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Editor, Gun ownership has always been a given in Wyoming. Both political parties support it. Hunter safety classes are in our schools and children are raised hunting for food and recreation. Many of us have hunted and owned guns all our lives. But there is a counter culture that has emerged that raises the hair on the back of my neck. It has nothing to do with personal protection or recreational use of guns. It is a predatory, terrorist movement that seeks to plunge us into a civil war. Their propaganda is pervasive across Social Media. And...
Do you have what it takes to be a public servant? Next week—May 12—marks the start of the filing period for the 2022 Primary Election. In recent elections, the Saratoga Sun has encouraged our readers to head to the polls in both primary and general elections to cast their votes. What should be equally stressed is the need for people to run for those offices in the first place, especially at the local level. After all, there could be a great turnout of voters but it means little if there is nobody to vote for. Just two years ago, during the 202...
“Depression isn’t a war you win. It’s a battle you fight every day. You never stop, never get to rest. It’s one bloody fray after another.” ~ Shaun David Hutchinson Normally, I try to avoid columns on difficult topics such as mental health. With May being Mental Health Awareness Month, however, it felt important to write something. That being said; I don’t know about anybody else, but each day I struggle with an inner voice whose sole intention is to bring me down. Sometimes it comes as a...
Nothing has prepared for me to see pictures of Shanghai, the city I lived in for five years, in a lockdown state which have been showing up the past couple weeks on different news outlets. One in particular hit home on how bad the lockdown is for the residents, was a pic of a major road artery from an aerial view which is deserted. When I lived there about seven years ago, these same roads were almost parking lots due to the heavy traffic. The picture I saw the other day from BBC, showed...
I am getting ready to hit one of those birthdays I always thought meant I was old, but am now reevaluating. This is not my first time doing something like this. I can remember at 18 feeling sorry for those cracking 30 because I felt there could be nothing redeeming about hitting that age. I was convinced it would be so terrible, I should live my life to the utmost in my 20s and not care what people thought. I can tell you my conservative father was not wild about this attitude although looking...
When I was younger, I used to wonder what it would be like to time travel. The ability to go backwards or forwards through time was such an exciting concept and I had a mental list of all the places I’d want to visit, from the Ancient Pyramids of Egypt—when they weren’t so ancient—to some far off future. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized all one needs to do to time travel is blink. It seems like just yesterday my wife, Telitha, and I were dropping our son, Jareth, off for his first day of kind...
Okay, so who was Big Nose George? This legendary character from Wyoming’s formative past has been written about extensively for the past 141 years, but never has anyone really put the whole story all together until now. Dr. Mark E. Miller’s new book “Big Nose George, His Troublesome Trail” is the best telling I have seen of this famous character’s real story. I featured a version of this story, along with some crazy photographic images, in my third coffee table book, “Wyoming at 125,” back in 2015. We included the tidbit that after George...
Does America have a “Free Speech Problem”? It probably depends on who you ask. If you ask the New York Times’ editorial board, it certainly does. In a March 18, 2022 column (“America Has a Free Speech Problem”), the editorial board wrote Americans are “losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned”. In the words of the great swordsman Inigo Montoya, “I do not think it mea...
Dear Saratoga Chamber of Commerce and citizens of Saratoga, Wyo Laffs was hired to be the entertainment at your annual banquet on Thursday March 10th. During Don’s performance many of your members were offended by his jokes. This was your night to spotlight the best of Saratoga businesses and we took that away from you. We would like to sincerely apologize for this. The material that was presented was due to a miscommunication, which we accept full responsibility for, we are to blame. Don has 2 sets, one adult set which he performs in bars, a...
When you live in an international city like Shanghai, it is likely you are going to meet a lot different folk from different countries. Because there is a mix of companies from all over the world doing business in China, Shanghai is often where they have a presence. It being located in China made it a bit unique compared to places which are a bit more Western. The only other city I have ever lived in that was as international was Washington D.C. My years in Australia and Taiwan exposed me to a...
If you received your newspaper on a Thursday, there’s no need to worry. The mail wasn’t late this week. Instead, this week marks the Saratoga Sun’s return to Thursday publication. We have switched to a new printer, one in eastern Wyoming, in our continued efforts to provide you with the best product we can each week. When we use the term return in regards to Thursday publication, it may be confusing to some of our readers. It may seem to some that the Sun has published on Wednesday forever. Long-time Saratoga locals, however, can tell you d...
Editor, World peace remains elusive, thus raising the question of whether it is possible. Even peace within our country is in question. For tribalism is continuing to tear us apart. Unless we learn to view and treat each other each other with respect, it will continue to threaten our existence as a human race. You could argue that we have existed with it for centuriesand you would be right. But we have become a global community, interconnected and dependent upon one another. All conflicts and environmental crisis’s now have the ability to d...
To say the photo used for my column in the Saratoga Sun is outdated would be a bit of an understatement. In October 2021, I made the decision to finally commit to my balding and began shaving my head. Now I’m beginning to think it was some serious forethought on my part, presumably to prevent me from pulling out what was left of it. The past few months at the Sun office have been a little strained, to say the least. Change, they say, is the only constant in life. For those who pay attention t...
I found out Tuesday morning I was an orphan. The last of my four parents had passed away quietly at 5:45 a.m. Although I had been warned by a nurse the day before my stepfather’s end was possibly approaching, I was positive he would rally as he has done before. I was reinforced in my belief all would be fine when my sister, Michelle, saw him on Monday and talked to him for about an hour. My stepfather, Stuart, has been in my life since I was little over 5 years old when both my parents remarried...
Did you know that when Interstate 80 is closed for weather, that US 30 next door is automatically closed, too? This is to prevent the 8,000 semi-trailer trucks a day from storming that more narrow, more local highway as an alternate route. The resulting crush of giant rigs would be a disaster. Those frequent closures create a national financial disaster when goods are no longer moving to their destinations. Del McOmie Jr. pointed out this fact out when he was asked about the creation of an alternate Interstate 80 highway that would follow the...
