Sentinel Blogs

Marriage with toasters, farm animals, oh my!

May 16, 2008 – 1:03 pm
I have a friend who wants to marry her dog. After all, they already sleep together, and now that the California Supreme Court has paved the way for same-sex couples to marry, it's only a matter of time before people start marrying animals, or even inanimate objects, right? (I actually think I'm in love with my Mr. Coffee iced-tea maker, so I'm thinking a June nuptial would be perfect. Hmm, but will I have to change my name to Mrs. Coffee? Anyhoo, you're all invited, of course. Maybe we'll have the reception at Art Works.) "Keep your perverted behavior in the closet," was one comment I heard when the story broke earlier this week. "And stay away from my family." Yikes! Why? Are people afraid that if they come in contact with one of these toaster-marrying folks, their kids might start dating electronics? Worse still, if a gay person looks them in the ...

Posted in The Pulse by Jackie Kaczmarek | 4 Comments »

Weather, special sections, contests

May 16, 2008 – 10:04 am
We have a few updates and new additions to our online content previously unavailable to our online user. We have an upgraded weather page, which displays current conditions and 10-day forecast for Hanford, or any other city you would like to see. You can visit it here at http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/weather/ Addtionally, we have upgraded our special sections to include the entire special section for our online users to read. We will keep an archive of all our special sections starting from April 2008 and moving forward. Check out our newest special section, Home Style, at http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/ss/homestyle/ or for our complete special section listing go to http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/ss/ We now have a centralized contest page for all those users wanting to find what contests we are currently running at http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/contest/. Please check back to the contest page frequently as we plan on having quite a few contests over the course of the summer. Also a little known section we have for all ...

Posted in Sentinel Online by Josh Parrish | 2 Comments »

Calling all crappy Christians

May 15, 2008 – 9:09 pm
Crappy Christians are everywhere. This idea has been hammering incessantly on my head. Thought #1: The crazed remarks of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Thought #2: John Hagee, the pastor and McCain supporter who asserted that God called Katrina down on New Orleans to punish the city for its “sin.” Then, a flashback to the late Jerry Falwell blaming 9/11 on “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians.” To add insult to injury, along came recent quote on this blog from the hero of the Protestant Reformation — Martin Luther — in which he calls for Jews to be treated like a bunch of cancer cells. All outstanding examples of not-so-Christian behavior. The kicker was an e-mail exchange with Joe Johnson, colleague and fellow blogger. We started by debating the merits of the video game “Grand Theft Auto” and ended up on the depressing subject of Christians that don’t act like Christians. Joe ...

Posted in Signposts by Seth Nidever | 31 Comments »

The Pennsylvania Polka

May 14, 2008 – 2:06 pm
I don't plan on leaving California in pursuit of a livelihood unless I have to, but if I were going to, I'd head straight to Pennsylvania. Why? Because all of the state's and nation's problems there, from clean air, the war in Iraq, disaster relief for China and Myanmar, and the mortgage crisis, have been solved. And how do I know all this to be true? Just by paying attention to the latest from Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who is demanding an independent investigation of the NFL's "Spygate," in which the New England Patriots were found to have wrongly filmed opposing coaches signs and the league's handling of the probe. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell declared the investigation over on Tuesday after meeting with former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh, but that's apparently not enough for the senator, who wants an investigation on the scale of the one that produced the ...

Posted in My Corner by Richard de Give | 1 Comment »

Your thoughts on Israel’s 60th

May 14, 2008 – 9:23 am
Today is Israel's 60th anniversary, and its position in the Middle East is as precarious as ever. Iran is on the rise, Iraq is held together be a thread and U.S. strength abroad is weakening. Do you think the U.S. should continue to support Israel the way that it has? If Israel were to need American soldiers to fight against another Arab invasion of that country, would the U.S. be forthcoming? Has the Iraq war helped or hurt Israel? I look forward to your thoughts on these questions. Drop me a few lines.

Posted in Signposts by Seth Nidever | 8 Comments »

A visit to Disneyland…. Priceless

May 13, 2008 – 7:35 pm
My 9-month-old baby daughter had been good most of the morning. There hadn't been a single tear or even a squeak from her. We had driven to Disneyland, parked the car, taken the tram to the entrance gate and walked all the way to Mickey's Toontown at the other end of the park. I would have thought she was sleeping but she was too busing turning her head, with wide-open eyes, taking in everything around her. And then it happened. She made up for all of her wonderful cute behavior when we got in line to see Mickey Mouse while we were at his house in Mickey's Toontown. I had wanted to get a few pictures of her with Mickey. Things went pretty smooth for the first 20 minutes of waiting. My daughter was very playful and people around us were ahhing over her and commenting how cute she was. Then all at ...

Posted in The Diaper Diaries by Maria Ortiz-Briones | 10 Comments »

Hate on

May 13, 2008 – 2:28 pm
Once in a while there’s going to be some one or something that is going to impede your progress. We’ve probably all had this problem. I’ve been in the gym several times where a teammate or fellow fighter comes in and says something like, “I really don’t feel like working out today. I’m having some problems at home.” Having problems at home? That’s the time when I want to train harder or spend a little more time in the gym. I often remember a saying my football coach use to say, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And right about now, I’m really starting to get going, as it seems nothing in my personal life can go right and life is extremely tough. It almost seems when one thing goes wrong, things just stack against me. But I’m not going to let that stop me and my progress. All this negativity in my ...

Posted in The Project by Jeremy Luchau | 17 Comments »

They are not gone

May 12, 2008 – 12:02 pm
Some facts about this upcoming Wednesday: It is the 14th day of the month. It will be the first day of the rest of your life, should you live that long. It marks the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. It's the third fact that captures my attention. I don't want to get into the debate over whether or not Israel is treating the Palestinians fairly. That's an argument for another time. What I'm interested in is the fact that the Jews still exist. The most incredible documentary I have ever seen — bar none — is "The Long Way Home," the 1997 Academy-Award-winning account of how the Jews went from perhaps the lowest point in their history to one of the most jubilant in the span of three years. In 1945, fully two-thirds of European Jewry had been wiped out. It would probably have been 100 percent, if America and the Allies hadn't defeated Germany in ...

Posted in Signposts by Seth Nidever | 20 Comments »

In praise of TV

May 8, 2008 – 4:45 pm
God bless television. I'm defending the boob tube here because of a recent negative comment on one of my posts about the evils of television sets and SUVs. I'll leave the SUV comment alone (I wish I had one). But I will list the many merits of TV. The first is that it prevents elitism. I've seen too many of my friends in the Sierra Club swear off television alltogether. The result is that they can barely bring themselves to acknowledge their fellow Americans, who are glued to the screen 100 hours a week. Not good. Another good reason to love television is that it is the cheapest medicine for insomnia. Forget prescriptions. TV does the same without the side effects. When you wake up in the morning, just turn it off. Another great thing about television: It puts you in touch with the free market. How can you keep the economy going if you don't ...

Posted in Signposts by Seth Nidever | 45 Comments »

Hold on, this may get a little sappy

May 8, 2008 – 2:26 pm
I got a beautiful bouquet -- OK, box -- of flowers yesterday from my daughter and her family in Oregon. I texted her (despite a painful case of Idol-induced texter's thumb) to tell her they'd arrived. Aiden, her 3 1/2-year-old, wanted to know if they were beautiful, so I sent her a photo of the blooms to show him (ain't technology grand?). Which made me think... I remember when she had just turned 14, and I was in the middle of a divorce. She and I had what you might call a "falling out" for a number of years. Dealing with a teenage girl, as my life fell apart, was difficult. OK, it was pretty much unbearable. I was bemoaning the fact to my mother on the phone one day (she was in England, I was in Nevada), when suddenly this normally straightlaced woman burst into guffaws of laughter. "Don't you ...

Posted in The Pulse by Jackie Kaczmarek | 7 Comments »