It was a stormy Christmas day in 1776 when General George Washington crossed the Delaware River with a remnant of his Colonial Army and fought at Trenton and Princeton to turn the battle of freedom for the 13 colonies as the troops engaged in the Revolutionary War. There were several soldi…
Try to imagine the last 11 minutes of Lion Air Flight 610 in October. The plane is a new machine, Boeing’s sleek and intelligent 737 Max 8, fitted with an advanced electronic brain. After take…
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would remove the grey wolf from the federal Endangered Species list. The bill passed on a 196-180 vote.
‘There is no Plan B because there is no Planet B,” Emmanuel Macron lectured Donald Trump — in English — when the American President withdrew from the Paris climate agreement last year. Well, a…
In June 1948, after the College World Series and graduation day at Yale, young George H.W. Bush packed up his cranberry-red Studebaker (a graduation gift from his father) and headed the car’s …
Like many modern Americans, I probably watch too much television, although I don’t pay much for my programming. When son Willie bought a barn down the road from my place, I was pleasantly surp…
One evening not long ago, I walked out from our house to get a better view of a full moon rising in the smoke and dust over the mountains. Across the face of the moon I saw the season’s first …
For the past year I have served on the state board of directors for the Oregon Farm Bureau. This endeavor requires a quarterly trip to Salem for a couple of days of meetings. The drive is a bi…
Next time you’re in downtown Pendleton, visit the post office at the corner of Southwest Dorion and First Street. There, on an old plaque cemented to the wall are the words:
A loud explosion, then a coming together in darkness. I opened my eyes and I was underneath a desk. I looked up and a multitude of my doctor friends were around me.
Across our state, Oregonians are experiencing a housing crisis. As one of our state’s leading affordable housing developers, we believe we have a responsibility to ensure that everyone in our …
A couple of years ago my wife and I were in the Pendleton Convention Center, watching a basketball game between the Coyotes and the Cougars. The Cougars were chomping some serious Coyote butt,…
A few years ago, I got to spend two weeks in the Fishtrap writing cabin on the Imnaha River. High spring runoff and the click of laptop keys were the only sounds we heard all day. But after a …
It saddens and frustrates us that our departures from Umatilla County are being held against George Murdock.
Recent morning temperatures at our place have been cool enough to “burn down” the foliage on the tomato patch in the garden and inspire a certain sense of urgency concerning tasks that need to…
Football season usually begins at every level of competition in the month of September. Preseason is over, the players are in shape, their positions have been determined, and the playbook has …
One hundred years ago, U.S. forces geared up with their British and French allies for a big push to end the First World War. Some 1,000 men represented Pendleton and Umatilla County in their r…
Ask any casual observer what the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation fight is about, and the answer will be the allegation that at a high school party 36 years ago, when Kavanaugh was 1…
Isolated and alone — oftentimes, that’s how individuals who experience mental or substance use disorders feel — and every year, thousands of Oregonians experience these conditions.
This weekend I will be serving at a cowboy church service, with western songs. I will be wearing a borrowed cowboy hat as I preach. I intend to attempt a Jimmy Stewart accent in my sermon, as …
It is amusing that Democrats mounted a “Where’s Walden?” campaign over the Labor Day weekend, targeting U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon.
Conventional wisdom says that the middle is disappearing from American politics: The Republicans have moved far to the right, the Democrats far to the left, and woe to any moderate voters look…
More and more, I wonder if the disgruntled senior Trump administration official who wrote the anonymous Op-Ed in The New York Times was actually representing a group — like a “Murder on the Or…
Writing as a stockholder of the Pendleton Round-Up Association, the following is a Pendleton Round-Up Board Resolution that I wish would come before us for a groundbreaking discussion.
