Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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There is a troubling trend in various schools around the nation that has become an open sore in the past few years. More and more schools are minimizing the teaching of history and American government in order to focus on things that will make our youth “more prepared to join the nation’s work force.” At least that is the excuse. Granted, that preparation is important, but it should not be to the exclusion of other areas of a general education. A vital part of our nation’s education system...
Every day we are inundated with bad news. Turn on your TV or radio to any station that carries national and world news – its there. The internet is full to over flowing with "news" – some real, some fake. Regardless of the source the script is the same... "Things are bad and getting worse. So you need to tighten your budget and your belt and learn to live with less." If fact, according to the end-of-the-world cultists things are so bad that you need to lose your future and your children's fut...
EDITOR'S NOTE: Please enjoy this week's Sutherland piece which is a reprint from 10/13/2021. It is just as relevant now as it was then. Sorry folks, I wish I could write numerous articles full of laughter and fun, but I can't. After watching the evening news and comparing the way various news channels handle reporting the same event I usually end up shaking my head in sorrow. One gives a positive spin on everything that is wrong while another spins the good as something bad. The national news...
My Navy boot company spent 2 days sweating in Southern California heat learning to handle fire hoses and how to put out shipboard fires with nothing but water. In 1967 the Western U.S. Navy Boot Camp was located at San Diego. It was hot and miserable but necessary training. Most of our training was on the use of the 3-position nozzle and the handling of fire hoses. We used a nozzle that could put out different streams: solid stream, coarse spray and fog. The high pressure solid stream was used...
Once in a while us males have to show off our intelligence, just to prove that the main stream media is not as accurate (aka smart) as they would have us believe. So, here goes my attempt... I attended Monroe High School in Fairbanks Alaska. It was, and still is run by the local Catholic Church. I graduated from the school way back in... well never mind! One of the courses we were required to take was 2 years of classic Latin (the language, not the style of music). Sister Lewis was my Latin...
Ordinarily country and western style music doesn't trip my trigger, but in 1992 Billy Ray Cyrus released the song "Some Gave All" that really struck a chord deep down in my soul. As a Navy veteran of the late 1960's and early '70's many of my high school classmates and young men in my neighborhood were drafted and served in our nation's military in Vietnam. A little over half of them did not return alive, and several of the survivors recovered from their injuries in stateside hospitals. Some hav...
Some are addicted to alcohol. Some are addicted to various narcotics, others to various perversions. Our nation and world has increasingly become addicted to these and more to the extent that we have all but passed the national fatality level. Most of us are aware of the various drug addictions that plague our fellow Americans. Even in Sidney, Nebraska there are both young and old who are addicted to the junk that is pouring over our so called sovereign borders. The alarms have been sounding...
There is a joke about an 85 year old widower who went around banging his head against the brick walls in town. When asked "Why are you doing that?" The widower replied, "Its the only pleasure in life I get." The inquirer responded in disbelief, so the elderly gentleman explained, "The doctors won't let me smoke or drink, and my wife died a few years ago. So I do this instead." The baffled stranger said, "I'm sorry, I really don't understand." The silver haired octogenarian said, "I do it...
I often regaled my family with stories of my childhood in Alaska as we sat around the table after dinner. I remember getting up early that morning long ago... "Put the cooler in the trunk" Dad said. Excited by the prospect of my first hunting trip, I played pack mule, lugging equipment to Uncle Norman's vehicle. Norman teased, "Think you'll be able to bring down a moose with your popgun?" I grinned and kept loading. On my 10th birthday I received a .22 cal. single-shot bolt-action rifle. I knew...
My first venture into the business world was in the summer of 1957 as an 8 year old. Dad brought home an old rusty platen press from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. I can't properly describe a platen press. It was foot treadle powered and hand fed. You can find pictures of them on the web. The pressman (me) stands in front of the press, grabs a big flywheel on the left side of the press and gives it a hard pull. This puts it into motion. The next step is to take a sheet of paper, slip it into...
Plans and dreams – starting in childhood and lasting through all our lives we dream and make plans. In grade school I dreamed about being the best artist in my class. Didn't happen and I'm still a lousy artist. When I got into high school I dreamed about becoming the star basketball player and being on the honor roll, too. Made honor roll in my junior and senior years, but I couldn't dribble worth an "expletive deleted". I dreamed of going to college and being #1 on the dean's list, then a...
In the distant future archeologists will argue about certain aspects of my generation's lifestyle. Long after our high performance muscle cars have been outlawed and turned to rust, legends and folk tales will speak of the mystical metal monsters that ruled a legendary land of highways and parking lots. What future historians and archeologists will make of these only God knows. Some tales will survive into the 50th century, long after the last drop of petroleum has been leeched from the ground,...
