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Many issues surrounding conservation are decided at the time of farm bill renewal. Working lands conservation programs in the farm bill offer an important opportunity for farmers and ranchers to increase stewardship on their land without impacting their bottom lines. For example, the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Environmental Quality Incentive Program support farmers in implementing new conservation practices, and the Conservation Reserve Program offers valuable options for enrolling marginally productive lands....
I have watched with interest as students across the country demonstrated to bring attention to the rising number of senseless school shootings. The national media reported these demonstrations as anti-gun protests. I listened closely to student interviews and for the most part they didn’t advocate bans on guns or even reform of laws allowing gun ownership. They asked for an end to the violence. An end to violence does not equate to a ban on guns except for those who are predisposed to ban guns anyway. It could very well be t...
Most of the 2.5 million annual Alamo visitors focus on the epic 1836 battle in which a small band of brave Texans was eventually overrun by the Mexican army. Folk heroes like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William Travis were among the Texans killed while fighting for independence from Mexico. However, the Alamo is more than a small Spanish-style church depicted on tourism brochures which barely withstood a 13-day pummeling from Mexican cannons. It is a large complex built...
Last week I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with three Cheney High School students who are involved in the student-led movement that emerged in response to the shootings at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Fla. Feb. 14. The three young women, who I won’t name right now, organized a walkout and a 17-minute period of silence at the school in remembrance of those killed last month. And they took part in last Saturday’s Spokane-area edition of the national March for Our Lives, organized by Parkland sur...
The March 8, 2018 Cheney Free Press contained a guest opinion concerning “Argentina’s Socialism.” Unfortunately, people do not understand the difference between socialism and social programs. Socialism is an economic system where the workers in any particular industry own the means of production, capitalists and corporations are not allowed. Social programs provide for the common welfare. Such programs provide schools, fire and police departments, medical services, housing and retirement subsidies. Argentina and many of th...
I was in the Navy in 1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed away and Vice President Harry S. Truman was suddenly president after only eight months in office. He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. President Truman entered the White House with no experience. Unlike Truman, current President Donald Trump does not listen to his advisers. Truman served in World War I, the National Guard for 30 years. Trump was deferred five times from serving. Truman was married one time and was never unfaithful. Truman was also the po...
We will not invest in our annihilation. Now we can avoid it. Our world and everything we care about is threatened every moment of every day by nuclear weapons, either by intent, accident, miscalculation or cyber-attack. These weapons, though now illegal following the July 2017 U.N. “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” adopted by 122 nations, continue to be modernized at an expected cost of $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years. Like the Parkland students victimized by inaction of the previous generations, the non...
Thank you so much for your recent article highlighting resources available to Cheney families (“Charitable Confusion,” Cheney Free Press, March 1). Having served on the community service council for many years as a Cheney School District representative and having worked for nearly eight years with Feed Cheney I know and appreciate the services that both organizations provide. I would, however, like to clarify information on Feed Cheney. The monthly free dinner and grocery distribution is held at the Wren Pierson Building Oct...
I was concerned when the state Senate seat in rural King County went to a Democrat, giving them a one vote majority as well as control of the House and governor’s office. The liberals are now unencumbered in their self-appointed mission to see how much money they can squeeze out of the state’s taxpayers. Washington budgets on a two year cycle every odd numbered year. The 2017 budget was not only the largest in history, it had the largest increase over the past budget. We exceeded $20 billion in proposed spending for the first...
By PAUL DELANEY Staff Reporter Pick a week and the jury of studies is either in or out on the benefits of any number of products or activities. On a rotating basis — whose frequency varies as widely as results of studies presented — data will tell us that beer or wine is either good or bad for us. No data comes to mind recently on any benefits of hard alcohol, but periodically comes the story of someone who turns 100 and claims their longevity is due in part to an occasional nip of whiskey. But last week, nearly 50 peo...
I am hungry for the good old days when our representatives represented us not special interests; for a time when civility was the order of the day and people in government had a purpose to serve honorably, not to line their pockets at our expense. I am an American first and I want good government, financed through clean elections not dark money. I want transparency and accountability, not backroom deals and representatives who are owned lock stock and barrel by their highest donor. I have known Lisa Brown for over 25 years...
Early this February, the Republican-controlled Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed new federal budget legislation that increased U.S. military spending by $165 billion over the next two years. Remarkably, though, a Gallup public opinion pool conducted only days before found that only 33 percent of Americans favored increasing U.S. military spending, while 65 percent opposed it, either backing reductions (34 percent) or maintenance of the status quo (31 percent). What is even more remarkable for a nation where...
To make progress in preventing guns from killing people we need to develop a plan to determine how people become dysfunctional. We spend millions on forensic science to determine when and who kills someone. We spend next to nothing on applied behavioral science. Over 60 years ago, a research team (Gluecks study) focused on children with behavioral problems from early grades through high school. As these individuals advanced through school they noted that their problems became more pronounced: bullying, noncompliance,...
