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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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...
We recently celebrated a nephew’s wedding. It required travel to a metro area, more than many COVID restrictions encourage. Fortunately, most everything I was led to believe about the weekend was in error. The experience reminded me of a another place and time when tunnel vision missed the real event of the night. Years ago in a different part of the region, I had a discussion with an editor about a previous reporter who was on his way to a high school sports game. He was late for the game b...
The Nebraska Legislature has now adjourned for the year. I have now completed my fourth session in the Legislature. This was the first time since I have been elected that we completed the full session. In previous years we adjourned three or four days early. Perhaps we should have adjourned early again this year as well, except for the passage of the bill to ban dismemberment abortions. That bill passed on the last day of the session. Concerning dismemberment abortion, I can’t believe anyone w...
As a child my family and I would make an annual trek to Las Vegas to visit my grandparents. My Grandma Dorothy was a really, really tough woman. Her husband died at the young age of 45 of a heart attack, leaving her to raise five children by herself. )She smoked, drank, ate with her feet on the table, ran a daycare out of her home (clearly there were less regulations at this time) and was one of my very favorite people in the whole world. A couple of the boys in the daycare were actually my...
The Sidney Housing Authority wants to thank everyone for their support as resident concerns at Western Heritage are evaluated. Both the Board of Commissioners and the management have always been responsive to the resident concerns. The Western Heritage administration is pleased to find the root cause of the plumbing issue at Western Heritage in several adjoining apartments and worked diligently with our contractors and staff to resolve the issue. The Western Heritage administration also wants to set the record straight for those who might have...
America is at war. It has been for some time. But now the conflict has spilled into the streets. Shots have been fired. Blows have been exchanged. And we’re witnessing a fascinating blend of political subversion and terrorism with technology and media. The battle between collectivist and individualist philosophies has gone hot in America. America was founded on the grand idea that people could govern themselves, provided a loose framework of authority was established to codify the boundaries o...
I remember some of the shows from my early years. They were odd, challenging and mysterious all at the same time. They were mysterious because even at that time, “the latest in polyester and spandex” didn’t add up to a new planet or an unexplored world. One tear walking through a sticker patch and you can almost hear the rest of your shirt tear. Some of the favorites, well, the fantasy I suppose, were of heroes, the testosterone-rich get-it-done and take-no-prisoners type of movies that proba...
We are now in the home stretch in the Legislative Session with only 3 days remaining to complete the 60 days requirement. Last week there was a compromise bill brought to the floor (LB 1107) that dealt with property tax relief, tax incentives for businesses, and a $300 million contribution to a new hospital for the University of Nebraska Medical Center. This bill has been promoted as the Great Compromise. The bill combines three pieces of legislation, regardless of previous opposition to each...
"If you want to see evil, evil is all you will see." Many years ago now, I was driving what was then a rural section between two cities in Colorado. The sun was just beginning to set and the colors that would be absolutely soothing in the backyard with a glass of iced tea caused a little doubt when driving and still comfortable with some light-colored sunglasses. The wake-up call occurred when I realized the "yellow line" was actually white, discolored by the glasses I was wearing, and what...
Did you see it? It didn’t last very long. But on Sunday afternoon, just before 1 pm Mountain Time, an American spacecraft with two American astronauts on board descended from the sky over a calm Gulf of Mexico and executed a picture-perfect splashdown, the first in 45 years. Though exhilarating in and of itself, the icing on the cake came when seconds after a successful water landing a voice from the Space X control center welcomed the astronauts back to planet Earth and then said, “Thank you...
Certain individuals desire a headstrong official to govern. They submit to that man or woman who claims all power belongs to him or herself. They follow. They obey. They do what they are told. They cease thinking for themselves. They refuse to contradict. They discard their own thoughts. They appreciate a monarch’s talent for quick far-reaching decisions. Politicians call this right-of-center government “authoritarianism.” Other individuals want a democracy, a republic, a sharing of power...
Dear Editor, Your article in the July 29, 2020 Sidney Telegraph, made me smile “SRMC Conducting a Community Health NEEDS ASSESSMENT.” My friends and I have contacted some of the board members of SRMC about the needs we think are VERY important to this comunity. Home Health and Hospice! Their answer was the same: “money.” With the amount of money spent on the new walk-in office, I think better use would have been, to meet the nededs of the large population of older citizens and those with health concerns. I have contacted Regional West in Scot...
Sometimes I wish there could be a way to record quick thoughts from a radio broadcast. The problem or challenge is that I heard this particular comment while driving. I’m pretty sure the only thing more distracting than talking on a phone while driving is trying to take notes while driving. So to paraphrase, in this coronavirus reaction, never forget the importance of social connectivity. Social connectivity, or being socially connected. The difference is between seeing someone familiar a...
It was reported last week that filings to homeschool are up 21 percent in the state of Nebraska. It's a trend seen nationwide. And, according to an April study released by EdChoice, a national organization that advocates for state-based school choice programs, 52 percent of Americans now have a favorable view of homeschooling. The Covid-19 virus shutting down schools last spring compelled many families to homeschool. Some hated it. But others discovered it can be rewarding, may bring families...
On Saturday night, October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon instructed Attorney General, Elliot Richards, to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Elliot Richards though refused to comply with Nixon's command, and instead he resigned. Nixon then instructed Deputy Attorney General, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox, but Ruckelshaus also refused to obey, and he resigned. Nixon then ordered Robert Bork, Solicitor General and the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, to...
My cowboy and I are about to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary. In the scheme of anniversaries it seems somewhat insignificant. We seem to get excited about those divisors of 5 – 15th, 20th, 25th, 50th, etc., but 17 is a prime number with no great value. Or at least it seems like that should be true. The reality is that I have enjoyed my cowboy for 17 years of marriage. As we were discussing anniversary plans I looked at him and said, “I still like you.” A smile spread across his face...
Several years ago, I read through a proposal that brought together a strange unity of “The Jetsons” and the latest “save the animal of the month” club. There was a report released of meat, a hamburger patty as an example, made entirely in a lab. Scientists glowed with the excitement of having what was biologically, chemically, a beef patty. What it lacked was the rancher walking the field, immunizing the herd, the 4-H teens growing up with more than dust on their boots and not blinking an eye to...
The fight between collectivists and individualists continues to be manifested by those calling for and opposing “one size fits all” approaches in fighting the coronavirus. We see it in calls for national and statewide mandates to wear masks and demands that schools reopen or remain closed this fall. The idea that people in Washington, D.C. or Lincoln can dictate policy to people in a county hundreds of miles away flies in the face of individualism. This is especially true in matters such as an e...
