Opinions

COVID-19 pandemic illustrates Idaho’s split personality

Some say there are two states of Idaho. It’s true that the Gem State divides by mountains, desert and a time zone; it’s also true that it’s split by radically different political temperaments.

Want to stay safe? Stay home

COVID-19 has made us all step back and review our lives.

Using a facemask mask the right way

COVID-19 has made us all step back and review our lives. Is wearing a face mask necessary? Does wearing a face mask really doing you any good? I am in an at-risk population; how can I get a face mask? These are questions I hope to clarify.

Reporter ponders the hard questions

COVID-19 and the precautions that we have all had to take have literally affected our lives.

I don’t remember a time when a sickness, infection, or event has ever been as life changing, in my lifetime anyway.

People are encouraged to stay home, non-essential businesses are closed, casinos and bars are also closed, schools are closed, members of the NBA, or the naked believer’s association, are discouraged to practice their sweat lodge religion. Heck, even Bullis Mortuary has enforced a limited number of people for visitations.

It’s time for Wyoming to face the truth

You can’t over-estimate how more than 40 years of coal-fueled prosperity has shaped Wyoming’s culture and politics. One result is the bitterness that many in the state express when they talk about coal’s demise.

Gov. Mark Gordon, in his State of the State address, summoned both the swagger and the fury that characterizes the coal narrative today: “We produce better energy more safely and with more attention to the environment than anywhere else on the planet. And yet our industries are still discriminated against, maligned, and decried as dead. Well, not on my watch!”

Whose side are we on?

“A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.”

Whose side are we on?

“A great people has been moved to defend a great nation.”

When the virus hits you, it hits hard

When my wife, Edel, a teacher, developed a cough after working with a woman who came to the elementary school slightly sick, we assumed it was just that, a cough.

The word from New York Mayor DiBlasio to parents was still, “Come to school.” Though many teachers seemed to be skipping, choosing personal safety over their job. That was Friday, March 13. On Saturday, we had six friends over for a St. Patty’s gathering. We didn't hug, but we drank and ate and stood far too close to one another.

When the virus hits you, it hits hard

When my wife, Edel, a teacher, developed a cough after working with a woman who came to the elementary school slightly sick, we assumed it was just that, a cough.

The word from New York Mayor DiBlasio to parents was still, “Come to school.” Though many teachers seemed to be skipping, choosing personal safety over their job. That was Friday, March 13. On Saturday, we had six friends over for a St. Patty’s gathering. We didn't hug, but we drank and ate and stood far too close to one another.

Responsibilities of citizenship during pandemic

As the death toll from the novel coronavirus rises, we are brutally faced with the reality that public policy directly affects the number of Americans and Montanans who are victimized by this modern plague. And also by the reality that, because of its nature, public policy is not always driven by cold hard facts, science and evidence, but is at least partially driven by politics. In some ways that is bad, but in other ways it is good and necessary.