This week’s Here’s Something continues a three-part series concerning pet peeves inspired by life during the coronavirus. Without further adieu, let’s get to it: It’s severely frustrating, five months into this outbreak, that we don’t even know where this new coronavirus originated. Was it from the “wet markets” in Wuhan, or was it deliberately or […]
Here’s Something
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Balentine ignores minimum wage earners’ reality
RE: Balentine, Aug. 7 (“All that, without a bag of chips”). Your selfishness is nauseating. You’d prefer others to starve so you can have a cheap sandwich? Disgusting. Your flimsy discussion of buying power conveniently ignores the reality of trying to live on minimum wage. Even at $12 an hour, a 40-hour work week amounts […]
advertisement
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Reader ‘grateful’ for conservative columnist
Thank you for publishing John Balentine’s opinion column. It’s important for readers to see how truly insensitive he is to the working populace. His view that “I’ve got mine, you can work two or three minimum-wage jobs but you’ll never get ahead.” (“All that, without the bag of chips,” Aug. 7). He neglects to say […]
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Balentine has forgotten impact of GOP tax cuts
John Balentine (“All that, without the bag of chips,” Aug. 7) secures his favorite snack items (i.e., sandwich, bag of chips and drink) at the ” … Subway sandwich shop, which I love because it’s both healthy and tasty.” However, and rather sadly, he now has to “give up” some of his items (“ … […]
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Balentine’s assumption about education questioned
I have two questions about John Balentine’s opinion piece (“Rise from your foxholes, teachers,” Aug. 13). Am asking in the name of factual information. 1. Where has it been proven that “remote learning has been a failure”? I am not a teacher and I do not have children in school, but I have heard from […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Here’s Something: Pandemic pet peeves, part I
To say the COVID-19 outbreak has negatively impacted the general populace would be an understatement of gigantic proportions. Just recently we heard from the Centers for Disease Control that a full quarter of young people ages 18-24 have considered suicide in the past month. Mental health in all sectors of the populace is suffering, according […]
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Wartime analogy ‘fitting’ for Trump, Balentine
It’s so perfect that when John Balentine gets all snarky with our teachers and belittles their health concerns (“Rise from your foxholes, teachers,” Aug. 12) that he fittingly invoked this as an example: “President Trump fittingly invoked a wartime analogy when he portrayed the fight against the virus as a war against an invisible enemy. […]
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Balentine needs a dose of reality
Special rights for the homeless! They and their White Walker-like advocates are setting up tent encampments on our property, like Portland’s own Army of the Dead (“Why do Portland’s homeless get special rights?” July 31). Woe is us! More hallucinogenic sausage ground from the mind of John Balentine. Having gone through what was probably an […]
Posted inThe Forecaster
Letter: Higher minimum wage doesn’t drive inflation
I get you can’t silence opinion writers for muddled logic. Surely, though, The Forecaster has journalistic obligations to not print untruths. In his self-pitying ode to the $5 sub sandwich, “All that, without the bag of chips” (Aug. 6), John Balentine infuses his typically thin gruel of grievance and non-sequitur with at least one straight-up […]
Posted inAmerican Journal, Forecaster Opinion, Lakes Region Weekly
Here’s Something: Rise from your foxholes, teachers
There are three kinds of employees in these pandemic times: essential workers, nonessential workers and those stuck in between. Workers considered essential by the government include nurses, grocery store employees, delivery drivers, first responders and others who are needed onsite for the operation of life-sustaining sectors of the economy. They have been going to work […]