Category: Opinion

Opinion

A North Idaho pandemic: Then & Now

By Lyndsie Kiebert
Reader Staff

For everyone alive in North Idaho today, the novel coronavirus outbreak is uncharted territory.

Across the world, leadership is suspending gatherings, closing schools and encouraging …

A few thoughts…

By Sandy Compton
Reader Columnist

Darn! It’s already March. November is coming up fast, and I declared my 2020 candidacy for president back when the Trump got elected, but then …

Taking a shot — Part 1

By Marjolein Groot Nibbelink
Reader Contributor

More than 97 guns are owned per 100 people in the United States. Serbia is second, with 58 per 100, and Yemen third with …

Happy [bleep] year

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

I received a breaking news alert on my phone on Feb. 2, 2020, announcing the fact that the day’s palindromic date (02/02/2020) is the only …

I want my America back

By James Richard Johnson
Special to the Reader

I want my America back! I grew up in the Midwest in the 1950s and want back the America that stood for …

Love is a Dog From Hell

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

The headline of this article comes from a book by poet and author Charles Bukowski, who lived a bitter, drunken existence periodically punctuated by moments …

Letters

  • Response to Mr. Bearly… Dear Editor, I literally yelped in pain (as if someone punched me in the gut) when I read Tim Bearly’s line in his “The False Profit Motive” that read “Individualism will fail whenever there is money involved. We need a collectivist approach when it comes to the health of our planet.” This ...
  • A Fear-Based Movement… Dear Editor, This is a response to Bill Harp’s article titled Why the Redoubt?, which is the final chapter of the Sandpoint Reader’s excellent American Redoubt Series. Nowhere in Harp’s article was fear mentioned as a motivation for the Redoubt movement. I see fear as the primary motivation for those of the ...
  • Everyone Has A Health Care Story… Dear Editor, My story is about a man who works really hard, supports a child and falls into the Medicaid gap. He makes too much to qualify for Idaho’s Medicaid program, but not enough to qualify for the ACA health insurance subsidies. He got a small piece of insulation in his ...
  • Look out for Socialists… Dear Editor, Ben Olson finished his expose on the “Redoubt” that provoked a series of Letters to the Editor, as controversy sells publication advertising! My motivation to weigh in was fortified by a neighbor’s elitist attack on Mr. Gifford. The unstated intention presented in Libby’s academic reliance is the censorship of ...
  • Jazz Greats Who Died in 2017… Dear Editor, Guitarist Larry Coryell died Feb. 19 at age 73. Coryell’s rock-tinged riffs opened the door in the mid-’60s to jazz/rock fusion. Pianist Horace Parlan died Feb. 23 at age 86. Parlan was a hard-bop pianist who recorded with Charles Mingus, Clark Terry, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Archie Shepp and others. Pianist Misha ...
Close [x]

Want to support independent local journalism?

The Sandpoint Reader is our town's local, independent weekly newspaper. "Independent" means that the Reader is locally owned, in a partnership between Publisher Ben Olson and Keokee Co. Publishing, the media company owned by Chris Bessler that also publishes Sandpoint Magazine and Sandpoint Online. Sandpoint Reader LLC is a completely independent business unit; no big newspaper group or corporate conglomerate or billionaire owner dictates our editorial policy. And we want the news, opinion and lifestyle stories we report to be freely available to all interested readers - so unlike many other newspapers and media websites, we have NO PAYWALL on our website. The Reader relies wholly on the support of our valued advertisers, as well as readers who voluntarily contribute. Want to ensure that local, independent journalism survives in our town? You can help support the Reader for as little as $1.