Time for a course correction

Sometimes politicians make decisions that make little sense to those of us governed. Probably little known to most county residents is an organization somewhere around twenty years in existence. It is the Red Willow County Household Hazardous Waste collection agency. Started with grant money years ago by Red Willow Western Fire Chief Bill Elliott. Grants were secured by then engineer and now currently County Commissioner Jacqueline Riener and championed by your columnist sitting as a county commissioner. Elliott has taken the Agency from servicing the locals and a few other counties to servicing a large part of the state.

What do they do you might ask? Well each of us come up with “leftovers” that we don’t know what to do with. How about that quart of antifreeze left over after filling your car radiator? What do you do with it: pour it down the drain—not a good idea. Throw it on the lawn? Nope, it will kill the grass. Ah ha, take it to the HH Waste Collection when they come around and it will be disposed of in an ecologically sound manner. The list goes on, used oil, leftover garden spray, dead batteries with battery acid, DDT long outlawed, all sorts of leftover farm chemicals. I can remember receiving the leftover chemical bottles of a closed high school’s chemical lab. Vials containing opium — you used to be able to buy it at a drug store and a particularly interesting vial of picric acid. Picric acid is an explosive of considerable power and one of the components of the primer in ammunition. Handle with care — extreme care.

This past weekend Elliott and crew were in the eastern part of the state doing what they do. He was grumbling because excluded from his well-trained crew, all members of the all-volunteer RWW Rural Fire Department, were his best two workers his daughter and son in law. Seems that someone in county government has ruled that it is improper for a supervisor to employ any family relation.

What a bunch of foolishness. As small as we are here in rural Western Nebraska why in the world would we exclude good workers just because there is a family relationship? Few in number all persons are under close scrutiny by their fellow workers and any favoritism is quickly pointed out. Family or no family your former county commissioner can’t see a problem.

I’m wondering who made the edict in the first place. I couldn’t have been the chairman of the board of commissioners, Earl McNutt who as a kid grew up running road machinery in Hayes County when his dad was county commissioner there. Must be some other misguided bureaucrat along the way on a quest for power. Drain the swamp.

I don’t know about you but your old columnist is getting mighty tired of the constant harangue against President Trump. Turn to about any TV channel and within a few minutes there are comments about how terrible he is, calls for impeachment, on and on. I’m reminded of President Obama’s comment that elections have consequences. Trump won fair and square. Let him do the job of president which to date has been quite a success for the economic health of this country.

I’ve been watching the problems of the Catholic Church with interest. Sad. A very disturbing trend in society one we totally don’t need. The do-gooders in the liberal progressive press are trying to make it all about pedophilia where the blame should really be laid at the feet of homosexuality. Gays that have a safe haven in the priesthood under the cover of celibacy. Sadly the hierarchy has been involved in covering up the whole sordid affair.

It is embarrassing to my Catholic friends of which I have many. Good people. My own Protestant faith, the United Methodists, sadly are flirting with going the same way and considering authorizing gay marriage and the ordination of gay bishops. The real problem is homosexuality, forbidden in our Bible, but tacitly ignored and condoned in liberal progressive society. It is imperative that we make a course correction to call it what it is and recognize the threat that homosexuality is to our precious youth.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail