Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Sorted by date Results 1047 - 1071 of 2507
As most of you did, I’m sure, I bought some Powerball tickets this week. Three, to be exact. I picked the numbers myself. For those of you living in a cave, the jackpot prize for the Powerball lottery drawing to be held Wednesday evening has grown to about $1.4 billion (that’s “billion,” with a “b”). So how could I not? But this is the first time I’ve bought a lottery ticket in at least 20 years. I blame college. I earned a degree many years ago in economics, and in the process I took a lot of statistics classes. Without doubt, the knowledge...
The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a 187,757-acre haven for greater sandhill cranes and other native birds in eastern Oregon, is usually a pretty peaceful place. But its calm was shattered Jan. 2 when Ammon Bundy and a group of armed men broke into and occupied a number of federal buildings on the refuge, vowing to fight should the government try to arrest them. Their insurrectionary goal appears to be, simply put, to destroy the national system of public lands - our forests, parks and refuges - that was developed in the late 19th century...
Dear Editor, The registered voters of Columbia County will be receiving a ballot in the mail soon. The Dayton School District has two issues on the ballot- a replacement Maintenance and Operations Levy and a Capital Projects Levy (which replaces the previous technology levy plus adds additional funds for needed facility and ground repairs). No matter where we were born or where we went to school, the future of our youth in Columbia County is important. I was not born near Dayton, did not attend Dayton schools and I have only lived in Dayton...
After two days huddled in the house under layers of blankets (except for a few trips out to split firewood), I trudged out through the snow Sunday morning to start the car. Nothing. Dead Battery. It was 12 degrees. I tried to jump start it with our other car. Nothing doing. I went into the shop, which also read 12 degrees, and got out the battery charger and a long extension cord. My hands were nearly numb when I decided to put on some gloves. I got a wrench and went out to disconnect the battery cable – I had to take the gloves back off to do...
By Alexandra Petri, The Washington Post I was going to write a wrap-up of the year, but thanks to all the election coverage I had been laboring under the misapprehension that it was 2016 and had been so all year, and the news that there were still eleven months of campaign to go - and 10 MORE primary debates - nearly broke me. Still, now that I have my bearings, I refuse to accept the general valuation that 2015 was an unmitigatedly terrible year. Some good things happened. Adele released the massively successful album “25” after her ini...
By Sarah Poggi, Special to the Washington Post The narrator asked: “Are you going to be a victim or a survivor- protector”? I am an obstetrician, and I was taking my annual online course on “workplace violence.” My favorite part is the instructions on how to “fight” a gunman if one shows up at my office: I am advised to throw a cup of coffee at them. But in our “infection control” course, I learned I couldn’t have any food or drink in the hospital. As a backup, it was suggested that I could hurl a stapler. I use a paperless records system, b...
Dear Editor, I support the REPLACEMENT M & O Levy AND the Capital Projects & REPLACEMENT Technology Levy, and I urge the voters of Dayton School District to support them as well. My support is based on facts, and continuing to do what is best for all students in our district. Below are the facts and reasons to help clarify my support, and why we need you to support these levies: A YES vote for both levies will only increase your school tax value (currently 11¢/$1,000 in 2015) by 50¢ the first collection year, and by an estimated 52¢ the se...
Dear Editor, It’s time to step up to the plate again and VOTE. Approximately 25 percent of funds to provide a quality education come from us, local taxpayers. No district can survive without local support. The proposed Maintenance and Operations Levy and Technology and Capital Projects Levy amounts keep our tax rates low, in fact lower than in 2013, and substantially lower than surrounding area school districts. For example, Waitsburg’s M & O levy rate is nearly 50 percent higher than our 2014 rate. We need to direct M & O funds to the district...
Dear Editor, In 1986 I was hired as a para-educator for Dayton School District. I have had the privilege of working as a Para-Educator, Librarian and currently as the Elementary Secretary. I have been given the blessing of knowing thousands of students over the years, and have had the opportunity to work with a wonderful staff. I am writing this letter because in February citizens will have the opportunity to vote on a Maintenance and Operations replacement levy that will be on the ballot. I would like to encourage the Columbia County voters...