Racism isn’t new. But as I was coming of age in the Sixties — Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when I left for college, and I had recently discovered …
First a question. What book was the most important or memorable in your life? “Huckleberry Finn,” “Atlas Shrugged,” “The Color Purple,” “Lolita,” or a childhood book like “Charlotte’s Web” tha…
We may not like them, but political parties are central to our national dynamic. At their best, the parties evolve to something that more clearly represents our aspirations. At their worst, th…
Now that Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court, Indian Country is again asking what a new justice could mean for tribal interests. President Donald T…
One of the great privileges of journalism is the opportunity to become embedded in the communities we cover. At this point, we are no longer tourists dropping in on a town, but we become in-tu…
My son Willie and I recently completed our annual summer wheat harvest in the Helix area, something my family has been doing for roughly 132 years. At least two branches of my family now have …
Today’s lesson: How to squander taxpayer money. Start with a cause that looks good. Use public money to pick winners and losers. Add in questionable oversight. And wait.
Dear Kenmore,
Maybe someday, when the history of Donald Trump’s presidency is written, we’ll pinpoint the start of this week as his pivot into complete derangement and come up with a pithy name for it. Mayb…
Depending on whose set of statistics one adopts, there are currently between 500,000 and a million Americans who are homeless. Not counted are our neighbors who are jobless, vagrant, beggarly,…
It all started with an offer to take a tour of the Tillamook Cheese plant in Boardman with Congressman Greg Walden. I had been on a tour of the plant about 10 years ago, but as an elected coun…
In Washington in the 1990s, it was a sure bet that whenever conservative journalists and activists got together, the conversation turned to the Clintons, Kenneth Starr and the Whitewater inves…
Oregon voters, if you like political attack ads and negative campaigns, this fall’s election campaign could be a little slice of heaven.
In the prelude to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush and his administration unleashed a full-scale propaganda campaign, seeking to convince the American people that Sa…
When you look at our United States Constitution, our Founders’ message is clear: “We the People.” Those words are deliberately written larger than everything else — large enough that you can r…
Washington thinking on trade has reached a consensus that China poses a serious economic challenge to the United States. From key business groups to trade lawyers to the full spectrum of Washi…
This past month has been a challenging one. At least one story in every morning’s headlines has made me think Pogo the Possum was right: We have met the enemy and he is us.
We’re all going to die.
The summer of 2018 has been an eventful time here at your local newspaper. There was a time in my not too distant memory when the summer months were slow and provided a time to regroup and pre…
I love a parade, particularly when my horse Eusebio and I are riding in it. And most of all we love the Pendleton Round-Up’s Westward Ho! parade the Friday morning of Round-Up week.
Wednesday was my last day at the East Oregonian, after nearly six years here as deputy managing editor and opinion page editor.
From time to time, I’ve been catching up with a Republican strategist who is trying to help the GOP keep control of the House in this November’s midterm elections. It’s been an up-and-down ride.
On July 19, Ryan Bounds’ nomination to the 9th Circuit of Court of Appeals was withdrawn. The main issue raised was the nominee’s stance against multicultural divisions at Stanford University …
Last week, my colleague Bret Stephens imagined a news article on the morning after President Donald Trump’s re-election. Today, I imagine a different outcome.
I’m sure it was the summer I was 11. I had just finished fifth grade and was going to be a 4-H exhibitor at the Jefferson County Fair for the first time with my club, the Yummy Bunch. I had sp…
Last year, local citizens began picketing at the Northern Oregon Correctional Facility when immigration detainees held at our local jail had initiated a hunger strike over conditions there. Th…
Hunters and anglers put tens of thousands of tons of lead in our environment annually, and it is estimated that between 10 and 20 million birds and other animals — representing more than 130 s…
Sarah Hemminger grew up in Indiana understanding the debilitating power of social isolation. When she was a girl, her father discovered that their pastor was dipping into church funds and repo…
(A sneak peek at The New York Times’ news analysis from the future.)
There’s a lot of discussion about how far left the Democratic Party should go these days. Is it destroying its electoral chances when its members call for a single-payer health plan or abolish…
Something has been going on with Robert Mueller’s investigation of people thought to have played significant roles in the Trump-Russia affair. The special counsel, assigned to investigate “any…