Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Sorted by date Results 1007 - 1031 of 1718
Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the right word and the wrong word is really a large matter. ‘Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” Some writers choose big words to fill up a typewritten page. For example, William F. Buckley, Jr. built an extensive vocabulary and pulled it out often to impress his readers. He once wrote, “I react against declamatory rudeness that is coercive in intent.” Now what did he mean? I think he meant to say that when he hears ano...
“Without a vision, the people perish.” That might sound a little preachy, critical, or condemning even. It might even sound a little egotistical. Go my way or you’re wrong. Well, actually that isn’t the point. Even in my age, I never thought I would sit in a newsroom or have a conversation with another news hound in the region who is equally concerned about stories packaged as news but even we have to admit are on the edge of “fake news.” It isn’t because we do or don’t agree with the writer...
With a houseful of cowpokes it feels like there is always a civil war erupting – there are guns going off, military pursuits, friendly fire and an array of combat situations. "Mama, he hit me on the head!" "Mooooom, he just whacked my nose." "Moooooaaaahhhhhm, he just ________." Fill in the blank. It doesn't really matter what you put there because they have all happened in my home. These are the same brothers that can pick up the baby and snuggle him and give him peace. These are the same b...
The ideological war we’re witnessing in America is as old as civilization. We’ve see the pattern played out over and over throughout history. Prosperous and powerful nations become corrupt and detached from principled moorings. The people become complacent and restless. The disaffected rebel and rise up. Totalitarianism follows in a crackdown usually welcomed by those demanding an end to the chaos. There’s a period of darkness and evil, followed by spiritual renewal and renaissance. Then the p...
I ran across a book a few years ago called “Not A Fan.” The storyline is about getting up and being involved, not contently sitting in the bleachers. But to apply the words a little differently, we are fans. All but the chosen few know sports from the screen, the numbered seats in the stadium or arena, maybe even a box seat. We are not arriving hours before the start of the game, stretching and putting on the pads. We are not the ones running lines on the court to get the muscles nice and warm b...
The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights that I will begin outlining today will be included in legislation I will introduce in January for the consumption tax. The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights consists of ten rights or protections which ought to be afforded every taxpayer in the State of Nebraska. The first right in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights states, “The citizens of Nebraska are entitled to a fair tax system, one which favors neither the poor nor the rich, neither rural dwellers nor urban dwellers, neith...
In Nebraska, our goal is to be the most welcoming state in the country for veterans and military families. Our servicemen and women make tremendous sacrifices to protect our freedoms. While we can never fully repay their service, we can shape state law and policy to better serve their needs. When they return to civilian life, veterans continue to give and serve to benefit their communities. We’ve seen that spirit of volunteerism on display once again in 2020. American Legions across the state ha...
I was deeply saddened to learn that Investigator Mario Herrera, a 23-year veteran of the Lincoln Police Department, had passed away after being shot in the line of duty on August 26. He was helping the Metro Area Fugitive Task Force and Gang Unit serve a high-risk warrant in Lincoln when he was critically wounded. Investigator Herrera leaves behind his wife, Carrie, and their four children. Before his 23 years of service to the Lincoln community, Investigator Herrera served his country in the...
DAV (Disabled American Veterans) is a nonprofit veterans service organization composed of more than 1 million wartime service-disabled veterans that is dedicated to a single purpose: empowering veterans to lead high-quality lives with respect and dignity. This year, DAV will celebrate a major milestone in our history on Sept. 25, 2020, marking 100 years of service to the nation’s service-disabled veterans, their families and survivors. In honor of this occasion, we are asking you to officially recognize Sept. 25, 2020, as Disabled American V...
My household canceled our Netflix subscription months ago. We’d been grumbling for some time about the increase in programming that mocked our values and was either borderline pornographic or certainly blasphemous toward our faith. I really wasn’t surprised when I first saw promotions for the film “Cuties” a few weeks back because I’d been telling people to expect a cultural push toward acceptance of pedophilia, bestiality and other deviant practices for some time. “Cuties” is a movie that fo...
In even the best experience, high school has a way of making a student feel like he’s passing through a blender. Don’t get me wrong. High School can be a fun experience. It is a fun and learning experience academically and socially. The books and now the tablets and iPads are only part of the bigger lessons, the social lessons. I call it a blender because students pass in and out of classes, some thinking of the next class, others stressed about the quiz they just bombed and others who can...
Ian Fleming divided his 7th James Bond novel, Goldfinger, into three parts: “Happenstance,” “Coincidence,” and “Enemy Action.” Three times Bond intervened in Auric Goldfinger’s diabolical plans to enrich himself, and after the third time, Goldfinger had had enough. He seized 007. “Mr. Bond,” Goldfinger said, “they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.’” Coincidences startle us. Two people discover that they have the same bir...
The great American experiment set about answering whether free people could govern themselves or not. If things progress as I fear they will, the answer will be no. Why? Because, as our second president John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” I invite readers to make the case for me that our nation is made up of a moral and religious people. Morality is the agreed upon code a society relies on...
