Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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Dear Editor Thank you to the Citizens of Waitsburg for your support in the recent Mayor City Election. Your confidence in my ability to do the job is greatly appreciated. I am proud to serve as Mayor of this One of a Kind City. It is a special city and we are proud to reside here and be involved. Thanks to all of the candidates that were willing to step up and declare their willingness to serve this city. Congratulations to those that won! And thank you to all that were willing to serve. Waitsburg has many opportunities to serve, so if you...
Back in the fall, when Donald Trump dubbed Jeb Bush “low energy,” Carlos Gimenez grew a little concerned. By last month, when Marco Rubio and Trump engaged in childish name calling, the Republican mayor of Miami-Dade County thought the GOP presidential race had gotten “out of hand.” Now, after a tawdry week that has focused on the wives of Trump and Ted Cruz, Gimenez is certain that the race has moved totally “out of bounds.” “Politics is a contact sport,” Gimenez said, “but there should be contact in other ways.” Gimenez is watching with di...
Dear Editor, Those running for national office could learn much about civility and actually answering constituent questions from candidates for Waitsburg mayor and city council. At the candidate forum held March 25 at The Q, the candidates stated why each was interested and willing to run for office. Each candidate also clearly answered questions asked by audience members. During the question and answer portion candidates gave their opinions, in response to a question, on what is needed for Waitsburg to survive and evolve in the future. The...
Here at The Times we sometimes complain to ourselves that there’s not much news in Waitsburg. It often seems like not a whole lot is going on, and so we must get our lazy selves off our behinds and venture out in search of news. Don’t get me wrong. A lot of what qualifies as news you don’t want happening in your town. “Quiet” and “laid-back” are often virtues, not faults. But the last few weeks here in “The Burg,” our job has gotten easier. The news is coming at us at a rapid pace. And that ne...
Suddenly, the whole world has burst into bloom and started to turn green. The abrupt transition happens every year, even if the miracle of it always seems to take us by surprise. Sometimes you just have to state the obvious: Spring is joyful. In a dynamic, temperate plant world such as ours, the burgeoning of the leaves and blossoms stirs a corresponding growth in our spirits. There is also work to be done in the spring, but amid this natural reawakening, it doesn’t seem like real toil. If you want to channel this ebullience into something more...
Two years ago last month, I filed a public-records request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of my reporting into the flawed response to Hurricane Sandy. Then, I waited. The Freedom of Information Act requires a response within 20 business days, but agencies routinely blow that deadline. Eight months later, ProPublica and NPR published our investigation into the Sandy response, but it did not include any documents from FEMA. The agency had simply never gotten back to me. Finally, this Feb. 10 -- 492 business days past the law’s...
It would be easy to look at Facebook’s recent acquisition of the startup Masquerade and scratch your head. Why, you might wonder, would a company worth roughly $300 billion want to buy a company dedicated solely to putting goofy animations over people’s selfies? But the answer is there if you look at how Facebook has evolved over the years. The social media network is dominant, but it’s also in a constant battle to be cool -- or at least just cool enough to stay relevant without being confusing for the older people on the network. Snapc...
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Dear Editor, Thank you to the mystery person who left the large bowl of flowers on my front porch. It was a wonderful surprise and cheers me every time I see it. Jan Cronkhite Waitsburg...
We share widespread concern over the influence of money in politics. This is a far cry, however, from believing that the system has been permanently rigged by the “billionaire class.” Ironically, this year’s presidential campaign, fueled so powerfully by such accusations of total corruption, has done much to disprove the claim. We understand the distortion of policymaking that the symbiotic relationship between candidates and donors engenders. Those pernicious consequences are often most pronounced not at the presidential level, but in corne...
In 1948, when Diane Howard was 4, she was learning to play ring-around-the-rosie. In 2004, when Christian Magnuson was 4, he was teaching himself to install games on his dad's computer. On Wednesday, Howard, 71, sat in a classroom where Christian, 16, was the teacher. His class: an introduction to smartphones for residents of Westminster at Lake Ridge, a retirement community in Prince William County, Virginia. Christian began volunteering at the facility a year ago, helping at Tuesday night...
