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Thoughts on the way we’re headed
Tuesday, 06 October 2009 13:45
Back in the mid-1960s, I was a kid headed off for college at Kansas State University. College is supposed to widen the horizons, and it began to broaden mine even when I retreated.I was longing for my farm life while having my perspectives thrashed by what was around me. I was still in my box, but had the lid pried open just enough to look around. What I saw was a country struggling with its self-identity.
Students continually had “bull-session” discussions about the Vietnam War and...
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Nature’s defenses are beautiful to see
Tuesday, 01 September 2009 13:19
Imagine that you are walking along, and someone comes up behind you. They wrap their arms around you to carry you off. Almost without having to think about it, you arch your back a certain way and your ribs pierce the sides of your body, simultaneously impaling your attacker and dosing them with a strong poison.Although not something that would ever happen to a person, it’s a regular event in the life of a Spanish ribbed newt. The act of piercing its sides doesn’t seem to cause any permanent damage to the newt, but its ribs can severely injure the predator that tries to capture it.
Then again, if it came down to a difference between having to heal for a short time or being dead, I would naturally take the former any day.
In the...
A few ideas on paying for a new jail
Tuesday, 04 August 2009 14:41
Marion County wants a new jail. If all of us don’t get a jail, it’s going to get ugly—kicking and screaming and blaming whose fault it was we didn’t build one.We want a new communications center with the jail, so the 911 dispatchers don’t suffer the discomforts of being in an outdated sweatshop next to the cells.
The county commissioners already appointed a citizens’ committee to study the problem to help spread the blame. Those folks on the committee are going to be mighty unhappy after all of their work if we don’t get a new jail.
People everywhere are pointing out that we have to keep child molesters and methamphetamine users locked up, and I figure they’re right since hanging has become so unseemly and...
Freedom: fewer laws, not more
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 14:01
“…The thing I treasure most in life cannot be taken awayThere will never be a reason why I will surrender to your advice
To change myself, I’d rather die….”
—“Alive” by Disturbed
Freedom. The more of it a society has, the greater the potential for chaos, and the greater amount of responsibility that must be assumed by each and every citizen to prevent or contain the resulting chaos. Anyone notice what words weren’t there? I’ll give you a moment or two in case you missed it.
Give up? Some people—especially some of those in Washington—might feel inclined, where I wrote “each and every citizen” to write “the government.” My point is that it’s not the government’s job to rule us. It’s our job to...
Depression can lead to good things
Tuesday, 02 June 2009 14:10
All of life’s troubles got to me the other day, and I started wishing I was a kid again. But when I stood on my box to look in the mirror, there I was, an old fellow with black circles around the eyes and lifetime wrinkles down the face.How depressing!
I guess we’re all depressed, at least part of the time—although I caught the butcher at the store whistling the other day, and two of my grandkids are full of joy that they are riding bicycles for the first time.
County Commissioner Bob Hein even said this week that a Hillsboro merchant told him his sales are up 15 percent for the past four months.
Baah, humbug, what does he know? Don’t they know this is the time for an economic depression as called for by the great minds of...
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