Several years ago, sometimes it feels like yesterday, my wife and I found ourselves in a script we didn’t write, we didn’t want and we couldn’t escape. In what seemed like a heartbeat of time, we went from parents of a teenager to parents who had lost a child. These are memories that cannot be erased from the mind’s memory. Sometimes all it takes is quietness in the far side of the room, the sound of a motorcycle on the highway, a clear night on the prairie. There are fond memories, but admitte...
The Nebraska Legislature’s “short session” went much longer than usual this year due to coronavirus. While the session didn’t wrap up until August, it was worth the wait for Nebraskans. From property tax relief to career scholarships, several key priorities were achieved to help grow our state both now and for future generations. Property Tax Relief: LB 1107 not only delivered significant property tax relief to Nebraskans, but it also reformed our business incentives and puts Nebraska in the...
Just before noon on Thursday, August 27th, a fire was observed in northern Banner County near the Hubbard gap road. Due to extremely dry conditions, it expanded rapidly. The fire started on the Terry Brown ranch and moved west. The fire burned a significant portion of the Brown ranch. A fence repair fund for the Brown’s has been established at Z M Lumber Company in Scottsbluff. All donations are deeply appreciated. The Banner County Commissioners signed an emergency declaration, asking the G... Full story
On a calm summer day in 1823, in northwest South Dakota, a mountain man named Hugh Glass experienced absolute terror when he stumbled across a she-grizzly bear and her two cubs. He was alone. She stood on her hind legs, swatted his rifle away, then his pistol, but he held tight to his knife. Few of us will ever experience first-hand a fright of this magnitude, a life-and-death wrestle with a hot, mad mother grizzly bear. The author Frederick Manfred described in his book Lord Grizzly how at...
I went for a ride recently using a variation of my typical routes. That alone isn’t a big deal. It is like throwing a dart at the board and deciding “today I’m riding the bowtie route (bowtie because it is wide at both ends and crosses in the middle. Call it a figure-eight if you like),” or I’ll start on the bowtie and take a left instead of a right. That is effectively what happened on this ride. I went on a route that is reasonably quiet, traffic was mostly a half-mile away across the grass...
It is generally easier and wiser to avoid hot topic issues. At the same time, my summer has been completely consumed by working with parents who are trying to decide what route of education they will utilize for their children given the pandemic. One of the encouragements I would give parents was, “The decision of if you are going to home educate your kids is 20 times harder than the actual process of home education. Once you make the decision, one way or the other, you will feel much better.” Y...
Perhaps you, like me, have seen or read with utter disbelief news reports in which a blatant and obvious lie is declared to be truth and fact. Maybe it was a reporter standing in front of burning buildings while touting the nobility of “mostly peaceful” protesters. Or perhaps it was a politician stating “hundreds” of unarmed people are gunned down in our streets each year because their skin is a certain color. Wherever we turn we see outrageous statements we’re told to agree with or suffer th...
We watched a movie this weekend that puts a different spin on education. It is a little bit off center as far as a recognized title. However, it is based on a true story. As the story goes, a 20-something graduates from college in about everything that can define privilege. He worked very little to get his degree. Fast food is something he could have driven by in his 318i on the way to the Club. He could have had weekly manicures and pedicures, complaining he has to wait for his appointments....
Somewhere between screams of “ORANGE MAN BAD!” and prolonged shouts of “TRUUMMMMP!” in the national social discourse we find legitimate news stories that, had they occurred in a less politically charged times, might have occupied front pages of newspapers across the U.S., perhaps even the world. Let’s catch you up on news real journalists would have made certain you knew about. Pentagon creates UFO task force to see if aerial objects pose threat. Failure of newspapers to slap this headline...
Despite a constant push by big marijuana to promote marijuana legalization so that it can cash in on new markets, Nebraska has wisely rejected the lobbying of drug advocates. The $13.6 billion marijuana industry’s latest efforts have tried to rebrand the drug as a medical tool—even though it’s not approved for medical use. In reality, there is no difference in the chemical composition or potency of recreational marijuana and so-called “medical marijuana.” The same products are being sold unde...
In 1962, the historian Barbara Tuchman published her work, The Guns of August. In it, she described the thirty days in August of 1914, when Europe's governments prodded their countries into a Great War. Germany and Austria-Hungary vs. the Allies: France, Great Britain, Russian, and the U.S. One of Tuchman's book reviewers wrote, “The holocaust of August was the prelude to four bitter years of deadlocked war that cost a generation of European lives.” Indeed, the Great War was horrific, and cau...
While no one knows precisely how many Americans own guns, the figure that is most consistent in surveys is 30 percent. The number is likely higher because there are citizens such as myself who choose not to discuss personal armaments, or lack thereof, with people we don’t know. So let’s say a third of Americans, or roughly 110 million, own guns. The Small Arms Survey produced a study in 2018 that concluded Americans own more than 40 percent of the estimated one billion small arms in civ...
