|
 |
Opinion
05/10/2008 12:00 AM
A great event for local baseball
To the Editor:
A little more than a week ago, a great event took place at Cadwell Park in Mitchell that might have never happened if it hadn’t been for the Mitchell Baseball Association and DWU baseball along with friends and supporters. The Canaries played DWU with a packed house in spite of Mother Nature dumping 12 inches of snow on the field the preceding Friday.
It was a huge event and raised a significant amount of money for Mitchell baseball with the help of many sponsors including major partners County Fair and University Physical Therapy and the many people from the Mitchell region who purchased tickets (almost 2,000). In the spirit of volunteerism Saturday and Sunday people showed up with shovels and snow blowers and with the warm sun removed all the snow for Monday’s game. City groundskeeper Chuck Jones, who takes care of Cadwell like it is his own back yard, did a great job coordinating the snow removal effort. Jim Larson spearheaded the charge and kept everyone on track for this aggressive fundraiser for Mitchell Baseball.
|
05/10/2008 12:00 AM
One of the many drawbacks to being a lame-duck president, even a popular one, is that influence diminishes in direct proportion to political capital. It is a simple function of supply and demand, and it has reduced more than a few commanders in chief to the status of benchwarmers.
George W. Bush is not a popular president. As the nominal standard bearer of the Republican Party, he has seen his power steadily erode as the presidential contest to succeed him ratchets up in the public mind.
And that’s just among previously loyal GOP foot soldiers, who are increasingly treating the sitting president as a sitting (lame) duck. As for the Democratic contenders for the nomination, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush has become the poster child for economic malaise at home and foreign policy missteps on the world stage.
|
05/09/2008 12:00 AM
Gas prices are escalating. It’s true, and experts on all sides have weighed in on how cost will affect travel this summer.
In the midst of all the banter, however, a major travel company has made an announcement that is great news for South Dakota, a state where tourism is a $2.3 billion industry and one which relies heavily on those friendly passersby who frequent Interstate 90.
|
05/08/2008 12:00 AM
It has been said that any assassin can be successful if he has made up his mind to trade his own life for the life of the dignitary he stalks.
The same can be said of a sexual predator. He is difficult to entirely impede if he’s willing to trade his reputation, his job, possibly his family and certainly his freedom to satisfy his despicable desires and cravings.
|
05/07/2008 12:00 AM
More than a bushel of nonsense is being peddled by special interests bent on destroying the ethanol industry. The latest scam is blaming the apparent worldwide shortage of food and the rising price of food to the diversion of U.S. corn into ethanol production. It’s an appealing proposition, especially for multinational oil companies and the livestock lobby, but the facts of corn production, global demand for food and energy prices don’t support the argument.
|
05/07/2008 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON — How can the world’s hungriest schoolchildren be denied meals while the farm bill being debated in a House-Senate conference provides millions in subsidies for wealthy farmers? That’s what Congress proposes.
In all fairness, it should not become law.
|
05/06/2008 12:00 AM
Six dollars. That’s the difference in the price of a typical tank of gas from last year to this summer.
Is six bucks enough to change the travel plans of the typical summer tourist? That’s a debate that seems to take place every year at this time in this era of high-priced gasoline.
|
05/06/2008 12:00 AM
NEW YORK — Two presidential candidates, two celebrity interviewers, two agendas, one audience: the undecided superdelegates likely to select the Democratic nominee.
Just two days before key primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, the peculiar ritual of the Sunday news show took on high drama as Obama and Clinton each made hour-long solo appearances — Obama on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Clinton on ABC’s “This Week.”
|
05/05/2008 12:00 AM
HISSES to the large fuel spill that occurred in Mitchell last weekend. The spill, which happened at Mitchell Concrete Products, dumped up to 1,500 gallons of diesel into the city’s storm sewer system and required much effort to clean up.
|
05/03/2008 12:00 AM
No need to wait for action on energy
To the Editor:
There is absolutely no reason that we have an energy crisis in this country today. We have 40 years of oil left and 3.5 billion years of sunshine. Read the January issue of “Scientific American,” which you can find in any school or public library. It explains how we can become energy efficient in 40 years with solar power. And if the sun does not shine, they have that problem solved too.
But we don’t have to take 40 years. When we needed tanks and planes for World War II we did not take 40 years to produce them. We switched factories over to make war machines. Today we do the same thing, but instead we make solar panels. We don’t take 40 years; instead, we do it in four years.
|
|
The Daily Republic invites letters from readers that express a point of view
or an opinion.
Letters should be brief, less than 300 words. Thank you letters and articles
from other publications cannot be considered for publication. Those who wish
to submit longer opinion pieces may do so. However, they will be published
as guest opinions as space permits.
You may drop letters off at The Daily Republic or mail them to us at 120 South Lawler,
Mitchell, SD. 57301. Letters may also be sent via e-mail to: dailynews@mitchellrepublic.com or faxed to us
at (605) 996-5020.
Kephart wages campaign against ‘dysfunctional America’
Denise Ross
National discussions about South Dakota’s U.S. Senate race this year tend to focus on incumbent Democrat Tim Johnson’s health and recovery progress since he suffered a brain hemorrhage more than a year ago.
But on June 3, Republicans will choose their candidate. While three-term state legislator Joel Dykstra of Canton is the leading fund-raiser, the GOP nomination is a three-way race. GOP Senate candidate Sam Kephart of Spearfish has been on the campaign trail for a year, faithfully turning up at Lincoln Day dinners with a Dr. Phil-like prescription for what ails America.
“America has a dysfunctional political dialogue,” he tells crowds.
America, he says, is like the classic Thunderbird driven by Thelma and Louise, whom he likens to the Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
“We are poised about to go off a cliff,” Kephart says in a video posted on his Web site, www.samkephart.com. “We’re in the back seat with Thelma and Louise. The worst part is our children and grandchildren are locked in the trunk.”
Obama should reach out to women
Ellen Goodman
BOSTON — From time to time during this primary, I’ve wondered about Obama’s mama. In a race that was so much about biography, about beliefs rooted in her son’s “DNA,” she’s made only cameo appearances.
She was the “mother from Kansas” balanced alliteratively with the “father from Kenya.” Or she was the white parent whose genes combined with the black parent.
Vet's mom shows that Mothers Day is about more than flowers, cards
Kathleen Parker
WASHINGTON — This year American consumers are expected to spend an average of $138.63 each on flowers, cards and gifts for Mother’s Day, for a grand total of $15.8 billion.
That’s a whole lotta hydrangeas.
Anna Jarvis never had such excess in mind when in 1914, her idea to honor mothers resulted in Congress passing a joint resolution establishing Mother’s Day.
For GOP, a possible new worry in an unlikely state
George Will
SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — The 1st Congressional District, the northernmost in the most culturally Southern state, has given the nation William Faulkner and Elvis Presley, and next Tuesday will have a special congressional election that will test the Republican hope that Barack Obama and his former pastor can be the basis of a Republican strategy to nationalize congressional races to the disadvantage of Democrats.
Democrats' challenges lie before them, too
David Broder
WASHINGTON — The endless Democratic presidential campaign has lurched from irrelevance to trivia, triggering a near-universal call to bring it to a halt.
The two states that voted on Tuesday — Indiana and North Carolina — are so unimportant to Democratic chances of electing the next president that it is unlikely that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will make more than a token appearance there after one of them is nominated.
More Promotions »
|
RSS Feeds