The first 2 years my parents and I lived in Winnemucca, Nevada were filled with excitement and hard work. I had a new bride and we were part of something rarely done – starting a newspaper from scratch and seeing it rapidly grow into one of the most influential, respected and successful newspapers in the state of Nevada: the Humboldt Sun. We built our success on our philosophy of what a hometown paper should be. A newspaper is just that: a paper filled with news of immediate impact, concern a...
Picking up from the previous Historical Argument article, I'll continue in the same vein with some United States Constitutional arguments. Recently our country has seen activities by various levels of government, from states to our national government that, at the very least, could be assessed as unconstitutional. Unfortunately our educational systems around the nation have failed in many schools to teach our young for some time about the Constitution of the United States. There are few today...
I believe a major failing of our national education system is the general lack of teaching the historical foundations of our Nation and its governmental system. Even though it is not close to the Fourth of July, I believe it is time to look at the Declaration of Independence that was passed by the fledgling American Congress on July 4, 1776. Let's examine just a few parts of this document and see how they apply to the state of the Union today. The second paragraph makes a concise and logical...
Reaching back into the not so far distant past, one of the activities I participated in during my high school years was debate. Monroe High School in Fairbanks, Alaska had a debate club that I joined shortly after leaving the high school choir. My voice had changed and I couldn't hold a note without ending up screeching in C above high C. That simple change ended up making a great change in many things in my life over the following years. Among the things we were taught in the debate club,...
After watching young people (anyone under 30 years old... snicker) demonstrating and rioting because they find their lot in life so difficult I want to throw up. It makes me that sick. They want other people to pay for their college education. They want to enter the work force and get paid large salaries for sitting on their duffs in front of a computer screen. They act like they are the only ones who have to deal with the stress of living. Yep. Living can be stressful, especially when you have...
Power hungry politicos are using "climate change" to scare you out of your wits and make you willing to bow down to their power grab over your life. They believe that we must allow them to do what they want or the world is doomed. Let's look at a couple of the tools they claim will help solve the climate crisis. There really is no crisis, but we'll look at that another time. The major item in their tool box is wind power and battery-powered vehicles. Having lived in various locations in this...
Do you remember the TV show this quote is from: "Push the button, Max!" It was invariably followed with, "That's the wrong button!" instantly followed by chaos. No fair peeking at the answer. After watching the recent elections and the national news pundits I was reminded of the TV show that frequently used that verbiage in it's scripts. For the most part the show was one comedy foul up after another as the main character tried to accomplish his assignment. The recent elections reminded me of...
Aside from using a Kodak Brownie (which I doubt few today even recognize the name!) and borrowing dad's old 35mm Argus a couple of times in high school, I didn't know much about taking pictures, much less developing film and making prints. After joining the family newspaper in Winamac, Indiana Dad assigned me the job of taking pictures at a local basketball game. He hauled out this old 4"x5" sheet film Crown Speed Graphic. You see them in the old, old movies. They weigh about 4 lbs. Add another...
There are those who are so scornful, or maybe afraid, of the past history of the United States of America they want to remove the study of American history and our nation's system of government from our schools. Among the reasons given it is claimed that there are more important things to learn. It is asserted that it is more vital our children learn how to live in today's digital world. Some base this argument on their belief that the past is not relevant to the present. Others contend the...
By Calvin K. Sunderland, edited by Michael K. Sunderland When Roosevelt came in things worsened quickly for the Sunderlands. FDR’s first act in office was to close every bank in the nation for the historic bank holiday. There was panic in some quarters and banks went under to the dismay of their depositors. A flood of emergency measures came from the White House quickly rubber-stamped by a thoroughly cowed Congress. Whatever Roosevelt wanted, he got with hardly a murmur of dissent. The r...
There are those who are so scornful, or maybe afraid, of the past history of the United States of America. They want to remove the study of American history and our nation's system of government from our schools. Among the reasons given it is claimed that there are more important things to learn. It is asserted that it is more vital our children learn how to live in today's digital world. Some base this argument on their belief that the past is not relevant to the present. Others contend the...
By Calvin K. Sunderland, edited by Michael K. Sunderland When Roosevelt came in, things worsened quickly for the Sunderlands. FDR’s first act in office was to close every bank in the nation for the historic bank holiday. There was panic in some quarters and banks went under to the dismay of their depositors. A flood of emergency measures came from the White House quickly rubber-stamped by a thoroughly cowed Congress. Whatever Roosevelt wanted, he got with hardly a murmur of dissent. The radical...
I’m an avid reader. From soup can labels, magazines in doctors’ offices, street signs, newspapers, and just about anything that has the printed word I’ll pick up and read. Early in my life, around 7 or 8 years old I discovered the Tom Swift books and I was hooked. By my early teens I had read every sci-fi book in the Fairbanks Public Library from the Tom Swift series, to the great authors. Over the years the list grew to include Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, H. G. Wells, George Orwel...
