Open Mind

As an avid news consumer, something occurred to me in the last couple of days. Fill-in-the-blank news stories seem to be very common, especially with human interest stories. For instance, every year, local television stations do their annual “time to clean up after the fair” story the second week of September. The story comes complete [...]

Fremont county schools have moved forward with a cell phone ban… I wrestle with this issue, because I think parents should have the option of contacting their children and vice versa. But I also see the huge disruption caused by them and how it dilutes the quality of education in our kids’ classrooms. Also, if [...]

This story has bothered me a little bit since it happened a year ago. It just seems strange to have a mother of a small baby leave her car keys, purse, her shoes, and even her baby and two other children — without sign of a struggle. The local media has been covering this anniversary, [...]

Sorry to have back-to-back pervert posts, but Brad Stowell is back in the news. He’s still incarcerated, so that hasn’t changed, but a hearing officer ruled that Stowell was guilty of violating probation when he had an Internet-capable laptop, but was not in violation for not being able to find a job. These verdicts will [...]

So the Idaho National Lab just announced they’re taking steps to save a bunch of money by “Going Green”. One of the local news stations had a story about the postal service doing the same thing. And it seems like so many companies and organizations now are doing the same thing. I think that it’s [...]

Over the weekend, it looks like another person drowned in the Snake River near Idaho Falls. That’s two in two or three weeks. Another guy drowned on Upper Palisades Lake earlier, and of course the teenager from Pocatello that drowned in the Snake near Massacre Rocks. I should also mention the family that got into [...]

There’s a story out this morning (Post Register) about the two conservative US Senate candidates in Idaho. Apparently Rex Rammell owes some money to former Congressman George Hansen, about $100K. This info, unflattering to Rammell, was leaked to the media. Rammell says it was Risch supporter Bart Davis who accessed the info without permission from [...]

The Post Register says this morning that the city of Idaho Falls will add a text messaging service. District 93 has had it for a couple of years now, and it’s proved to be pretty valuable whenever there’s been a school closure, cancellation, or other situation. Now the Idaho Falls city government is going to [...]

Brad Stowell apparently violated his probation by not having a job, and getting a laptop. He’s back in prison now. My guess is that the parole board, after catching all the flack they caught, was looking for a reason to put him back in prison. I’m glad he’s back behind bars. He has no business [...]

So, I’m always torn every year trying to find a balance between having a nice view of the fireworks and getting out of there before the kids start school in August. Last year we were just off Skyline, and we were able to get out ok — no complaints there — but I wish we [...]