Every once in while we come across someone or rather he comes across us and wants to put a letter in our newspaper.
We pretty much have an open door about that.
As long as there is no profanity we usually publish them.
We do that for two reasons:
1) It is only fair we give another even if opposing view and
2) It sells newspapers
We do have a problem with a demand.
It is our newspaper after all and the only right anyone else has is to read it.
Most people get that because while most people don’t have a newspaper most people have jobs or businesses of their own.
They have the understanding of what is theirs and what is not theirs.
Since we started our web page we have run into it more.
Some would be bloggers have gotten quite nasty and threatened to sue us for abridging their right to freely express themselves on our website.
Just as we pay for the printing of our newspaper we pay for our website too.
Still a lot of people don’t get it.
Maybe its a generational thing.
Most of our paper readers are over 30 and most of our web readers are under 30.
Which brings us to Barry “You didn’t build that” Obama.
The scariest part of that whole speech was not what the neighborhood organiser in chief said but the loud amens from the crowd.
Fired up those folks heartily agreed that just because someone else got something through brains or hard work or even hook or crook, what they had really wasn’t theirs because a lot of other people had brains and were hard workers and got nothing.
Their anger was palpable and their envy of other people’s accomplishments was at the same time nauseating and frightening.
It was the first time we had ever been frightened while listening to a speech by a president.
Where will this pied piper of despair lead us should he win another term?
Whose stuff will he go after or send the mob to Occupy?
And here is an even scarier thought.
If he loses, as he well should, what will his mob do?
Will they go home peaceably and prepare to fight for another day or will they vent their wrath on the rest of us.
Will the cities burn?
One of the best cultural events is happening this weekend in Ely– the Shoshone Fandango.
Go for the food or the fun but also for a greater understanding of our neighbors- those of the First Nations.
We immigrants often speak of the places we came before. The special connection we hold for the land of our fathers even though many of us have never been back.
The Shoshone hold the same kind of reverence for this country- their country.
To see Nevada through their eyes is the same as seeing England though the eyes Londoner, Rome to an Italian or Jerusalem to a Jew.
It is a quiet kind of reverence that once shared can never be forgotten.
Once again we found ourselves taking child to the airport.
We have made this journey more times than we can count.
We leave with an excited talkative offspring and come back alone with only the radio for company.
Most of the time we drive back in silence, mulling over what adventures they will have and thinking about the time when there will be a last trip to the airport.
We have done that with children before and with the fourth being the last one we know that our days of chauffeuring children to the far grander, far wider world are numbered as well they should be.
Part of growing up is growing apart. It is bittersweet to see them bound out of the car schlepping luggage to the check-in and then remembering to look back and wave good bye. The wave is mostly done for our benefit we know that foremost in his mind is the grand adventure ahead of him.
We know that because once it was us who rode in the passenger seat with our luggage in the trunk.
And then he is off.
We wish him well.