local news

Worst day spawns new life

The worst day of my life befell my family and me two years ago today.

My beloved bride, Kathy Anne, lost her battle with glioblastoma. Fifty-one years with this wonderful woman could not have been more glorious, adventuresome and thrilling as we watched our sons grow into the two finest men you’ll ever know. We also watched our granddaughter come into this world and she, too, is growing into a delightful young lady.

I am not going to dwell, though, on the sorrow. I am going to deal briefly with the journey I have taken on my way out of the darkness.

I took that journey largely on instruction from my bride, who told me that if she were to go first that she wanted me — she insisted on it — to find happiness. Do not wallow in grief, she said. Kathy Anne was a woman of conviction, which told me she meant what she said.

My life is still under reconstruction. I don’t know when I’ll be able to declare that my task is complete. Maybe it’ll never be done completely. Whatever. I am ready for whatever comes my way.

She prepared me well for this kind of journey. For that preparation I will be in her debt forever.

Every single person I have met, or will meet along the rest of this trek will know that I miss her. I just intend to tell the whole world, though, that despite her absence I will live every day as if it’s my final day on this good Earth.

That is my bride’s legacy.

local news

P.S.: Here’s how I knew I had licked it

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A brief post script is in order after I posted a blog item detailing how I quit smokint cigarettes cold turkey on Feb. 2, 1980. Here goes.

My father died in a boating accident in September 1980. We were shocked beyond all we could measure. The accident occurred in Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada. Two passengers of the boat died that evening: Dad and the owner of the boat; two others, friends of Dad, survived.

They recovered the remains of the driver of the boat that evening. Dad remained MIA. So, the owner of the company for which Dad worked arranged to fly me to Gibsons to stand by while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched for Dad’s remains.

I arrived at the camp where Dad had been staying and we were joined by some loggers who worked on other side of the inlet. We were served some stew that night for dinner.

Then the loggers began pouring the booze. We talked about Dad. One of the loggers paid me a nice compliment by telling me I had “guts” to come there. He also regaled me with his distate for French-Canadians; hey, I knew all about the regional distate between easteern and western Canadians.

They got me sh**-stinking drunk that night. I was wasted beyond belief. I could’ve lit up a smoke that night.,

But I didn’t!

I got through the bender beyond belief. I turned in for the night. I woke the next morning and then returned home to Portland.

I thanked my new friends for taking good care of me.

One more point: The Mounties didn’t find Dad’s remains while I was there. They recovered Dad a few days later.

This much I knew, which was that if I could endure the body-numbing pain of the loss we had suffered without lighting up … I was home free.

business news

Trade war set to begin

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Let’s be crystal clear about what is going to commence among three North American neighbors now that Donald Trump has declared his intention to impose tariffs on imported goods.

Canada and Mexico, two of our strongest allies and most dependable trading partners, have been targeted — along with China — as candidates for massive tariffs on all goods delivered to the United States.

Who will pay the tariff? You and I will. Our neighbors, too, So will our loved ones. We will shoulder an immense burden as importers seek to pass the cost of the tariffs on to those of us who use the products imported from the three tariff-strapped nations.

I do not understand what Trump is trying to prove with these tariffs. He isn’t punishing those nations. They will respond by imposing tariffs on goods they import from U.S. exporters.

Hey, didn’t Trump negotiate a new free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico during his term in office? It was supposed to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump called it a superior pact.

Well, it’s no longer superior to anything.

Buckle up, my fellow patriots. We’re going to pay through the nose for a lot of goods.

medical news

45 years of tobacco freedom!

It was 45 years ago today that I lit the last cigarette I ever would attempt to smoke … only to snuff it, toss it and turn my back on a nasty habit I had acquired at the tender age of 15.

I was 30 years of age when I quit the habit cold turkey. My bride had been badgering me to do so, in that I had developed a “smoker’s cough.” I was smoking two packs a day, man! I wasn’t feeling well that day, so when I lit the cigarette, I damn near choked on it. My immediate thought in the monent was: What the hell am I doing to myaelf?

