Monthly Archives: June 2017

Hospital exec reflects on deck collapse, thanks all for work to assist patients

On the afternoon of June 17, local hospital staff responded to a mass casualty event that occurred south of Lakeside. More than 50 people were injured and transported to nearby hospitals. Of those patients, 37 were treated at Flathead County hospitals nine at North Valley Hospital and 28 at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

This was the largest mass casualty event in memory for many staff, yet our teams were prepared and operated like clockwork. Within 20 minutes after the first notification, there were three operating rooms prepared to accept surgical patients. The ALERT air ambulance team flew multiple trips transporting the injured. The flight medic stayed on the scene to assist in transporting others by ground. Surgeons evaluated every patient, and radiologists stayed close by to read images. Operating room staff worked well into the night and Sunday morning. Special areas were established for patients families to gather, and staff brought in food and drinks for them. Many employees, including those from nursing, clinical areas, nutrition services, housekeeping, spiritual care, social work, patient registration, lab, security, the communications center and more dropped what they were doing to help or came in on their days off to lend a hand.

As a member of this community, Im very thankful for the amazing level of medical care available here. As an administrator at Kalispell Regional Healthcare, Im immensely proud to be associated with such a remarkable team of employees and medical staff. There are too many names to list individually, but we are thankful for each one of the first responders, the clinical staff who cared for the injured and all the hospital personnel and volunteers who provided support in a variety of ways. But most of all, we are grateful that all the patients affected by this tragedy are on the road to recovery. Curtis Lund, Kalispell, Kalispell Regional Healthcare Interim CEO

I once thought that Nancy Pelosi was the dumbest person in Washington when she said we must pass Obamacare to read whats in it.

Now we even have someone who is dumber than a box of rocks Trumps Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who said that Hitler didnt even sink to using chemical weapons during World War II. What did he use on the Jews?

Bashar al-Assad and Sean Spicer should both be taken out of office. One for using chemical weapons and one for using his mouth without engaging his brain both deadly weapons. Phillip Gregoire, Whitefish

I am running for Whitefish Municipal Court judge for one reason: to make the court and our community the best it can be.

My initial goal is to reduce your taxes. I will make the judge position part-time, with a corresponding reduction in salary, to save your tax bill. I want to increase efficiency.

I will use video arraignments to free county deputies for patrol rather than transporting prisoners. This will also make scarce jail space available for more serious offenders.

I will improve case resolution by implementing simple business practices, such as telephone conferences, so citizens will not miss work to resolve a parking ticket and visitors will not have to make multiple return visits for a traffic violation.

I will punish domestic violence. On average, a woman is beaten 25 times before she makes a police report. Women are killed by abusers at twice the rate of our troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of those deaths 50-75 percent of them are when she leaves her abuser. I will issue restraining orders when a victim makes the courageous decision to seek help, and will strongly punish domestic abusers.

I will protect our community from drunk drivers and those without insurance or licenses. These are not victimless crimes. I will impose maximum penalties, including treatment and interlock devices, to protect each of your families and our community.

I will do more with less of your tax dollars. You are being taxed for a new high school and the Haskill Basin conservation easement. Soon you will be asked to pay for a new middle school and a new county jail. As I said, I will reduce the courts budget, beginning with the judges salary.

I will bring experience to the job. I am the only candidate who has served as Brad Johnsons sub-judge. As Brads sub-judge, I handled all cases when he was absent, had a conflict of interest or did not want to handle the case.

I am the only candidate who has committed to Montanas Commission of Political Practices Code of Fair Campaign Practices agreeing to adhere to the basic principles of decency, honesty and fair play.

I have long been a public servant. I have lived and practiced law in Whitefish for 26 years. I have been Planning Board chairman, Flathead Countys Employer of Choice and the Whitefish Chambers Citizen of the Year.

For more information on my background, experience and goals, go to my website at http://www.tornowforwhitefish.com or call me at 862-7450.

With all these things in mind, I respectfully ask for your vote in November so that together, we can make the court and our community the best it can be. Tom Tornow, Whitefish

I find it quite interesting that liberal Democrats have their knickers in a twist over possible Russian interference in the last presidential election, but are fighting to the death to prevent an investigation into voter fraud. The Russian so-called interference in the election, for the most part, involved the release of emails proving how the DNC and various members of the party used dirty tactics to disadvantage Sen. Bernie Sanders and favor the campaign of Hillary Clinton information that the public deserved to know if this were an honest world.

Our government has done much more to influence foreign elections ... just look at Obamas election team trying to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu in his last election in Israel in revenge over his opposition to the pathetically flawed Iran nuclear giveaway.

On the other hand, there are many prosecutions of voter fraud in states where the attorney generals actually care about the integrity of our elections. Illegal aliens and dead people are known to populate voting roles. I doubt the presidents claim that 3 million aliens voted in the last election, but I firmly believe that the number is certainly higher than zero. Why dont the liberal Democrats care about the impact of voter fraud on our elections?

The simple answer is that they are intimately involved in this fraud, especially since illegal aliens are part of their constituency. Instead of protecting the legitimacy of our elections, liberals continually degrade the process by fighting voter ID laws and those seeking to clean up outdated and inaccurate voter registration roles, all of which promote such shenanigans. Add a dash of a Democrat Attorney General Eric Holder failing to investigate or prosecute voter intimidation by Black Panther thugs at polling places in 2008, and we have a system rife with domestically generated fraud ... we dont need to worry that much about the Russians.