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Dear Editor, Allison Bond’s letter to the editor in the March 3 The Times shows she interpreted Mayor Gobel’s comment differently than me. I was at the same council meeting when he made the comment. My interpretation is that his comment was made in regard to a single topic—lack of suggestions as to uses for the fairgrounds/race track facility. Many people opposed the car race idea for various reasons. Mayor Gobel mentioned some of those folks made comments to the effect there are plenty of other ways to use the facility. Mayor Gobel’s comment...
As the father of three daughters, I reserved the right to interview their dates. Seemed only fair to me. After all, my wife and I’d spent 16 or 17 years feeding them, dressing them, funding braces and driving them to volleyball tournaments and piano recitals. A five-minute face-to-face with the guy was a fair expectation. For the next few hours, she would be affected by his ability to drive a car, avoid the bad crowds and stay sober. I wanted to know if he could do it. I wanted to know if he was decent. This was my word: “decent.” Would he tr...
The exclusive hunting society that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was hanging out with when he died last weekend wore velvet emerald robes stitched with the words “Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes,” or “Honoring God by honoring His creatures.” That appears to refer to the story of the society’s namesake, St. Hubert, who is the Catholic patron saint of hunting, fishing, trapping, rabies victims and - depending on the source you consult - dog trainers, mathematicians and opticians. But before he became a saint, Hubert was said to be jus...
Hey there, everyone! I’m sorry I haven’t been updating you guys more frequently, but that’s mainly because nothing much has happened. Life is still pretty much the same – pointless craft projects, it-never-rains-but-it-pours dispensing of homework assignments, lame attempts at creative writing, and not enough sleep. I am currently in mourning for my 4.0 GPA (November 5, 2009 – December 29, 2015 – rest in peace, old buddy). I received a B in Continuing Hispanic Culture, a 300-level discussion-bas...
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Dear Editor, Mike and I are grateful to our community here in the Touchet Valley for supporting us so well through my cancer diagnosis, surgery and recovery. I had a very successful surgery outcome and will be following up with oral chemotherapy for six months, as a preventative measure against re-occurrence. This is (because I am, and continue to be on) a journey that is filled with many challenges, blessings, and healing. I can say this not just because of the good outcome, but because I have learned so much through the process about me, my...
Dear Editor, I take issue with Waitsburg Mayor Gobel’s comment, in the February 25th Times, in reference to our fairgrounds, where he is quoted as saying that, “Nobody’s come forward to help us with that situation or to get involved to help.” I know several people who both before and after that meeting, went into city hall, or called with offers of voluntary help. Two of us were at that very meeting trying very hard to volunteer. None of us have been contacted by you in any way, shape or form. In fact, we have been ignored. Mr. Kuykend...
Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a piece in its travel section entitled “Reinvention in Walla Walla’s Wine Country.” (If you have any Google skills at all you can easily find it.) The article was written by a writer from Seattle named Mike Seely and, funny thing is, he spent about 90 percent of his article talking about Waitsburg and Dayton. Readers from New York (or Toledo, for that matter) might be initially disappointed by Mr. Seely’s detour to our little valley that’s actually...
Last week I got an email from Waitsburg fifth grade teacher, Gabe Kiefel, explaining that his class had collaborated to write a pollution essay that they were very proud of and wanted to see if we could run it in The Times. When I got the go-ahead from the big boss (aka Editor Ken Graham), Kiefel asked if I’d like to visit the class so they could explain their writing process to me. I did, and it was a lot of fun. The students explained that they first watched a video on pollution and then w...
By Tim Higgins, Bloomberg Tim Cook has picked a fight with the U.S. government and Silicon Valley is joining his side. From Google to Facebook, the industry’s biggest names rallied around Apple’s chief executive officer after he vowed to resist a court order demanding it help unlock the iPhone of a shooter in a terrorist attack. Cook described the request as an “unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers” and called for a public debate. The escalation with the FBI, which has been pushing for access to mobile devices...
Pollution is a significant problem on Earth and in Space. Although many people don’t know about space pollution, Earth may be threatened by it. Likewise, pollution on Earth continues to be a problem. There may be solutions to each source of pollution that requires a change in attitude and approach to all pollution. Perhaps, if we work together, we could make a healthy place in which our grandchildren will be able to live peacefully. Space pollution is a rising problem. Not many people know, but there are millions of tons of space pollution o...
