Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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Over the years of writing I have learned a lot, but learning is never ending. When I started this “What it Takes” series, I was just eight years old. In the past two and a half years, I have learned a lot about writing. For example, when I started, it took me a long time to sort through notes and write a meaningful article. Now I can do it very easily (as long as I do not procrastinate too much). The hardest part about being a writer is managing the time and energy needed to bring a piece tog...
At the behest of Jamestown area legislators, a grand plan for a $60 million amusement park has been proposed to the legislature with a direct appropriation of $5 million and a $60 million loan from the oil-rich Legacy Fund, now brimming with $8 billion. Developing a huge recreation area in Jamestown should not bother us. In fact, it could be a big plus for the state. The $5 million appropriation is not big enough to be worrisome. The $60 million loan from the Legacy fund is a step out of the...
Tree huggers, are you contemplating a Zoom meeting with Mr. Elm instead? Yes, this is dedicated to the millions of you who share my susceptibility to seasonal allergies. (Seasonal allergies? Yes, "When is allergy season?" is a popular Google question. I don't mean to be ungrateful for fleeting symptom interruptions around Christmas; but that question is as pollyannaish as asking "When is double-chin season?" or "When is robocall season?") Hopefully, this column will also have a little something...
The cost of construction materials has gone through the roof – if you can still afford a roof, which isn’t very affordable right now. All I wanted to do was build a modest roof over my modest deck at my modest house. But a year of government pandemic policies, and the law of unintended consequences, have foiled my little dream by driving up the price of lumber. According to Fortune, the costs of items like plywood and 2x4s increased 193 percent since last spring 2020 and are not done spi...
Disregard the policy, the law school lecture language, the obfuscation, and don’t be misled by the bureaucratic psychobabble. President Joe Biden’s executive order, the creation of a commission to study the U.S. Supreme Court is about one thing – court packing, expanding the nine-member court by an as yet undetermined number, whose only qualification will be a pledge to carry out the Democratic Party’s left wing agenda. The order is another in the administration’s inch by excruciating inch leftward, attempt to mollify the party’s vocal progr...
You can’t escape politics anywhere now – not even in America’s once great pastime, baseball. A “pastime,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably.” Boy, did the Pittsburgh Pirates accomplish that for me most of my early life. Pirates radio broadcasts on KDKA were background music throughout Western Pennsylvania, when I grew up in the ‘70s, and baseball was weaved happily and deeply into the fabric our young lives. In the summe...
I read the Fact Sheet for the American Jobs Plan recently released by the White House and found it difficult not to feel depressed by the approach. As advertised, it is bold, but when it comes to spending on infrastructure that boldness lies in its size, not its vision. It reflects the Washington consensus that more roads with more lanes are good, that when we fix bridges we should also expand them, that transit investments should primarily serve auto-based development patterns, and that simply...
Every year in April, the nation celebrates the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act. The law was enacted only seven days after Martin Luther King was assassinated, and it remains one of his most important legacies. For 53 years, the nation has worked to reverse the harmful effects of purposeful segregation in our neighborhoods and strengthen our communities so all Americans can live free from illegal housing discrimination. That work continues in North Dakota today. Last year, when Fair Housing Month began we had just entered a worldwide...
I am so glad the whole white supremacy and gun nut narrative is over, so we can get back to the one about voter suppression. Those horrific shootings, late last month, diverted our attention away from what President Joe Biden has called "Jim Crow on steroids," namely the recent controversial voting reform legislation passed in Georgia and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp. Anyone who has actually read the almost 100 pages of the Georgia law would know that it is not an attempt to keep Black voters from...
After one week in first grade, my daughter came home with a conclusion about life: “Life is hard and then you die.” Fast forward that through job losses, divorces, chronic ailments and kids for 60 years and we are on the cusp of old age. She was right. We have survived the hard life; now the bitter facts of old age are upon us. It would be best to be hit by a truck, but that is not our good fortune. Leaving must be painful. Looking on the bright side of a 20-year decline on the way out, we sho...
Five years ago, I nearly lost my life to leukemia because I couldn’t afford my medication. Even though my doctors warned me the cancer would return if I didn’t take the medicine, I did not fill my prescription, because I couldn’t afford the $2,400 a month co-pay. Luckily, I found the same medicine at a more affordable cost of $680 a month through a Canadian pharmacy. My story is shockingly common. Surveys have found that one in three adults did not take a medication as prescribed, because of the price. There have been several high profi...
Tom Wolf, lame-duck governor of Pennsylvania, announced on Twitter that he wanted the commonwealth to legalize pot. His comment was hailed as timely, necessary and courageous by many of his lame-duck followers on social media. There is a huge constituency in Pennsylvania, and nationally, for ending what some call a prohibition, and others view as a common-sense limitation on recreational marijuana. It is important to note that, neither Wolf nor I, are referring to medical cannabis, which has...
