Guest Columns - The Journal

Sheek: Fall means budget time for Cortez City Council

It’s fall! There’s a crispness in the air, the trees and oak brush have assumed the spectacular colors of the season. Another harbinger of fall is that we now begin the review a...

DATE: Oct 12, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Samuelson: Advance of the ‘spoils society’ is not welcome news

WASHINGTON – The “spoils society” advances. The spoils society is a phrase I coined some years ago to illustrate a basic problem of wealthy societies, including, of course, the United States...

DATE: Oct 9, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Samuelson: How resilient is the typical American consumer?

WASHINGTON – The American consumer is the great engine of growth for the $19 trillion U.S. economy, representing nearly 70 percent of spending. If the consumer is confident and happy, chance...

DATE: Oct 5, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Lopez-Whiteskunk: Washing away gains of Bears Ears

When President Obama designated Bears Ears in Southeastern Utah a national monument last year, it represented a major breakthrough for Native American tribes. A movement and visi...

DATE: Oct 2, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Samuelson: No ‘Shark Tank’ nation - entrepreneurs in decline

WASHINGTON – Maybe we’re not “’Shark Tank’ nation” after all. The incredibly popular cable business program, which features budding entrepreneurs pleading for backing from wealthy investors ...

DATE: Sep 28, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Rankin: High stakes testing

During the August board meeting of the State Board of Education, the Colorado Department of Education released the Scholastic Aptitude Scores for 2016-17. The SAT is a standardiz...

DATE: Sep 25, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Tipton and Westerman: The truth about forest health

As you read this, tens of thousands of acres are going up in flames across the West. Decades of misguided forest management strategies and decisions are coming home to roost. ...

DATE: Sep 21, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Lopez: Deterioration of playground forced its closure

Fellow community members, and friends of the Ron Kotarski, Jr. Memorial Community Playground: It is with great sadness and regret that we, the Dolores Town Board of Trustees, and staff, had...

DATE: Sep 18, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

James: TV and Mao’s China

When I was a kid, there was a guy named Mao Zedong who was the “big cheese” in China. He ruled with a pretty hard hand, and demanded that everyone dress, speak and think alike. ...

DATE: Sep 18, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Sheek: Libraries change lives and strengthen communities

I am a retired librarian so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of my favorite places in Cortez is our local library. The libraries of today are very different from the ones many of us ...

DATE: Sep 14, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Samuelson: ‘Progressives’ get their share of the blame as well

WASHINGTON – What has been missing for the past two or three decades is a serious debate about the role of the federal government. What programs are effective and justified? Who deserves gov...

DATE: Sep 11, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns

Trump is threatening some kind of war with North Korea

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force “sniffer plane” was collecting air samples off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on Sept. 3, 1949, when it gathered evidence of radioactivity, confirming that the ...

DATE: Sep 7, 2017 | CATEGORY: Guest Columns