Ways to fix political problems

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 07 August 2012 15:18

I have a theory about why our middle class has increasingly struggled and is in dire straights these days. It’s not what the Democrats did or what the Republicans did, but rather what they both have done together. The two parties have made it more advantageous for our corporations to build most things elsewhere.

The lion’s share of the jobs the middle class used to have are now being done in other countries. It’s great for those living in other countries, but a disaster for many living in ours. Our manufacturing jobs also paid higher than minimum wage, too.

About 80 percent of jobs in the U.S. are now service jobs. The reality of it all is that not much is made here. Until our leaders decide to make it more advantageous to make...

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Pilsen is site for book’s release

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 31 July 2012 13:50

We are pleased to announce that our veteran’s book, “Our Nation Called,” will be released Nov. 11 at the annual Military Pilgrimage to Pilsen. We are looking forward to being a part of this traditional event. Details will be announced later.

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I don’t know if this ever happens to you and your spouse, but just as we were ready to leave to pick up grandsons Alex and Louis at the airport last Tuesday, one of us—me—decided it might be best to visit the bathroom one more time. Then we got to the bottom of the stairs and I realized I hadn’t taken my car key off of the hook upstairs.

I run back to get it, then say, “I wouldn’t want to get 10 miles down the road and then remember I forgot to take my car key.”

She...

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Font issue driving us dingbats

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 24 July 2012 13:33

My column last week had “n’s” between the items instead of the usual square boxes (dingbats).

Dingbats is a font with all kinds of characters that are not part of the alphabet. We have that font installed on all of our computers but it has been acting up for months already.

I could say that it was a computer glitch or I could tell you that “n” stands for Nancy or nonsense or nada or nüscht (which I think means nothing in German) or I could ignore it and hope it doesn’t happen again.

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The mystery has been solved about the two photos that someone dropped off in our mail slot a while back and I couldn’t figure out where they came from. I thought someone was trying to mess with me.

I don’t really know how this...

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Olympic uniforms create stir

Written by Joel Klaassen Tuesday, 17 July 2012 14:24

The crews working on First and Adams streets are making great progress. It is quite methodical how they do it and fascinating to watch.

We were especially interested in how they were planning to leave access open to the post office for our weekly trips in and out of the loading area there. Since we deliver more than 100 mail bags weighing about 2,000 pounds into the post office and then pick most of them up again for our deliveries to all of the Marion County post offices, it would have been very inconvenient to drag them all in there another way.

They solved it by leaving half of the drive open and are pouring the road in two segments.

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The Marion County Relay for Life will be much different this time around. As the posters...

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