The Democrats have found a way to protect the swamp and prevent real reform in D.C. As long as they and their accomplices in the media keep screaming the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, and ignore how tough the current administration has been on Russian transgressions, they hope to derail any real changes in Washington. Hopefully, elitist liberals have miscalculated the intelligence of We the People. Hopefully Jonathan Gruber, a proud liberal MIT professor involved in the passage of Obamacare was dead wrong when he proudly declared that the passage of Obamacare depended on the stupidity of the American voter to forward their agenda. One can only hope. P. David Myerowitz, Columbia Falls

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Letters, published June 25, 2017 - Daily Inter Lake

The world says: You have needs satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Dont hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more. This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

By Denrele Animasaun

We often take our citizenship for granted, we automatically assume the privilege of being a Nigerian is ours for the taking and that we can jolly well use it, discard it at will, when we choose or when it pleases us. We should know that with these privileges, come responsibilities. And we should take our responsibilities seriously if we value the privilege of truly being a Nigerian. We should do more and throw away these assumed feelings of entitlement. We feel that we are owed this for being who we are. Actually, we are not. If everyone feels this way, then who are we expecting to deliver these entitlements and privileges? So in the meantime, we are squandering our birth-right and not fully recognising that we are custodians and that we have to hand over this responsibly to the next generations like those before us did. History will tell if we did our duties as custodians.

When I was growing up, the values and responsibilities of being a Nigerian was very much instilled in us; we strive to be a good person, we guarded our family names so proprietorially and, with pride, we are told that with hard work and pride in what we do, we will make it in life. We were told by our elders and those in authorities that it was important to truly be responsible and neighbourly; that it was important to truly give back and we did for the general good and not for ourselves and the privileged few. We did coin the adage that: it takes a village to raise a child didnt we? So when and what are you doing to help raise decent Nigerians?

There was a time we were compassionate to one another and it did not matter if you were from one tribe or another or you were from another religion or a different political party. We were then all Nigerians and that was all that mattered. We obeyed laws and had the confidence that the rules and laws were safe in the hands of our hallowed institutions and establishments. We knew the law was there to protect us as citizens and took our responsibility very seriously as we knew failure to do so had consequences. We took pride in the green, white, green; it was the colour of pride, real pride and privilege. It sounds simple doesnt it? But how many of us can truly say that we do our best as Nigerian citizens in the true sense of the word?

Do not worry about what others are doing, what are you doing to be a good Nigerian? Remember what you do is reflecting and will reflect on your children and their offspring. We have often used the old chestnut; that everybody is on the take that is why things are the way they are. I have got news for you: you are either the problem or the solution. You are a Nigerian after all, so you choose. So I ask you, what makes you a Nigerian? Before you answer, make sure that you have proved your worth to be called a Nigerian I believe a good citizen makes a good country and it is time we act as we deserve the right to call ourselves Nigerians.

Evans got caught

Funny how Nigerians express shock and horror whenever some new disaster or criminality is unearth in Nigeria. Let us be clear here, Life in Nigeria is far from normal. The yardstick of normal ceased a long time ago when the moral compass was broken. Majority of Nigerians are always looking for ways of making money quick and no matter how depraved or dishonest. Not many want to make an honest living. There lies the problem and our present dilemma of seeking money by all means necessary. One of the lines of current criminal activities are: kidnapping, human trafficking, drugs trafficking, baby making factories, of course, politicians.

In the last couple of days, police have nabbed the notorious kingpin kidnapper called Evans. They got him in his lair, in his ill-gotten wealth; he had made millions in kidnapping rich people for ransom and has done so for many years.

People claim they were unaware of his criminal activities in spite of living amongst ordinary people. Some have got as far as to seek for his release! No one knew what this guy did and his wife now spins a tale: that she was not aware of her husbands criminal business as she defends this by telling all who would listen, that he couldnt be that bad because he reads Psalm.23!

Of course, she said that they go to church! So this makes it all right, as far as she was concerned, he was religious. Those things do not absolve him off his crimes.

Uchennna Onwuamadike, wife of notorious kidnap kingpin, Chikwudubem Onwuamadike, also known as Evans, expects the Nigerian authorities to spare the life of her husband because of her children. Does she understand the horrors that her husbands victims have had to endure and she has the gall to plead for clemency on his behalf?

According to her, He reads Psalm 23 a lot. Even his phone, he sets alarm for 12 noon to read Psalm 23. He took part in our daily prayers in the morning, evening and night. He used to lead us in prayers. We attend Anglican Church. He has never given them money to show off. We used to give N5000 or N10,000 and the highest we have given so far was N50,000 when we baptised one of our children, she said. So what happened to the victims? For seven years, he has been peddling his brand of crime and his victims have been living a nightmare. Can someone explain to Evans wife, that his victims have families too and what gave her husband the right to kidnap innocent people, abduct them, torture them and then extort money off their family with menace and threats? Kidnapping is not a victimless crime, and for seven years, he was building his evil empire and living the life of OReily and he has the gall, to want to die because he feels that the police would not give him a fair treatment because of his crimes. He is looking for a cowards way out.

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One day - Vanguard