Last week three stories inspired me to persist when other stories threatened me with despair. For 15 years, Randy Smith, 54, and volunteers have moved and lit his Wenatchee Valley Cross. The 100-foot cross with 1,000 lights shines atop a 24,000-pound concrete pedestal in Wenatchee Heights, compliments of Wenatchee Sand and Gravel and Star Rentals. Volunteers fuel a gasoline generator until they raise $5,000 for electrical lines. “Out of all the things I’ve done, this is my most worthwhile project. It’s the one God would point to and say, ‘I like that one. It touches the most people.’” It lightens me up. James Bain, 54, Florida, is free after 35-years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He said, “I’m not angry, because I’ve got God.” << MORE >>

Preoccupied with this year’s charitable activities and next year’s budget preparations, I first thought President Obama’s Nobel speech had nothing to do with our clear skies people. He spent half the time clarifying his moral responsibility as Commander-In-Chief, and the other half his moral responsibility to build a lasting and just peace. His speech does apply to us. Obama addressed the need to confront evil with a just war. Here, we confront evil with our peacekeeping officers. Obama said, “When force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct.” Our local leaders require those rules of conduct by, and for, our officers. We witnessed our last Douglas County sheriff request a state level review of whether the County met those standards.<< MORE >>

    Several losers leaped into local headlines last week: Calvin White, Loop Trail extension opponents and Tiger Woods. We all lost in the process, some more than the rest of us. What can we gain?
    White soared into lofty investments with wealth from Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises until the economy clipped his wings. Sadly local people face losses, including employees whose only risk was to trust their employer would pay. And the public may lose if the local water ...

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Last Thursday my wife Karen and I joined our three children and two spouses to share blessings during our nation’s Thanksgiving. We forgot to be thankful for national support, which set me to thinking about our nation’s priority. Our oldest daughter began by relishing our family’s close proximity, even such simple things as driving from Seattle to Bellingham for a day with her nieces and sister-in-law while her brother was traveling. He joked he now felt at home after “ex-pat” jobs in New Hampshire and Minnesota. And so it went, as each blessed the support we felt every day from our life choice partners, family and friends. << MORE >>

Three seemingly unrelated media stories convince me that each of us under these clear skies is too big to fail to act ethically. Let me tie these stories together. Netflix mailed us Frozen River, a gripping low-budget film that earned two academy award nominations. We watched two poverty-pressured women, one white American and one Mohawk Canadian, become untrusting partners desperate for money for their children. They drive across the frozen St Lawrence River into New York with illegal immigrants, including a Pakistani couple, hidden in their trunk. They fail their children, although they appear to be headed toward ethically reconnecting with them after enduring punishment. Meanwhile I’m reading, The Way of the World by Ron Suskind. He writes about the radical Islamic terrorist cells expanding inside the Mohawk reservations in Canada alongside that border. Terrorists bleed across the porous boundary on a trail established by Russian spies during the Cold War. Simultaneously Congress is wrestling with regulation for financial firms deemed too big to fail financially, despite having failed ethically.<< MORE >>

Want to know what emotional hooks predators use to snag well-intentioned people into behaving against their interests? You can see hooks in bogus emails like the “Cherokee Legend.” That unknown author tempted me with pride, fatherly love, faith, intimidation and Biblical authority. The email begins, “Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth’s rite of passage?” Two hooks snagged me: identifying with Cherokees and passing on a good story. I read on. “His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove his blindfold. He cannot cry out for help. Once he survives the night, he is a man.” That paragraph raised questions. When I checked Wiki.answers, I found comments from an offended Cherokee. “I have spoken to two tribal leaders and three other old ones and not one of them has ever heard of such an outlandish load of dung. This boy had to a pretty wimpy little boy. If I was him, I would’ve enjoyed the chance to be out there.” << MORE >>

My current motto is "simplify with less." Simplifying is complicated. My wife laid part number 9010, a filter for our refrigerator’s water and ice dispenser, on my to-do table. 9010 will take eons to breakdown in a trash heap and complicated my life. Every six months a warning light energizes her to buy a replacement 9010. She’s a retired network operating systems consultant with a deep faith in warning lights. Suspicious about that light filtering money out of my wallet, I called Allen Gossett at Guarantee Appliance and Vic Blair at Vic’s Fix-It Shop, both in East Wenatchee. They aren’t certain about my refrigerator, but an electronic timer activates most warning lights. 9010 may be working just fine, but the light’s complicating my life. Maybe that light needs a burned out bulb. Gossett recommends replacing 9010s annually. But what’s its value compared to its eco-cost? 9010’s box reduces (note it doesn’t say filters) a frightening list of toxins such as chlorine taste and odor, lead, mercury, benzene, toxaphene, 2,4-D, asbestos, and altrazine. It sounds like my family would turn to toxic minerals if I didn’t replace it. << MORE >>

Holden Village: A Place Apart, is a faith-based community with hydropower, fire service, public education, and a paid pastor. It resembles a theocracy that nurtures a faith-based balm for our bruising lifestyles. Holden lies at the feet of Buckskin and Copper Peak mountains near the west end of Lake Chelan. Pilgrims reaching Holden’s boat dock endure a faith-inducing ride up nine hairpin curves in ‘Honey,’ a groaning school bus long ago surplused by a prudent school district. Holden’s mechanic had said, “This one’s a honey,” making me wonder what he tattooed on Holden’s two other refugee buses. Eleven of us from our Methodist church experienced Holden’s spirit when we disembarked to the applause of village residents. We’d never been applauded for stepping off a bus. Maybe they welcome anybody with the faith to ride up on the bus.<< MORE >>

It bothers me that almost half of U.S. National Guard and reservists have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. West Point graduate Bill McDowell, East Wenatchee, said our country has never fought a war using so many soldiers from our Reserve Component. “Some people have too much time devoted to reserves over the years as a portion of their retirement and can’t afford to say to hell with it, despite severe hardships. I sure want to help those service men and women.” Bill is one of 4,500 volunteers in the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), a volunteer agency in the Department of Defense whose mission is: gain and maintain employer support for reserve service, increase awareness of the law, and resolve conflict through mediation. << MORE >>

Two contests for East Wenatchee City Council deserve attention because the city’s five-year cash flow forecast projects deficits for infrastructure, reserves, and capital improvements. The council must balance budgets, unlike Congress leaders, which blissfully earmarks our requests for funds despite staggering budget deficits. Sorry, that was a detour. These are my recommendations based on Douglas County candidate profiles, the Chamber of Commerce’s candidate forum and information provided to the Wenatchee Business Journal and World.<< MORE >>