Columns

Little kids are amenable to learning new habits – generally much more so than those of us who are set in our ways because this isn’t our first rodeo. That’s why it’s sometimes more effective to teach children health science information rather than to do outreach aimed directly at their parents.
 That’s part of the background to the Global Soap Project. It’s a project that rests on some simple science long ago worked out by biologists and medical researchers.
The basic fact is that many types of infections are spread through contaminated water and dirty hands. Microbes can flourish in such spots, particularly sometimes in places like crowded refugee camps or in poor nations.

It’s human nature for judicious restraint to sometimes be supplanted by the desire to “take action.”
Pursuit of unrealistic desires sometimes leads us to a precipice where we are finally forced to decide whether to make a potentially fatal leap or turn back.
Our community finds itself at just such a precipice with the impending decision about the Trinity Place strip mall development.
When we began our quest back in 2005, we were searching for a formula that would significantly diversify our retail sector, provide a suite of new and exciting shopping opportunities, greatly enhance gross receipts tax revenue, provide a community gathering place, and ensure a large, constant revenue stream for our schools.

 The energy industry can take heart from the last item of the last meeting of a legislative interim committee.
Sen. Bernadette Sanchez, chair of the Economic and Rural Development Committee, proposes making the energy industry a central component of the state’s economic development strategy.
This would be quite a change in attitude. Instead of being the rich uncle who’s always on tap, energy would become an asset to be encouraged and protected, like high tech, manufacturing and tourism.
The proposal comes at a time when energy people (and entire regions of the state) are feeling picked on and under-appreciated.

To the surprise of almost no one, Gary Johnson bid a less than fond farewell to the Republican Party a couple of weeks ago.
Whereupon, he signed on as a member of the Libertarian Party and announced that he will seek that party’s presidential nomination this year.
That Johnson opted to make the Libertarian Party his political home is understandable.   
Philosophically, the former-Republican former governor has always evidenced libertarian propensities with an ill-disguised disdain for government and what he deems its intrusive role in human affairs.
Nor is his quest of the Libertarians’ presidential nomination in the least unexpected.