My father was the first child in his family born in the United States. His father had arrived from Hungary four years earlier and settled in Lorraine, Ohio. By the time his wife arrived in 1909, one of the two children he had left behind in the little town of Gyor (pronounced “dyur” in Hunga…

March 21 has become an important day to me. So it's that time again to share why in this Popcorn Stand.

Lying is a big deal to me. It seems to me once you know someone has lied to you, you really can’t trust them. Especially a President.

I was impressed with the Letter to the Editor by M. A. Reyes in last Wednesday's Recorder. She hit the nail on the head. Utilities have a monopoly and are guaranteed a profit. The consumer has no recourse.

First a shout out to Jamie D at Applebee's Bar and Grill. We, a party of nine, went to lunch Thursday March 2 and had to wait a bit to be seated. This wasn't an inconvenience as the entire party hadn't arrived. They had to move some tables around to put us all together which they did. Enter …

There’s a lot of discussion in the news lately about protecting children. That’s a good thing. But not everything that’s being discussed will protect them, and lots of ways to protect children aren’t being discussed.

Recently, evidence has surfaced that proves the on-air personalities at Fox News knew Trump had lost the election, there was no significant voter fraud, and the maneuvers designed to overturn the results of the 2020 election constituted an attempted coup. But they did nothing to stop the cou…

Whether you are filling your car, truck, tractor, weed blower, lawnmower, generator, compressor, or pressure washer, you need to use the proper fuel or risk lower performance and or damage to the machine.

Watched the President give his “State of the Union” speech Tuesday evening. This was my first experience of watching it live. Up until a couple of years ago, I had little interest in politics except to complain about things that affected me and my family. I did watch delayed broadcasts of po…

I’ve often said anecdotes are how you lie, while statistics are how you tell the truth. I should clarify: Anecdotes are true, but irrelevant.

My name is Kim Cade and I have two brothers diagnosed with a rare, terminal brain disorder — adult-onset leukoencephalopathy with axonal spheroids and pigmented glia, ALSP. Over the course of 3 years, our family has struggled with appropriate long-term care provided by the Medi-Cal system. T…

Four days ago, the local television station in Montana showed video of a white balloon floating eastward at about 60,000 feet of altitude. It had been spotted near the Aleutian Islands on January 28 by the U.S. military, but wasn’t reported on the news until a little after 4 p.m. on February…

Last week I wrote a brief overview of the world of Air Traffic Control. If you think it wasn't brief, google “anomalous propagation” or “tangential effect of radar returns.” Before my entry into the FAA air traffic control system there were enormous improvements in the system and air traffic…

Mass shootings (where four or more victims are shot) have greatly increased in number in the United States. So far this year, there have been 49 of them (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting?page=1). Statistics regarding all types of gun crimes during the last nine years …

I keep wanting to write about the challenges and rewards of my career as an Air Traffic Controller but the political climate and stupid things happening has always forced me to put it on hold and address the current issues. This week I'm going to ignore most of what's driving the news and tr…

The news from Washington these days is all about what the Speaker of the House, recently elected by the highly gerrymandered California 20th Congressional District, intends to do next — or rather, to NOT do next. And that's to not raise the national debt limit to authorize payment of the gov…

First the good: This week has been a blessing in many ways. Rain, Rain, and more rain to come. Much needed snow in the mountains to help our drought. I'm a Christian and like everything else this was an act of God. I try to live a Christian life, but often times fail due to selfishness, forg…

For the past two years or so, the federal government has been the primary purchaser of COVID-19 vaccines. The average price Washington has paid is around $26 per vaccine. The total spent exceeds $30 billion. How much money has Moderna lost by selling their product at that average price? None…

I don't enjoy watching politics on TV or YouTube but this week was a real education. Kevin McCarthy as I'm writing this, has lost 7 votes for Speaker of the House. No surprise there. He has distanced himself from the mainstream for sometime.

I’m in a rut. I had long since concluded that people who lie fall into two groups: Those who KNOW what they’re saying isn’t true, which means they’re LIARS, and those who are INCAPABLE of understanding what they’re saying isn't true, in which case they’re STUPID. So when you lie to me, I thi…

Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden.

There has a lot of talk about California paying reparations lately. I really did not have an opinion on this until I started to do the research. It seems that that the Governor set up a task force to study if reparations should be given and to whom.

A couple of years ago, I got a letter in the mail from the office of Kevin McCarthy, who represented the California 23rd, which included Springville. Do you have any questions for your Congressman,” it asked?

