I don’t begin to imagine plagiarizing the title of Patrick Henry’s famous essay will lend a similar impact to my little column, but I’m using the title just the same. Once again the world is in the frenzied throes of paranoia, this time over another new virus: COVID-19, aka coronavirus.[Read More…]
Columns
Editor’s Column: Inconvenienced?
No one likes to be inconvenienced. Whether it’s a canceled event or a traffic jam or a missing item on a store shelf, inconvenience happens to us all. How we respond to those situations says a lot about who we are as people, for good or for bad. Generally, things[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: Facts, opinions and the mixed-up middle
This week, and for the next few weeks, the opinion section of the HT will be pretty full of — wait for it — opinions. Giving our readers a space to share their personal views is one way we record the “first draft of history” for our community. The people[Read More…]
Guest Column: Loose Ends
MEEKER I A long time ago there was a special category of conversation called small talk. It served as a bridge to ensuring the continuance of a casual conversation. “How is the weather there?” was not a loaded question.
Loose Ends: Goal setting
RBC | I am getting messages from my phone about my failure to meet goals. It first started doing this shortly before the end of the year when it let me know that I had not reached my exercise goal of the week. Apparently I was not only doing less[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: The mad dash to Christmas
It’s a week after Thanksgiving and the pressure is on. Do you have your tree put up? House decorated? Shopping done? Gifts wrapped? Cards mailed? Cookies baked? Stockings hung? Parties planned? Donations made? Carols sung? You know the drill… it’s a mad dash from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and it can[Read More…]
Loose Ends: The ties that bind
MEEKER | I never thought that the first page I would turn to in a newspaper would be the obituary page. I admit I do tend to glance at the significant dates (birth and death), so I might be accused of this tendency to assure myself, as usually I am[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: Be grateful, even when it’s difficult
While Halloween now kicks off the holidays for many, Thanksgiving is still the beginning of the traditional holiday season where we make an effort to gather with friends or family, or to take some time off to rest and relax. Whatever you’re doing this Thanksgiving, I encourage you to take[Read More…]
Loose Ends: The sounds of silence … loud
MEEKER | Reporting and telling someone else’s stories is an awesome responsibility. The editor of this community’s paper, Niki Turner of the Rio Blanco Herald Times, understands the importance of that. It also seems that she also understands that the word awesome seems to be put in conversation daily. Ask[Read More…]
Editor’s Column: The stories that must be told
Every story starts with a question. Sometimes those questions are easy to find the answers to, and sometimes, well, sometimes they’re not. In this week’s edition of the Herald Times you’ll find a story unlike anything we’ve printed for a very long time, if ever—an in-depth investigative journalism piece. How[Read More…]
{OPED} Loose Ends: A teacher or a writer?
MEEKER | “So, which are you, a teacher or a writer? The blunt question took me aback for a minute. I had only been teaching in this community (and anywhere else for that matter) for a couple of years. When I accepted the part-time teaching position, I was working in[Read More…]
{OPED} Loose Ends: The Real West
MEEKER | “Do you ever get over the blueness of the sky?” is a question that has been asked by more than a few visitors to our house over the years. Most of them are from another section of the country and used to seeing gunmetal grey over their heads.[Read More…]