I knew the answer. I was killing myself. I was not prepared to die, given that I had a beautiful wife and two young sons who told me they wanted me to part of their lives.

I knew nothing about the cost that the habit would bring to those who still light ’em up today. Cigarettes sell now for about $7 a pack. Multiply that by two and that’s $14  each day going up in flames in my house. Ninety-eight bucks each  week, and $5,096 annually.

Wow! I can think of many more productive and enjoyable ways to spend that kind of dough.

And healthier, too!

As I look back, I believe today that decision — made immediately and acted on with dispatch — was among the smartest acts I have commited in the long life I have been granted.

military news

Gen. Milley’s letter speaks brilliantly

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What follows in this blog post is a lengthy letter of resignation from the Joint Chiefs of Staff of its chairman, Army Gen. Mark Milley.

I submit this letter for you to read. Take some time to ponder what Gen. Milley is saying to Donald J. Trump:

“The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.
Second, you are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people—and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people. The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.
Third, I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal. All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between. It doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or choose not to believe. None of that matters. It doesn’t matter what country you came from, what your last name is—what matters is we’re Americans. We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.
And lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships. That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order. You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.”
national news

When will GOP awaken to travesty?

A good friend and I frequently engage in political discussions that usually do not engender a lot of dispute … given that we’re cut from the same partisan cloth.

She does pose a question I want to repeat here: When will the Republican Party’s elected officials realize and say so out loud the travesty they are supporting in the White House?

She’s an avid anti-Donald Trumper. So am I. I cannot answer her question. I do not know what it will take for the GOP to realize (a) that Trump is not an invincible collossus, (b) that he is just as fallible as the rest of us and (c) that their show of courage very well could play well among the millions of “silent majority” American out here.

Trump’s remarks in t he wake of the air crash that killed 67 people this week in Washington, D.C., were just the latest outrageous insult that Trump threw into the political blender. He followed that up with his declaration of war against the FBI by firing all the field agents in charge. Then came Trump’s nominee for FBI director, his pick for director of national intelligence and his health and human services secretary nominee flip-flopping all over earlier remarks they had made about the damage they sought to do to the “status quo.”

Trump is surrounding himself in the executive branch of government with people who are profoundly unqualified for the jobs they hold. Then again, they mirror the lack of qualifications by their benefactor for the job to which he has been elected twice.

My friend informed today she has written GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas a letter informing him of her intention to oppose every Republican candidate who continues to back Trump’s hostile takeover of the federal government. Cornyn, a former Bexar County trial judge, is one of the targets of her rage.

Her hope rests in a belief that Cornyn’s legal background might imbue him with the knowledge that facts matter. Americans have witnessed with their own eyes an insurrection against the government, the purging of the FBI, the appointment of certifiable numbskulls to the highest levels of government.

What do all these things have in common?

Donald John Trump!

national news

Trump fails simple task

Donald J. Trump cannot pass the simplest tasks sought from him as he sits in the Oval Office as president of the United States.

One simple task, for example, is for Trump to serve the unwritten role in his office, that of mourner in chief.

A commercial jetliner collided the other evening with an Army helicopter. The crash over the Potomac River killed all 67 people aboard the aircraft. Some TV networks had video of the moment of impact. It is tough to watch.

What was the task awaiting Trump? All he had to do was stand before the nation and offer his condolences for the lives lost; he could have said the NTSB, the FAA, Homeland Security, Reagan National Airport staff all are working overtime to find out what went wrong. He could have pledged the nation’s support for the loved ones who are grieving.

That’s it! That’s all he needed to say!

Except he didn’t stop there. He chose instead to offer conjecture on the cause of the crash. He suggested it might have had something to do with hiring policies that he said diminished the quality of personnel on duty.

Good grief, man! Why can’t this moron just keep his trap shut and stick to what we all know and feel … that the nation is in pain?

That was a simple task that the president of the United States of America failed to perform in stunning fashion.

local news

City manager residence at issue

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City managers are responsible for a lot of things emanating from City Hall … such as taxes that they propose for city residents to pay for municipal services.

It always has struck me that the individual who proposes a specific tax burden for residents in their city should have to shoulder part of that burden himself or herself.

