From cover to cover
By Ben Olson Reader Staff You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can certainly judge a good bookstore by its owner. Since 1997, Sandpoint has been fortunate to have Jim Orbaugh’s...
Category: Ben Olson
Imagine the opposite
By Ben Olson Reader Staff One of my favorite classes in college was Logic and Critical Thinking. In that course, I learned how to obtain a larger and more complete view of the world...
Streets Supervisor Chet Jackman retires
By Ben Olson Reader Staff After nearly 25 years of keeping Sandpoint’s roads clear, patched and safe, Streets Supervisor Chet Jackman is hanging up his safety vest. Jackman’s leadership and commitment have been instrumental...
Army Corps announces spring refill, shares gate replacement progress
By Ben Olson Reader Staff The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began the gradual spring refill of Lake Pend Oreille on April 1 and plan to manage the 2025 summer lake levels within the...
Casting for a cause
By Ben Olson Reader Staff Sometimes, inspiration comes from unexpected places. When Jess Westbrook had the idea to use fly fishing as a tool to support children in foster care, it came from how...
Anti-fascist films that hit just right
By Ben Olson Reader Staff Publisher’s note: This article contains spoilers. Perhaps it was Elon Musk’s Hitler salute at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Maybe it’s the endless waves of authoritarian rhetoric coming from the...
Dumb of the week
By Ben Olson Reader Staff Perhaps, in a decade or two, we’ll look back on this time period and shake our heads softly, saying, “It was a strange time to be alive.” But, to...
‘Hey, Rube’
By Zach Hagadone Reader Staff When I was a cub reporter at the Associated Press, stationed in the bowels of the pre-renovation Idaho Capitol, circa 2003, we had a CRT TV bolted to a...
Decline of a nation
By Ben OlsonReader Staff When I was young, I thought my father had two belly buttons. One was where they’re usually supposed to be, but he had a second indentation a couple of inches...
Is ‘Gaz-a-Lago’ a harbinger of doom — or dumb?
By Ben Olson Reader Staff Sandwiched somewhere between his calls to stop funding colleges that allow “illegal protests,” threatening to take Greenland “one way or the other” and kicking wartorn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy...
