MEEKER | There ought to be a law. Ever hear someone mutter that phrase when they are frustrated or angry? Lately it might have been used in regards to recent decisions and actions taken by the County Commissioners. There are a couple of legislative mandates addressing the lack of openness[Read More…]
Columns
Editor’s Column: A Sad Milestone
The United States marked a sad milestone this week: 500,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19. You can argue about the numbers. You can insist that the doctors who are treating those patients are fudging the numbers for nefarious reasons. You can say most of those people would have died anyway because[Read More…]
Loose Ends: Shop at home first
MEEKER | Supporting small businesses has always been a part of community life. That is, it was the underpinning of a healthy local economy, until the economic upheaval caused by COVID-19 threatened to make shopping for the necessities of life more difficult. The bloating of the corporate conglomerates such as[Read More…]
Loose Ends: Wasn’t Born Yesterday
MEEKER | “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.” Each time I hear someone say these words or a facsimile, I want to say, “I know, you keep telling us that!” However, I restrain myself. These days when I hear people use such an old folksy expression that asserts the rest[Read More…]
Loose Ends: This is how it is now
MEEKER | This is how it is now — no same old/same old, no business as usual — as we all attempt to go back to our daily lives. Reading a magazine article recently I came across that phrase and the obtuse “new normal” that is used to describe daily[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: The Best Laid Schemes
Those of Scottish heritage may know that last Monday, Jan. 25, was Burns Night, the celebration of 18th century Scottish poet and bard Robert Burns, whose most well-known ode is “Auld Lang Syne.” Burns also wrote a poem in 1785 titled “To a Mouse” after he accidently upended a field[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: Bad apples, and what to do about them
We’ve all heard the phrase, “one bad apple ruins the whole bunch.” It’s an old school idiom. (Like, really old school … Shakespearean, maybe even earlier.) Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanack” (circa 1736) put it this way: “The rotten apple spoils his companion.” In these days when we buy a[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: Changing our minds
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. ~ William blake Change is hard, and perhaps no kind of change is more difficult than that of changing our own minds. Our opinions are rooted in what we believe, and we are[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: Don’t get ‘free speech’ and ‘free press’ confused
While everyone is up in arms about decisions made by Twitter, Facebook and other tech giants to delete accounts or remove apps, let’s take a peek back in time. The Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. Within just a few years legal cases surrounding the interpretation of the amendments[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: Maybe politics shouldn’t be a profit game
Anyone who thought politics was a slow-moving game, or dreadfully dull, has had that idea challenged this year. Now almost every political race is a neck-and-neck battle to the finish line (if a finish line can ever be agreed upon… how I miss those simpler times). It’s exciting when a[Read More…]
Loose Ends: Resolutions
MEEKER | Are you tired of making resolutions year after year, only to watch them fade away shortly after making them? According to a study done by social scientists, most of us are not tired of this tradition. The majority of us continue to try to make a new start[Read More…]
Loose Ends: “It is what it is”
MEEKER | “It is what it is” is the latest phrase to crop up in our daily conversations. It is an earworm without music. Most of us pride ourselves on “telling it like it is” and a few regions of our country are better at it than others. Westerners are[Read More…]