Here in Princeton, where I have lived for six years, that’s not the case. The city hired a young man, Mike Mashburn, as its city manager in 2024. He signed a hefty contract, then was given an extension and a raise shortly afteward.

He took the job without having to move to Princeton. The city charter, approved in 2023, doesn’t require that the city’s chief executive officer live inside city’s limits. Mashburn hasn’t made the move. A group of Princeton residents, though, want to amend the city charter to make in-city residency a requirement of City Hall’s top dog.

I have two thoughts on this idea. My first thought is that the City Council that sent the charter to a vote of residents should have written such a requirement into the document. I find it unconscionable that the city manager doesn’t share the burden he proposes for others.

My second thought is that since Mashburn is under contract he could sue the city for breaching that agreement if the cĂĄharter amendment passes. Moreover … he well could win that lawsuit, which could cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement.

The mayor who engineered Mashburn’s hiring lost her re-election bid late in 2024. Brianna Chacon interviewed Mashburn and then presented him to the City Council, which then — after meeting him for the first time in closed session — voted unanimously to hire him.

The bottom line from my vantage point is that the City Council did not perform its due diligence by insisting that the city manager live in the city where he would work each day.

As for City Manager Mike Mashburn, he should sell his house and move here … pronto!

military news, national news

Trump’s narcissism on full display

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Did anyone alive in the United States of America actually recoil in surprise at the show of self-aggrandizement and petulant partisanhip this morning when Donald J. Trump spoke to the nation in the wake of the tragic air crash in D.C. last night?

I didn’t think so.

Sixty-seven people are presumed dead after a crash involving an Army Blackhawk helicopter and a regional jetliner that was seeking to land at Reagan National Airport.

Trump entered the White House press briefing room ostensibly to deliver some remarks about the tragedy. What he delivered instead was a stomach-churning display of raw politics. He blamed the hiring practices of two predecessors, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, for possibly putting unqualified air traffic contollers in the tower at Reagan airport.

Presidents are asked occasionally to fulfill an unwritten rule of the office they occupy … that of comforter in chief. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama and Biden all rose to that role at various times during their tenure as president. Today, Trump did speak briefly to the grief felt by the family members of the victims.

But then …

He talked about DEI hiring policies enacted by Presidents Obama and Biden. He implied those “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies lowered the standards required of air traffic controllers, hinting that someone on the ATC staff at Reagan might have been responsible for the horrific crash.

Donald J. Trump today demonstrated one more time why he is incapable of performing even the most basic tasks of holding the nation’s highest elected office.

This numbskull is an absolute disgrace.

crime news, legal news

No moral equivalence here

Right-wing MAGA fanatics need to take great care when attaching moral equivalence to two vastly different actions taken by two equally vastly different men.

In one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to members of his family, believing they would spare them from the hassles of being harassed by federal officials loyal to the incoming POTUS.

Those pardons were, shall we say, weird and kind of bizarre. As it has been said many times, innocent people do not need to be pardoned. The family members pardoned by President Biden hadn’t even been charged with any crimes.

Then came the horrendous blanket pardons issued by Donald Trump, freeing about 1,500 traitorous mobsters from punishment for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection against the government. They sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and attacked with all-due violence the Capitol cops seeking to protect members of Congress from the hysterical mob.

Some right-wingers have sought to attach the Biden pardons with the Trump pardons. Not a chance! There isn’t a scintilla of moral equivalence to be found!

One of the pardoned traitors, by the way, got into an altercation with Indiana police over the weekend and was shot to death by the cops. History seeking to repeat itself? Well … go figure.

What Trump did in pardoning all the convicted mobsters was send a clear signal that the president had their back in the event they might try to do something similar in the future. The president also gave the middle finger to cops who had suffered grievous injury in defense of our government.

Trump has taken the same oath twice to “protect and defend the Constitution.” He tossed that oath into the crapper the first time and there’s not a thing that I can detect that will prevent him from doing it again.

Therefore, let us end the idiotic attempt to equate the pardons issued by the departing president with those given by the individual who succeeded him.

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