In its current form, the U.S. Senate’s delaying tactic called the "filibuster" hangs on a rule requiring 60 votes for "cloture." Simply put, it takes 51 Senators to pass a bill, but before that, it takes the consent of 60 Senators to end debate and actually get to a final majority vote. Each time control of the U.S. Senate changes hands, the new majority party publicly mulls doing away with the filibuster in the name of democracy, while the new minority party staunchly defends the filibuster in the name of minority rights to force due d...
After 10 years of waiting for the courage to tackle spending the $8 billion Legacy Fund, the present legislature has blossomed with more ideas than dandelions in an unkempt cemetery. Legislators and committees have been dreaming about the day this fund could be touched to grow North Dakota. It seems that day has arrived. The dialogue went public in January, when Insurance Commissioner Jon Godfread started talking about using the fund for investing. Not to be outdone by a member of the executive...
Holidays are a big deal at my house. While raising our three daughters, my wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed Halloween costumes, visits from the Easter Bunny, and Valentine's Day parties - and we even let the kids join in most of the time. Seriously, though, now that our girls are teenagers, some of the holiday magic might be slightly diminished, but we still try our best to get them excited about celebrating, usually by involving cash. I think I inherited my enthusiasm for holidays from my...
I need someone to tell me what’s happening. Not a tinted version of events, but what’s really happening. I make the request because mainstream (if there is such a thing) news outlets seem to fundamentally disagree about what’s important. On Sunday morning, the top story on the Fox News website, complete with video, was rioting in west coast cities on the anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s death - a dozen or so arrests, vandalism, clashes with police. Sounded like a pretty big deal. In the interest of balance, (if there is such a thing), I went to...
I’m pretty open about my pro-life views. I want abortion criminalized, banned and recognized as an act of inhumanity. I agree with Mother Theresa that “abortion has become the greatest destroyer of peace, because it destroys two lives; the life of the child, and the conscience of the mother.” I am also a Catholic, and I am quite proud of the fact that my church is the most vocal, most unapologetically pro-life among the three, great, monotheistic traditions. I know that there are some Catho...
In one of my earliest memories I was sharing a page of my writing with my mother. It was nothing more than a piece of newsprint with a smattering of l's and o's, but she told me to keep it up. Little did I know that 35 years later I'd be a small town journalist working amid a pandemic. The road to becoming a writer is strange. For me it began with an innate interest in hearing other people's stories paired with the desire to imbue those stories with life by placing them on the page. As a child I...
The daily Southwest border updates are generating nationwide concern, except in Washington, D.C., where indifference reigns. The latest Department of Homeland Security report showed that in February, more than 100,000 people were either apprehended by, or surrendered to, federal immigration officials on the U.S.-Mexico border. Those totals, a 14-year high, include about 9,460 unaccompanied minors, and more than 19,240 family units, which reflect 62% and 38% increases, respectively, when...
Is the world finally coming to grips with the wrongs I endured as a child growing up in the 1970s? I came of age before 24-hour cable news channels sensationalized childhood abductions and made every parent in America terrified that their kid was likely to become the next victim. We '70s kids were in constant physical danger– real danger. We built wood ramps that we jumped our Spyder bikes off of– without any thought of a helmet or elbow pads. We roamed freely anywhere we wanted all day lon...
Nearly halfway through the 67th legislative session, Democratic-NPL lawmakers continue to fight for policies that support North Dakotans and their families. We have had many successes and a few missed opportunities so far this session, and we remain committed to strengthening communities and families, ensuring strong public services and building a vibrant and diverse economy. The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on our economy, with many losing their jobs and some businesses closing their doors. Stores and restaurants found new ways to serve...
Since 1987, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has celebrated Women’s History Month to recognize the role women entrepreneurs have in building and strengthening our local and national economies. Women have transformed the face of entrepreneurship across America in both urban and rural communities. This is especially true while our nation confronts the the COVID 19 pandemic. Women entrepreneurs continue to play a greater role in creating new jobs and economic activity across the country. According to the National Association of Women B...
On March 2 -- the late Theodor Seuss Geisel's 117th birthday -- Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced that, some time last year, it ceased publishing/licensing six of the popular author's children's books which "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong." Cue woke approval, deplorable outrage, investor interest, and low-information reader fear, all of which are good for business. As I write this on March 9, Dr. Seuss titles constitute ten of Amazon's top 25 "Best Sellers in Children's Books." On eBay, sellers have copies of And to Think I...
Get this: A study by McGill University has found that more money does not necessarily make people in low-income countries happier. I like more money as much as the next guy, but that does not surprise me. People in developing countries like Bangladesh may not have high incomes and own lots of nice material things, but they do have an abundance of two key sources of happiness: More contact with family and nature. McGill’s study backs me up. Sara Minarro, the lead author, says in Futurity.org t...
I was once fired by an employer because they did not like the way that I tweeted. They had no problem with the way that other people at this same enterprise tweeted, they just didn't like my own flavor of rhetorical panache. They never actually came out and said it was the subject matter of my tweeting, or my style, that got me a date with the guillotine. They simply said we told you to stop tweeting, you wouldn't, and so we are letting you go. I'm always fascinated when somebody else gets into...