During our recent trip through the wine country of Argentina, I became friends with our guide, Oscar. Oscar is an interesting guy. His first real job was as a newspaper columnist for a large daily in Mendoza. In 1983 he wrote a piece criticizing Argentina’s conduct of the Falkland War. He was promptly arrested, jailed and exiled to Europe. After 20 years, he was allowed to return home and now guides tourists in English, French, Italian or Spanish. When I told Oscar that I thought socialism was responsible for Argentina’s eco...
I spend too much money on coffee, it is a fact and I think it will always be that way. But I just can’t help but love drinking one every day whether it is from a Keurig at home or at that place called Starbucks. Before college, I wasn’t as hooked on coffee as I am now. But since I started taking those 8 a.m. classes almost every quarter, I felt like a cup of caffeine was a good way to start my day. I think I am officially an adult now though because if I don’t have a cup by a certain point in the day I will get a heada...
We often hear, “If you see something, say something.” I agree, but who should I say something to and what should I say? If I see a disturbed person, I think that my first impulse should be to speak to that person to let them know I see them as a valuable soul. Of course that could be dangerous for me, but how wonderful it would be to awaken that truth in someone who has forgotten it or never knew it. Jeremy Street Cheney...
By FRANK WATSON Contributor My wife and I just got home from a winter vacation in Argentina. It was a great trip. I learned more about the southern hemisphere than I thought I ever would. We went fishing for a week in the largest swamp in the world and toured four of Argentina’s largest cities. Oscar was our guide through the wine country of Mendoza. We were together long enough to discover that we had much in common and became friends. Oscar was well versed in the geography, politics and history of his country. He related th...
It now looks like Boeing will add at least two more aircraft to the U.S. Air Force fleet which flies our country’s leaders around the world. They are the most recognizable — the 747s traditionally called “Air Force One.” The recent news that President Trump’s administration now approves replacing the current presidential jets with larger and more modern 747s cements the deal. It means the new Air Force One, a 747-8, could be flying presidents within five years. That’s go...
One of the sights making a huge impression on me during my 11 years living in Seattle wasn’t the snail’s pace of traffic, the high-price of housing — even back then in the 1990s — or Mount Rainier rising majestically in the south. What made an impact on me was the sight of the long line of people standing outside the Union Gospel Mission on Fourth Avenue waiting for it to open. Such was my view out my bus window five days a week on the way to my job at Platt Electric Supply’s Seattle branch near Sixth and Lander streets. It i...
I don’t want to insult anybody’s intelligence, but still feel compelled to state the obvious: If U.S. Congressional members are forced to resign by sexual harassment charges, what about our president? Congressional Democrats have generally been willing to force resignations, including those of their own offending party members. But considerably more pressure is required by congressional Republicans to effect the president’s resignation. Unfortunately, as pointed out in a prominent Eastern Washington newspaper’s 12/7/17...
To be consistent at anything in life, the characteristic of diligence must be present. To care and act as such, one must have diligence at a foundational level. This characteristic has multiple ways to describe its definition. The partial definition of the word as an “energetic effort” certainly stood out because of its close association with the word “care.” To show or use diligence at a high level, you must care about whatever it is you are attempting to do or accomplish. Diligence is not something you can obtain overnig...
Cheney taxpayers, congratulations you just raised your taxes by $375 per year, the highest amount in Spokane County. That’s what happens when you don’t watch what’s happening in Olympia. Distant state legislature adds more property tax to fix basic education. School district didn’t say much about this in their propaganda brochure they sent out about the levy vote? Your increase taxes are a direct result of voting by your feelings and not holding your school district fiscally accountable. All you good intenders, can you get...
Questions, questions, questions and yet still no answers. What is it about the most recent school shooting — at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. over two weeks ago on Valentine’s Day — that has sent the usual week-long news cycle working well into overtime, if not maybe even double or triple-overtime? By my count this was No. 145 since Jan. 1, 2010. That number, by-the-way, did not come from the anti-gun group who practices what even the Washington Post...
By FRANK WATSON Contributor I read an article in a medical journal the other day that said people who eat faux-burgers made from peas or beans eat 12 percent fewer calories at their next meal. I was astonished. Have you ever eaten that stuff? A couple veggie burgers can ruin your appetite for days. I studied at a Seventh Day Adventist School in Spain one semester. The Adventists are vegetarians and had a plant on campus that made imitation beef patties, weenies and chicken nuggets. I could never figure out why they had to...
I am all about discovering some new and good country music. And at the end of 2016, I found my favorite country band to date when I attended an Old Dominion concert at the Knitting Factory in downtown Spokane. I had heard a few of their songs on the radio before, but hadn’t thought much of it. They were good songs, but not my favorite at the time. I had seen them previously when they were the opening act for Kenny Chesney at Centurylink Stadium, but they sang only a few songs and I didn’t really get to enjoy their full pot...
