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 234 - 258 of 368
There is something about helping others that I find addicting. Though I am sure there has to be some kind of way that someone could solely support themselves and their family by helping other people everyday, I have not found that career path yet. It’s extremely hard for me to see someone in need and not do something to help them - whether it be emotional, physical or monetary pain they are going through. They say one person can change the world, and looking at past powerful figures, good and bad, this appears to be true time and time again. B... Full story
During the week of March 17-23 people all over the nation will celebrate National Agriculture Week. I would like to remind all Nebraskans of this important week and encourage our citizens to take a moment to reflect on the importance of the agricultural industry in our state. Farming, ranching and related agribusiness activities are responsible for approximately a quarter of our state’s economic activity. Ninety-three percent of our state’s land is used for agricultural production, and Nebraska is one of the top states in the nation for interna...
Nebraska farmers are among the most efficient and productive in the world. Our producers have embraced new technologies and techniques to produce an abundance of crops, opening the door to increased trade and helping to feed the world. These advances have not only helped American agriculture thrive, but also play a critical role in meeting global food demands of the present and future. By 2050, the Earth’s population is expected to swell to more than nine billion people. To feed this growing population scientists believe we will need to produce...
The Republican National Committee is out with a 100-page analysis of how the party can revive its sagging fortunes. Doubtless many of the recommendations are good ones — more outreach to minority and women voters, better candidate recruitment, fewer debates during the primaries, openness to immigration reform, competing with Democrats in absentee and early voting and much more. Some of these things may help, or at least, as my grandmother would have said about chicken soup for a cold, they can’t hurt. Others sound a little desperate, such as...
In my haste to pack and get ready to move last month, I forgot to pause and reflect upon an anniversary that forever changed the way that I feel when I attend indoor events and concerts. On Feb. 20, 2003, I was living in Buzzards Bay, Mass. On this day, the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in United States history where 100 people died happened in West Warwick, R. I. only 60 miles from where I lived. For those of you who are not familiar with this, the band Great White was playing that night at The Station, a small concert hall/club/bar with no... Full story
Getting in to see your doctor on short notice can be a headache. But imagine being required to schedule an appointment before you can use your own money to buy Aspirin for a headache. Unfortunately, because of the new health care law, this is a reality for 33 million Americans who choose to budget for their health care expenses with a flexible spending account (FSA) or a health savings account (HSA). Families with these accounts are now prohibited from using their own money, set aside specifically to cover health-related expenses, to purchase...
The other day, I was out driving with my wife and daughters and the subject of British royalty came up. In my head, I teed up a funny anecdote about how, when I was 16, I literally bumped into the Queen of England. Long story, but she was a middle-aged monarch visiting the States, I was a brash teenager who didn’t respect barricades, and ... kismet. A long but good story. I turned to my wife and daughters and said, “ Did I ever tell you about the time ... “ Dead stares. My daughter rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell us how you met the que... Full story
As I stated in last week’s column, I have gone a period of time in which I found what it was to tap into the happiness we can only find within ourselves, true happiness, before my Mom became terminally ill. The combination between the people who entered my life and after years of running from it I armed myself with education about depression and the manic phases that follow. Yes, I had been told before it is important to know what each is and it is important to understand who I was so I could see the signs when either approached, but I was a...
Michael Vick was all set to do a book tour to promote himself as a new and improved role model when things got ugly. “Despite warnings of planned protests, Vick had hoped to continue with the appearances as planned, bringing his story of redemption and second chance to major markets,” his publisher, aptly named Worthy Publishing, said in a statement. “However, once the reported protests escalated into threats of violence against the retailers, Worthy Publishing, Vick and his family decided to cancel the events.” In case you’ve managed to miss t...
“It’s a sign,” exclaims a February Associated Press story — a sign that our economy is “healing.” “It signals that things are getting back to normal,” added a delighted market analyst. And a March 4 New York Times report heralded it as “a golden age.” The “it” they’re hailing is the Dow, that mystical force believed by faithful Dowists to be “The Way” — the provider of good fortune, often bestowing its magical beneficence by magical means. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the holy measure of corporate stock prices, and it is now smiling w...
When I look at my life now I am content with where I am at and content with where I have been. But one thing has been missing for a while is my random, always interesting impromptu adventures. This past weekend I jumped into my “mom-mobile,” as my friends in high school called it, and hit the road. I was just getting over the flu but my friends gave me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. In college I was known for hopping in the car and driving down to my relatives’ homes in California (an approximate 12-hour drive) or meeting up with some fr... Full story
Today is March 13, L. Ron Hubbard’s birthday, a day that Church of Scientology members on every continent observe. Born in 1911, Hubbard’s biography is an incredible story of erratic behavior, pathological lying, adultery, and estrangement from previous wives and children. You can read about Hubbard’s trail of deceit in a new book by Lawrence Wright, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, & the Prison of Belief. Hubbard was a prolific writer who wrote hundreds of books, mainly pulp fiction, adven...
Each morning, while the rest of the world is still fast asleep, ag producers across Nebraska are up, checking on their herds or preparing their equipment for a long day in the fields. Careers in farming or ranching offer few days off. Cattle still need to be fed on Christmas morning. Crops, ripe for harvest, don’t care about your vacation plans. A break from the fields on a rainy day is an opportunity to get caught up on equipment maintenance. And animals don’t need veterinarians only between 9 and 5. For 365 days a year, farmers toil with the...
If there’s one sure way to capture the attention of the usual suspects in the press, it’s to highlight the problems of women with high-powered careers, as billionaire Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has done. In her Ted talk three years ago and now in a book that has received lavish attention, Sandberg laments that women “are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story ... 190 heads of state — nine are women. Of all the people in parliaments in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corpora...
Many Americans, including myself, are often frustrated by the inability of Congress to get important legislation passed. Congress was unable to agree to a new long-term Farm Bill last year. The Senate has not passed a budget in nearly four years. And it seems like Congress and the President are locked in constant showdowns to avoid the latest ceiling, cliff, or shutdown. Some would point to divided government as the cause of the current dysfunction. However, divided government does not have to result in gridlock. During the 1980’s, President R...
The Nebraska Legislature recently held a public hearing on LB 577, a bill to bring President Obama’s massive unfunded Medicaid expansion to Nebraska. To no one’s surprise, liberal advocacy groups have voiced support for the optional expansion, but ultimately it would be at the expense of our state priorities, including education. What you don’t hear from them is a discussion about the enormous and unsustainable costs of this expansion and who’s going to pay for it. Today, I’d like to share information with you about the burden that would be pla...
My journey to Nebraska was filled with changing landscapes and exhaustion as I drove half-way across the county. I drove through the mountains of Georgia and Tennessee, the hills of Kentucky and the flatter land of Indiana and Illinois. I stopped in Illinois to visit a friend and to get some much-needed rest. After packing and storing most of my stuff for days, I was tired. I enjoyed the visit, and the sleep, but after only 12 hours off the road, it was time to move on. The flats and hills of Iowa greeted me soon. The windfarms that were scatte... Full story
It all started with a picture taken at the hospital shortly after the birth of our twin girls. Livvy and Catherine were a Caesarean birth, and as I was in the delivery room, I had to be outfitted in full surgeon regalia: scrubs, hat and mask. Afterward, one of the nurses asked if I’d like a picture with my two new daughters, and I agreed, sitting in a rocking chair with a tiny twin in each hand. The picture sits on the mantelpiece of the girls’ room. They never noticed it until one night when I had to convince one of them at bedtime to tak...
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...