By the time you read this, Christmas will have come and gone. Hopefully the spirit of Christmas will be with you and all those around you for the whole year. It's not about giving and receiving, it's not about Dinners, Trees, and Stockings. It's about the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ!!

I've written before I wouldn't be much of a weatherman. Now virtually the entire country is going through something called a “bomb cyclone.”

Last week I read in this paper that lowering taxes or what is called “Supplied Side Economics” had no affect on helping the economy. The author also stated there was just a handful of armed IRS agents.

When I was about 6 years old, my father told me something that set me on a lifelong quest: “We’re Hungarian,” he told me, “and Hungarians have to learn lots of languages.” What he meant, of course, was if you lived in Hungary you had to learn other languages, because no one learns Hungarian.…

In his famous book, “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle), Adolf Hitler characterized a lie that was so colossal no one would believe it as a “big lie.” According to Hitler, that was what the Jews had done in blaming German nationalist Erich Ludendorff for Germany’s loss in World War I. According to Am…

If you keep up with the national news, you're probably aware of President Biden asking Congress to step in and prevent an upcoming Railroad workers strike. Now before I go into the details, I will repeat myself by saying I'm not in favor of most unions and there tactics to hold the American …

We have three acres near Springville, and we raise goats. They’re not a business; their job is to keep the grass short enough to please the local fire marshal. And they’re cute. We also have sheep, chickens and peacocks, but goats are the smartest and most affectionate.

A friend who owned a small, profitable business in Porterville told me about a young person who graduated from one of our schools, which by the way has an excellent reputation. They had to fire a new hire because he/she couldn't fill out the necessary forms that were required to complete eac…

We're right in the middle of the HallowThanksMas season so it's time to acknowledge Thanksgiving is still a recognized holiday even though it's kind of got swept up into what's now become a blended two month holiday of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We’ve just come out of the mid-term election with surprising results: The “Red Wave,” the expected sweeping victory by the opposing political party, didn’t happen. Instead, a “red dribble” produced a small majority for the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. Republicans managed…

As I write this on Thanksgiving morning I'm obliged to consider all the blessings I have had this and years past.

I read a letter to the editor Nov 10 responding to a previous column I had written. The author stated the Trump administration gave PPP loans out the back door of the treasury while the national debt was increasing $9.1 trillion between FY 2018 and FY 2022.

I’m going to take a big risk today. I’m going to try to convince you to try a new career in three minutes. It will be good for you, or maybe for your kid. You won’t want them to move out once they’re helping you pay the mortgage.

If you haven't heard, there's a shortage of diesel fuel. Last week, the Energy Information Administration, EIA, reportedthat distillate inventories were at their lowest levels since 2008. The government states we have a 25 day supply. Now that doesn't mean we will run out in 25 days. That me…

On Wednesday, November 2 around 8 a.m., a woman who lives just off Highway 190 a few miles east of Porterville heard noises outside her house. Upon investigation, she found a Hispanic male (I’ll call him Juan Del Pueblo) approximately 30 years of age attempting to break into her house.

Every day you read or hear why you should vote Republican or Democrat, all though there are others parties to choose from. What's the first thing that enters your mind when you're confronted with these choices. About 90 percent of us think, how will this affect me, or my family. The other 10…

Today is Election Day, and the two sides couldn’t be more divided. Each side is predicting if the other side wins, the world as we know it will end. They don’t speak to each other. They don’t debate — especially since any debate would consist of recitations of facts from the Democratic side,…

Sometimes I can't get a good feeling about the column I'm going to submit until just before the deadline but I've been waiting for a quiet week with little political foolishness to submit my ideas on learning.

George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars franchise, started with a bang. He won first prize in the Third National Student Film Festival in 1968 for his science fiction short entitled THX 1138 E4B, which was the name of the lead character. He also met Stephen Spielberg there, quite by chanc…

Background

On Tuesday, October 18 of this year, the Associated Press reported Kevin McCarthy had said if Republicans achieve a majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections on November 8, the United States “would no longer write a blank check” for the Ukraine to fend off the Russian…

I was severely disappointed in the Trump administration. Mostly because of the winner take all attitude and abusive remarks of the Commander in Chief. Additionally he wasn't a friend of Veterans, approval of Putin, and his personal gain by using his properties for government business. The Ja…

The American model of government enshrined in our Constitution consists of three branches of government, each of which exercises “checks and balances” on the other two branches. It has long been lauded as a model of perfection: No one branch can control the others.

Corporate Profits and Millionaires tax breaks have been the subject of discussion from letters to the editor to dinner parties.