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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As I write this, it is Election Day in the nation’s second largest city. Ho hum. Worry not. It’s not as if it were the Oscars or the Golden Globes, or even the Writers Guild Award (the punch line of every joke about dumb blondes in this town is that they made the mistake of sleeping with the writer). Believe me, there are no traffic jams. Nothing has been preempted. No, this is just an election for Los Angeles mayor, school board, city council and a decision about whether to raise the sales tax to 9.5 percent. Just that. And no one is pay...
“He who knows others is wise; He who knows himself is enlightened” ~ Loa Tzu. It is an interesting thing to understand and truly know who you are, but many people go their whole life not really knowing who they are. I say this because despite people saying the words, ‘you can only find happiness in yourself and not in someone else,’ the actual practice of this is hardly ever there – even in the speaker of these words. I would venture to say that is where the saying of practicing what one preaches comes into play. When I was first diagnosed...
Ariana Abayomi was sound asleep in her dorm room at Oberlin College in Ohio, when a fellow resident adviser awakened her in the middle of the night. Groggy with sleep, Abayomi struggled at first to comprehend what she was hearing. Someone in a Ku Klux Klan robe and hood ... spotted on campus ... right outside ... emergency meeting in the lounge. “I was standing there thinking, ‘KKK?’” she said. “’At Oberlin ?’” Twelve hours later, it was still her question. Repeatedly, she apologized for stumbling over her words during our interview. “I’m...
Last week, automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts known as sequestration took effect, which will trim $85 billion from federal accounts over the next seven months, and about $1.2 trillion over the next decade. These cuts, originally proposed by the White House, total the same amount the federal government borrows every 28 days to help feed its $3.5 trillion annual spending appetite. That’s less than three percent from a budget that has grown nearly 20 percent since 2008. The White House continues to concoct scare tactics, warning t...
There are two major parties in the United States: the party that wishes to govern and the party that wants only to campaign. It’s to their credit that Republicans are obsessed with getting the government to address its unconscionable and unmanageable debt, freeing up the productive private sector to create economic growth and maintaining the nation’s military preeminence. But there’s something almost pathetic about the way leading Republicans complain that the president doesn’t negotiate in good faith. Of course he doesn’t. He’s not interes...
I know some might think a phrase like “Think of the little things because they far out way the big things in life,” is overused in our day and age. I tend to disagree with them. Although I am not here to emphasis that I understand this saying better than anyone else, I like to think that this way of life is something that I practice everyday. Leo F. Buscaglia once said, “I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.” In high school and college I was the only girl at s... Full story
The so-called “sequester” is the latest showdown to grip the attention of Washington and the nation. The House of Representatives voted twice to replace these arbitrary cuts before the March 1 deadline with commonsense reductions and reforms. However, these cuts are now in effect because the President and the Senate have yet to propose and pass a viable alternative. The sequester was passed as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which raised the debt limit in exchange for $900 billion in spending reductions. The bill also created a bip...
Water is Nebraska’s most precious natural resource and during the last few years we have experienced both extreme flooding and prolonged drought. I would like to share with you the work of the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources and their dedication to the sustainable use and proper management of our water and related land resources. The Department’s staff of over 100 is directed by Brian Dunnigan and has major responsibilities for regulating the use of the waters of our streams (also referred to as surface water administration), dir...
Remember the 1950s horror movie “The Bad Seed”? Any remake should cast Monsanto in the title role, because whenever something scary is being done to our food, you can usually find Monsanto lurking in the shadows. During the past two decades, this biotech behemoth has used its political connections to obtain a monopolistic grip on the creation, sale and proliferation of Frankenseeds — the seeds of corn, cotton, soybeans and other crops that have had genetically modified organisms spliced into their natural DNA structure by corporate lab techs...
When my six-year-old daughter Catherine is acting up, all I have to say is “Knock it off, or Daddy’s gonna make pasta!” She actually likes pasta. (Other than peanut butter and jelly or bologna and cheese, it’s the only food she will eat.) It’s my making it that scares her. It started a few months ago, when we ordered a new pasta maker. We’ve had them in the past, mostly ordered off of Saturday infomercials, but they have always burned out after a couple of months. This time, my wife ordered a brand of pasta maker from Italy at the recommendat...
Inside the Beltway, everybody’s talking about sequestration — and not only about whether it will happen (various supposed “high-level” sources say they are not optimistic that it will be avoided) and what it will mean, but also — it being the Beltway — which side of the aisle will pay the price. The president is running a campaign to convince people that the results will be dire, that they should be avoided in favor of a sensible mix of spending cuts and revenue increases, and that the Republicans’ insistence that all of the savings come from c...
When I accepted the assignment of writing a column I had no idea it would become as important to me as it has, because when I began this column I told myself I would not make this a frivolous blurb about nothingness. Though I have to admit I have had a few that I feel are just that, frivolous blurbs of nothingness. I can honestly say that was due to avoiding columns like the next few I will have, because I had to figure out how to say what I needed to in order to help someone else. I want to help by letting you (my reader) know you’re not a...
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is abolishing the company’s work-at-home policy and ordering everyone to show up at the office. Her decision has sparked intense and often nasty debate, with Mayer usually landing on the losing end. Many women, in particular, sound betrayed after daring to expect more from such a high-profile female boss. How could she? I understand the special brand of heartbreak brought on by women who end up acting like the male jerks they replaced. Dashed hopes sure pack a wallop. However, I don’t feel this way about Mayer. This is...
Bill Clinton, when campaigning for President in the autumn of 1992, visited workers at an electric utility plant outside Waco, Texas. He may or may not have know that he drove past a religious compound called Mount Carmel, originally built by the Branch Davidians but controlled at that time by another Seventh-Day Adventist splinter group led by Vernon Wayne Howell, aka David Koresh. So immersed in apocalyptic literature were Koresh’s followers that they were armed and ready for Clinton, but h...
“People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses” —Juvenal Isn’t it grand that we have such a cool couple in the White House? Hollywood would never have deigned to invite any other First Lady to present the award for best picture at its annual self-worshipping soporific. Mrs. Obama knew just how to flatter the nearly inexhaustible vanity of people who sell tickets to shows. “I am so honored to ... help celebrate t...
We all have those little things in life that we dread but have to put up with anyways. I asked my dad what I should write about this week and he answered simply, “dentist visits.” I inquired as to whether he had had one that day and he replied that he hadn’t but that he just hated them. He then continued, “we all have those things in life that we despise, but those little things are also what balance us.” I agreed with him. I think knowing that life isn’t always perfect oralways happy is good for us in a way. We live for the moments that are go... Full story
The founders of our American Republic deliberately designed a federal government with three separate but equal branches; the legislative branch to pass laws, the executive branch to enforce laws, and the judicial branch to interpret and review laws. Through a system of checks and balances, the founders sought to prevent any one branch of government from having too much power. During the past several decades, however, Congresses and administrations from both parties have expanded the power and scope of the executive branch at the expense of the...
These past 30 years have been marked by many blessings for Stephanie and me. Being granted the tremendous privilege to represent a state I love and address issues important to Nebraskans has been one of the greatest honors of my life. As the seasons change, there is a time to plant and a time to reap what has been sown. And while I have decided not to seek reelection in 2014, we are far from the harvest. This Congress is just getting started and we have plenty to accomplish in the next two years. In the Senate, I will continue to push for a...
This past Sunday, I paged through the Real Estate section of the paper to see if we could find a home closer to my children’s orthodontist. Most people look for an easy commute to work or want to be near good schools. The way things have been going lately, most of our time (and money) seems to be spent in trying to keep our kids from growing up to look like hillbillies or the British royal family. I have five kids, all of whom have big beautiful teeth and small cramped jaws and will need some form of orthodontia (Latin for “torture of the mou...
“In the wealthiest nation on earth,” President Obama declared in his State of the Union speech, “no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty.” Right! Way to go! Not only does his call to raise America’s minimum wage put some real pop in populism, but it could finally start putting some ethics back in our country’s much-celebrated (but rarely honored) “work ethic.” Kudos to Obama for putting good economics and good morals together — and for putting this long overdue increase on the front burner. But then came the number: $9 an hou...
Back in 1985, after being trounced in the general election, Washington strategist Al From and a group of Democratic elected officials founded the Democratic Leadership Council. Its stated purpose was to move the Democratic Party to the middle — particularly to deal with the influence of the ideologues and caucuses (and there were many of them) who dominated the presidential nominating process. Co-founders included then Gov. Bill Clinton, Sen. Sam Nunn and Rep. Dick Gephardt, among others. It was not popular with everyone, including yours t...
First impressions have been on my mind a lot lately, and how much stock most people put into them, more often than not leaving people with a misplaced judgment, because first impressions can be just as misleading as they can be telling. Most people use a first impression to decide what they think about another, often building their future thoughts on the ‘taste’ that person left in their mouth. Whether it be in the way a person talks, their attitude, the way they dress or how they act most people will form and use that first impression as a b...
Dads matter. President Barack Obama said it recently in Chicago, a city on track for 600 murders this year, the equivalent of two Sandy Hooks per month. Too bad he still does not understand that his left-wing ideology is the problem. After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Obama, much of his party and much of the media have been calling for further gun control and advocating “common sense” measures such as limiting the number of rounds in a magazine, “universal” background checks and restrictions on “assault weapons.” But there is an 800-pound p...
Some of the strongest women I know are Catholics who disagree with their church but refuse to give up on it. There are the nuns, of course, including Sister Simone Campbell. I met her and her merry bus of truth tellers last year after they rolled into Cleveland during their four-day, nine-state tour to educate Americans about the real Paul Ryan plan. The Republican congressman may have held his own in the vice presidential debate with Joe Biden, but he was no match for Campbell. Her fact-laden fight for those living in poverty left Ryan’s s...
We all come from somewhere, whether it is a small town, a major city or another country. Where you come from can determine your values and what’s important to you, but it doesn’t define you. Some people may think that if you come from a small town out in the country that you are a “hick” and not as educated as those that come from a metropolitan area. Just as those from the country may see city kids as “stuck-ups.” I remember this one time my high school soccer team was playing Montesano, a town about 45 minutes from Rochester. It had been a ni... Full story
