Columns

The Gallup organization recently released a stunning poll showing that 81 percent of Americans are unhappy with the way the country is being governed.
Further breaking down those poll numbers, the Gallup press release went on to note that “57 percent have little or no confidence in the federal government to solve domestic problems, exceeding the previous high of 53 percent recorded in 2010 and well exceeding the 43 percent who have little or no confidence in the government to solve international problems.”

By Ron Hopp

When Laura Boggs was elected to the Jefferson County Board of Education two years ago, it caught a lot of people by surprise. It looked like incumbent Sue Marinelli was headed for re-election in an uncontested race until Boggs pulled and returned candidate papers just before the deadline. Running under the radar, Boggs upset the incumbent and has been a controversial and polarizing member of the school board in her first two years.

“The America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut considered almost nothing to be sacred — except libraries. He viewed them as a place to go when you are bereft, lost, lonely, a place which offers the sort of sustenance that calories alone can’t provide.