Welcome to the 53rd issue of The Times in 2015. Yes, this year, the first and last day of the year both fall on a Thursday, which is The Times’ publication day. So I guess you can consider this your “Bonus Issue.” As I look forward to the coming year, I’ve been thinking about the many important things I plan to accomplish in 2016. These include: Getting my hair cut ten times Changing the oil in my car three (or maybe four) times Taking about 350 showers (okay, sometimes I skip a day on the weekend) Enjoying at least 1,000 cups of coffee...
Dear Editor, In late January registered voters in the Dayton School District will be asked to determine the fate of two school levy measures, a replacement Maintenance and Operations Levy and a Capital Project levy. Both measures are worthy of your support. The M&O levy provides 25% of the District’s budgeted revenue. This funding provides financial support necessary for operational cost and general maintenance and repair tasks. Local dollars support small class sizes and academic support in K-12 classrooms, college prep curriculum and c...
By Noah Feldman, Bloomberg View 2015 was supposed to be the year President Barack Obama would use unilateral executive action to accomplish major goals of his administration that had been blocked by Congress: relaxing deportations, closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and restricting access to guns. But all three goals stalled. Obama’s executive action on immigration, announced in November 2014, was stymied in the federal courts, and the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether to hear the administration’s appeal. An executive plan to...
This week, as a Christmas present to myself, I’m going to let the nineteenth century poet and author, Clement Clark Moore present his most famous work in this space. As Santa would say, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good 2016.” A Visit from St. Nicholas By Clement Clark Moore ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While v...
By Chris Cillizza, The Washington Post This year has been the weirdest, most watchable and most difficult to predict in my two decades of covering politics. Because this is my last column of 2015, I thought I would list the five biggest lessons this year in politics has taught me. 1. Donald Trump is here to stay: Back in June, I wrote a piece on The Fix arguing that Trump couldn’t be a serious presidential candidate because every Republican knew him and two thirds didn’t like him. Somehow - and I am still not totally sure how - Trump cha...
When someone calls me “Scrooge” or “The Grinch,” I usually take it as a compliment. What’s up with the two-month long celebration, I ask them. I mean, we don’t celebrate the Fourth of July in May. I often think that if I were president (God forbid!), I would outlaw Christmas decorations and Christmas music until at least the 20th of December, if not a day or two later. Retail stores found guilty of holding Christmas sales before about mid-December would be subject to a special holiday abuse tax, proceeds from which would be used to enforce my n...
By Jonathan Bernstein, Bloomberg View Speculation over a contested convention -- when no candidate enters with the majority needed for nomination -- has picked up steam again. The Washington Post’s Robert Costa reported last week that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus met with senior Republicans about procedures, should an open convention develop. Smart analysts are on board: Sean Trende at RealClearPolitics believes the “most likely scenario is still that no one wins a sufficient number of delegates to claim the nom...
By Kalev Leetaru Special To The Washington Post Just over a month ago, I wrote about how Donald Trump seemed to have lost his media mojo. At the time, television news coverage of his campaign had plateaued for more than six weeks, falling to either equal or below that of his GOP rivals. But now he seems to have recovered from that lull. In fact, on Dec. 9, he reached a new record for the 2016 presidential race, accounting for 76 percent of all mentions of candidates of either party on national television news networks and 82 percent of...
“Hyperlocal” has become a popular term to describe the kind of news that newspapers like The Times present to our readers. Here’s a definition of the word from Wikipeda: Hyperlocal connotes information oriented around a well-defined community with its primary focus directed toward the concerns of the population in that community. The term can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term (e.g. news). The “well-defined community” that The Times serves is actually a group of communities we call the Touchet Valley. We take gre...
I jab at the majority Republicans in Congress when they don’t do their job, so I should give them credit when they do. A five-year highway bill has been sent to the president. That’s something Republican Congresses since the 1990s (and the Democratic ones in 2007-2010) have found difficult to do. Bloomberg View columnist Barry Ritholtz makes a reasonable argument against the way the bill is funded, but I agree with Kevin Drum of Mother Jones on this one: Muddling through is good enough. Up next is an education bill. Legislators have had rev...
