during this dim time of year. You can heat your home with several different energy sources, including natural gas, heating oil or wood. But unless you’re living off-the-grid, the lights throughout your abode burn brightly because of electricity from the grid. Yes, I have a couple of candles, a flashlight and two kerosene lamps in my ho...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 12/5/11: This morning started off promising with the grain futures markets in the green however prices headed south mid-session as word spread that Standard & Poor’s was placing several Eurozone countries on notice that they were under review and risked a credit-rating downgrade. Chicago wheat closed down 14 cents and soft white lost a nickel....
Just about the time the Congressional “Super Committee” declared failure, our national debt clock rolled past $15 trillion. Even as the discussions, co-chaired by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., ground to a halt and Congress left the Capitol for Thanksgiving, the debt clock kept ticking. That means each taxpayer’s portion of our debt is now $133,687. Where will this all stop? Are we headed for another partisan meltdown over raising our debt ceiling? Will we see another downg...
Byron Behne watches the grain markets for the Odessa Union Warehouse. 11/23/11: Thank goodness the week is over. Well, technically there’s a short futures session on Friday but there won’t be anyone around to trade it. Gloomy economic news here, in Europe, and overnight in China continues to dominate the markets. Manufacturing gauges in China came in poorer than expected overnight, adding to the negative feelings today. 11/28/11: There wasn’t any additional bad news out of Europe over the long weekend and the financial market...
Lise and Norm Ott and Gail and Gus Kiesz are to be congratulated for the wonderful Thanksgiving meal potluck for all of us “orphans” or older couples with the choice of cooking for two or going out. This was so nice, from the set tables, to the wonderful organization of making this a reality. The visiting, games and the food were outstanding. Thank you for giving the people of Odessa another reason to be grateful for our small town. Sam and Sheryl Roberts Odessa...
I’m declaring our first community Thanksgiving a success. Nearly thirty people (of the 36 who had RSVP’d – more on that later) attended, and there was probably enough food for twice that many. I still haven’t figured out how all the leftover pie disappeared. I was positive that I put some in my car, but upon unpacking everything at home – no pie. Just as well. At any rate, everyone who attended was amazed at how beautiful the freshly-refinished dining hall floor in Old Town Ha...
Mt. Rainier in my native Washington State is a stunning site. It’s a beautiful mountain, covered in snow and ice in both winter and summer. At over 14,000 feet, its summit is worthy of respect from even serious hikers. There’s no wonder it’s a National Park. Like most all of the other beautiful peaks in the Cascades, Mt. Rainier is also a deadly volcano. It hasn’t erupted since 1894, but that’s not long ago to a geologist – we are sure it’s only sleeping and will be heard...
Even as the new health care law heads for the U.S. Supreme Court where it faces an uncertain future, Washington state is moving forward with its $23 million effort to design and implement a health care exchange. State health care exchanges, mandated by the federal law, must be in place by 2014. They were billed as a way to promote competition and provide access to subsidies for qualified consumers. While each state is supposed to design its own health care exchange, exchanges...
When reading the story of the 1935 rabbit drive near Irby, I wondered if it was about jack rabbits. I can't remember seeing one of them since the 1950s. I wonder if anyone has seen a jack rabbit on their property lately? The drives really must have worked, as they are gone, or I am not looking in the right spots when we come over for a visit. Chuck Wood Gig Harbor...
On a recent trip to Australia President Obama told a group of Aussie students that their counterparts in his country had "fallen behind" when it comes to math and science, saying he wants to reform the public school system. Obama also asserted that poor children don't get "support they need when they're very young" and are "already behind" when they enter grammar school. This from a person who uses a teleprompter to speak to grade school kids, who pays $30,000 per child to put his kids in private school. But for once he may...
To a select group of ladies and gentlemen of Odessa: May I interest you in an opportunity that . . . No, that’s too formal. How did he put it? Oh, yes . . . “I want YOU” for the Odessa School District Board of Directors District 1 Representative! Let yourself imagine the ways that you can help the students of the district reach their full potential and excel towards their goals. If you can imagine yourself making that difference, then please, pick an application up at the District office. Think about it. Think about you m...
How about some good news heading into the holidays? It comes from our nation’s farmers and ranchers. Agriculture is an economic sector where America has not lost its edge. In fact, it is a bright spot in a persistently glum economy. The U.S. Agriculture Department expects our nation’s agricultural exports to reach a record $137 billion this year and grow by another $2.3 billion in 2012. While our nation has an overall trade deficit, our agricultural sector has a trade sur...
Dogs are loyal, playful, loving and sometimes cute as a button. It’s no wonder we love them (some of us more than others, to be sure). Dogs were likely one of the very first animals we humans domesticated. They’ve been sitting around our campfires for a very long time, indeed. We train our dogs to sit, shake and lie down. It also could be said the dogs train us to dispense kibbles, rawhide treats, and scratches behind the ears. What matters isn’t which side comes out ahead...
Some of you may have seen the ad in last week’s paper for a community Thanksgiving dinner at Old Town Hall. That’s my cell phone number on the ad. When I lived in Portland, a little over three hours from my family in Bickleton, I frequently had to work the Friday and sometimes the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I love my family, but six and a half hours in a car in one day just isn’t my idea of anything to be thankful for. Then I discovered Thanksgiving dinner at my churc...
President Obama says he will delay until 2013 a decision about the $13 billion Keystone pipeline, which would carry Canadian oil to Gulf coast refineries. Supporters say the 1,661 mile pipeline would create as many as 20,000 high-paying construction jobs, reduce our dependence on oil from unfriendly nations and revitalize the stricken Gulf Coast economy. Opponents worry about potential environmental impacts, and Midwest property owners in the path of the pipeline say “not in m...
The next time you’re on a commercial airliner, think about this: The GPS navigation unit in your car is more advanced than the technology used by air traffic controllers. The radar-based air traffic control technology used today is almost 60 years old. While it worked well with fewer, slow-moving aircraft, today’s modern jetliners can fly more than a mile and a half in the time it takes for a radar beam to sweep across the screen. Because of that, planes must be kept thr...
Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. I was telling everyone (and I mean everyone) that I was on a quest to be healthy by the time I’m sixty. Good thing I’m only 57. Actually, I have managed to lose 22 pounds so far. Only a few more to go. I sort of went off the rails in October. I can’t blame it on the Halloween candy, although it did play a prominent role. Once again, I got too busy. Too busy to plan meals, too busy to write down what I had eaten, too busy to exercise, just too darn...
I was thrilled today to read in the October 20 edition of The Odessa Record what my father (John Napier) had done 75 years ago. Because I was too young in 1936 to know of his ongoing work with cattle, things like this are helping me complete his history. Thank you. Joyce (Napier) Goodale Washougal...
Some interesting fact that you will never hear on the mainstream media. According to the Washington Post, the Washington D.C. area has become a great place for those that enjoy “living the dream”.... Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America — Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City — are here, census data shows. The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxu...
Today, the good news is cars are safer, more fuel-efficient and emit fewer greenhouse gases. The bad news is today’s automobiles burn less gas and cars in the future will be fueled by cleaner electricity and even hydrogen. So how could this be bad news? Two words: gas tax. Since President Dwight Eisenhower modeled our interstate highway system after the German autobahns, our roads have been built and maintained with federal and state gas taxes. In Washington, the 18th a...
