Featured Stories
Featured Stories
An accuser has crawled out of the shadows to charge Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with sexual assault. The accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, contends that 36 years ago Kavanaugh, in a drunken stupor, shut her in a room at a party and clumsily attempted to undress her.
She contends that another male, apparently one Mark Judge, was also present and was also a participant. Kavanaugh and Judge have both categorically denied the event ever happened. Said Kavanaugh, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
Judge was equally emphatic. “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way.” Continue reading
Heroes. Our televisions and movies are filled with super-heroes. Men and women gifted with special abilities to fight crime. Do we really believe someone can throw fire from their hands, or throw up an energy shield to withstand an explosion, or fly at will, or stop speeding cars with their hands? Of course not. It’s our way of stating our wish that someone could fight the evil around us and bring about justice. Continue reading
You might be astonished to learn that one out of every 10 households in America rents a storage unit to hold all of the STUFF that will not fit in their homes/garages. This statistic has me wondering why? If you know that you can’t take it with you when you die, then why would anyone feel the need to hang onto so much stuff? It boggles the mind!
I have a sister who has always been very sentimental about “things.” She has three children and three grandchildren and has proudly saved almost every drawing, trophy, report card, baseball, video, and doodle that they ever brought home. Although this is very sweet of her, the result of years of collecting was overwhelming! Continue reading
Victoria Larson, N.D.
Several years ago I wrote a column of this same title. And I began the process of doing so. Changes can come fast or they can take years. Life changes in an instant with a job loss, a move, health challenges, divorce, or death. These kinds of changes are unexpected and there is little we can do to prepare for them.
Other kinds of changes take months or years, depending on circumstances. I began downsizing five years ago. I started by getting as much plastic as possible out of my house. Then books were donated to the library, the local Montessori school, and my friend’s rural ‘library box’ alongside her driveway. Bags and bags of recently unworn clothing went to local churches. Household goods went to Salvation Army and local Senior Centers. This made a considerable dent in ‘stuff’ but not so much. Continue reading
You’ll always want to base your investment decisions on your own needs and goals. But there may be times when you might consider adjusting your portfolio because of risks and opportunities. Now may be one of those times.
Here’s some background: In recent months, the Federal Reserve has raised short-term interest rates several times, and given its generally favorable outlook on the economy, it has indicated it may continue bumping up interest rates gradually over the next year or so. The Fed doesn’t control long-term interest rates, but these rates often follow the lead of short-term movements. However, longer-term rates haven’t yet risen as much as shorter-term ones, which means the difference between short- and long-term rates is relatively small, historically speaking. Continue reading
I’ve wanted to be on a jury since the first time I saw Perry Mason on TV in 1957. One of the great disappointments of my adult life is that I’ve never been called for jury duty. People all around me would be called, would complain, and then would immediately start figuring ways to get out of it.
It became clear to me that it was pretty easy to avoid jury duty. Often people would brag about how cleverly they had presented their circumstances in such a way as to convince the judge that they were unable to serve. Few of them went so far as to admit they had lied. Continue reading
Both former president Barack Obama and the current DNC chairman, in an effort to scare Democrats enough to get out and vote, said last weekend that democracy itself is on the ballot in November.
Here is the former president: “You need to vote because our democracy depends on it.” Continue reading
It’s 3:45am, and I am staring at the digital clock casting a blue glow at the end of my bed. I’m feeling impressed to get up at this early morning hour but I don’t know why. You have had the same feeling and experience tells you to respond immediately.
So, I got out of bed, had my prayer and started getting ready, not sure what I was getting ready for.
My bedroom window faces the Sandy River and normally I can hear traffic but not at this time of morning. The crickets are the only thing I hear outside my window. Their sound is interrupted by a car or possibly a truck speeding down East Columbia Scenic Highway. That is not unusual as traffic oftentimes is in a Continue reading
“Assassins (a word derived from Hashashin) is the name used to refer to the medieval Nizari Ismailis, an order led by a mysterious “Old Man of the Mountain.” They were an Islamic sect that formed in the late 11th century from a split within Ismailism, itself a branch of Shia Islam.
“The name Hashishin allegedly comes from the order’s penchant of indulging in hashish during ecstatic rituals. Continue reading
Americans Concerned About Ongoing Surveillance and Censorship Leave Facebook in Record Numbers as Stock Plunges 24% in 45 DaysJust how bad is it at Facebook? Consider this-in just 45 days, Facebook lost over $140 billion in market capitalization. The stock dropped from $217 on July 25, 2018 to $162.53 on September 6, 2018. And now, nearly half of millennials along with nearly 10 percent of all Americans have deleted their Facebook accounts.The question to ask is why Facebook is losing billions of dollars and millions of users. There are multiple reasons for the exodus; here are just a few: