Opinion

AS UKRAINIANS FIGHT AND DIE for democracy, Russia is arresting its own citizens who are protesting the war and threatening prison for journalists who report the truth. The attempt to crush a democratic government and stop the flow of information comes as American news organizations and transparency advocates observe Sunshine Week from March 13-19, a time for highlighting government openness and a free press.

IN RECENT DAYS it has been impossible to ignore the scenes of Russian troops invading Ukraine. The U.S. and other states, such as Germany and even the typically neutral Switzerland, are joining together to offer various combinations of economic sanctions, providing intelligence and/or weapons to Ukraine.

THE LATE FRED ROGERS told a story to help kids through terrible times. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news,” Mr. Rogers said, “my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You can always find people who are helping.’”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Bob Farkas’ guest column was originally published in the Eastern New Mexico News, in Clovis, New Mexico, and is reprinted here with the author’s permission. I NEVER MET MY GRANDFATHER on my mother’s side.

IN LAST WEEK’S REPORT on the City Council fielding HOT fund requests (Thursday, March 3, 2022, pages 8-9) we reported incorrectly that the Chamber receives an annual 25 percent allocation of hotel occupancy tax funds collected by the city. The Chamber actually receives 50 percent of the HOT funds collected here. The city retains 25 percent of those receipts, and allocates the remaining 25 percent to the River Valley Pioneer Museum. We also reported that the Chamber’s projected budget for 2019-20 was $68,000. The Chamber received only $30,522 for that year, and had actual expenses of $29,733.

WHAT IF, DURING A NATIONAL emergency, thousands of American citizens—never accused of any crime—were locked up in rudimentary camps in isolated, rural areas behind barbed-wire fences with guard towers equipped with searchlights and jeeps patrolling the perimeter, manned by soldiers with orders to shoot any prisoner getting too close to those fences?

SUNDAY IS THE 80th birthday of Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s most accomplished politician save Henry Clay. McConnell has often cited Clay as his ideal, but Clay was an architect of bipartisan compromises that kept the Union together before the Civil War; McConnell’s history is different.