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The Family Place in Weyburn held a very special party for their students last week.

It was a magical morning in the Mini Go program as Disney's Elsa, Merida, Belle, and Beast all visited the children at the Royal Tea Party.

"In our Mini Go program we usually do quite a bit more activities with the children throughout the year than we're currently allowed to do with COVID-19 restrictions," explained Dawn Gutzke, Executive Director with The Family Place in Weyburn. "So what we've been trying to do is just make daily classes fun and exciting for the kids. So the teachers were doing a Disney themed week and we have all of the Disney costumes here at The Family Place. So we just had some staff members dress up as some princesses and Beauty and the Beast and we surprised the kids with a royal ball upstairs."

The Family Place used to run their Royal Ball as a local Fundraiser. However, this year they have had to make some changes due to the pandemic.

"So we actually have all of the costumes and we've never done one here at The Family Place with the kids," Gutzke stated. "So we thought it would be something fun and during these times when it might be less exciting for the kids, we thought we'd try to make their days more fun. Just seeing the kids' faces staring at us and they really enjoyed the dancing. The kids were really just in awe. It's not every day that they see princesses walk into The Family Place."

The Family Place staff are now optimistically looking forward at 2021 and planning for a busy and exciting year for the kids.

"So we're just trying to think outside of the box about what we can do within the community to just help people get through these times," added Gutzke. "So on Tuesday this week we're taking the children outside in their snow gear and we're actually going to play on the front yard of Hill Top Manor. And then we can just have the seniors watch out the window and have a morning of enjoyment watching the children play in the snow, and build some snowmen, and wave through the windows to try and bring some community cheer to them. We'll definitely be there playing at 10:30 AM."

For more information on The Family Place in Weyburn feel free to follow them on Facebook.

Below we have some more photos from the Royal Tea Party. (All images courtesy of Dawn Gutzke)

Go here to see the original:
Family Place Surprising Kids With Royal Tea Party - Discoverweyburn.com - DiscoverWeyburn.com

By STEVE ERKENBRACK

There are two schools of thought as to how the president should approach Congress to bring COVID relief to the country. One is to negotiate a bipartisan package with Republicans; the other is for Democrats, having won control of both Houses of Congress and the White House, to pass a bill on a partisan basis, without Republican input or support. Tempting as it is to flex political muscles, such a single-party approach can have unforeseen and unproductive consequences.

Santayana observed that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it, a concept more succinctly stated by Yogi Berra: Its dj vu all over again. Guided by such wisdom, it may be prudent to consider two pertinent precedents when a new president was leading our country out of a crisis.

Lesson No. 1: Healthcare in 2009

As Barack Obama took office, health-care reform was his top agenda item, after his immediate efforts to arrest the worst impacts of the financial crisis of 2008. Obamas initial strategic steps were planned to engage both parties in Congress, incorporate both Republican and Democratic ideas, preempt turf wars, craft bills in the House and in the Senate that would pass those respective chambers, and then iron out the differences in a conference committee.

The complexity of health care created numerous issues that took time to address. As months passed, many Democrats became impatient, and the Tea Party arose among Republicans. Partisanship supplanted problem-solving, and contention replaced compromise. The impassioned base of each party bristled at bipartisanship, with the result that health-care reform was enacted without a single Republican vote.

It was a short-term win with long-term ramifications. Republicans vowed to undermine the law. Even the good parts of the act expanded coverage, transparency in insurance pricing, limits on insurance profits, protections for consumers were attacked. Repeal and replace became the theme of the next three congressional campaigns. When Rs took power, they de-funded every thing they could, and a few things they couldnt.

The aftermath of the law and its contentious implementation was a decade of health-care policy marked by stumbling, grumbling and bumbling. Small employers and consumers endured double-digit increases in costs year after year. Smaller entities in the health-care delivery system whether hospitals, physician practices or community health plans struggled. Many failed, others merged and lost their identity.

Things have finally settled down, but the parties still cannot find a way to revisit the law, and improve it to address lessons learned and markets changed. Most significantly, partisanship has precluded addressing what is still the key problem: the high cost of health care.

Lesson No. 2: Civil Rights in 1963

The true test of being a Baby Boomer is the ability to answer the question: Where were you when John Kennedy was shot? That assassination is indelibly etched in our minds, because it traumatized the nation. Lyndon Johnson succeeded JFK, and faced both a country in shock and a civil rights movement about to explode. And while his Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress, conservatives had blocked JFKs agenda on tax cuts and civil rights.

White House staff had spent two years trying to steamroll congressional opponents. LBJ had a shrewder approach. He started with the tax bill, which had been held up by the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. He met with the man. He talked. He listened. He learned that the senator opposed the bill because of the ever-increasing federal budget. Johnson asked where the committee chair wanted to set the federal budget, and was told it should be cut to less than $100 billion (ah, those were the days.) Johnson found ways to cut the budget to the desired level, and the bill became law.

The president then built on the momentum of the tax bill, and addressed civil rights. He assembled a bipartisan coalition of Northern progressives and Western senators (whose support was contingent on unrelated issues). Again, Johnson listened to the opposition, and softened or delayed some of the provisions. The result: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting racial segregation in public facilities, which passed with a higher percentage of Republican support than Democrats.

A Lasting Legacy

The sustaining value of bipartisanship is seen in the years that followed. Voters strongly supported such collaborative problem-solving, and strengthened LBJs hand in the next election. The bridge-building of those first months set the stage for sweeping accomplishments over the next two years: the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, among others, all with bipartisan support. Hungry children could now get a decent meal. Ailing seniors on fixed incomes could now see a doctor.

The heart-felt passion of partisans in both political parties is admirable until it morphs into a condescending certainty of holding both the moral high ground and a monopoly on legitimate perspectives. COVID is too calamitous for such hubris. Building a bipartisan approach, listening to the reasons why opponents have concerns, and resolving those issues, creates a platform for collaboration on which to build sustainable solutions to both the acute crisis of the pandemic and the chronic problems of tomorrow.

Steve ErkenBrack is an attorney in western Colorado, where he settled in 1979, after clerking at the Colorado Supreme Court. He has served as a trial attorney, as the elected District Attorney, as a health insurance CEO, and as Colorados Chief Deputy Attorney General. He was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995. He is currently Of Counsel at Hoskin, Farina & Kampf in Grand Junction.

Link:
COVID politics: Learning from history | Columns | gjsentinel.com - The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

February is a good month to dedicate a small spiral note pad, one that fits in your purse or your pocket, to start a plant shopping list. You know my favorite saying: good memory but short.

The Perennial Plant Association announced the 2021 Perennial Plant of the Year. It is calamintha nepeta subsp. nepeta, or the common name of calamint, lesser calamint.

Calamint has two important qualities that appeal to gardeners: bees and other pollinators work the long-lasting bloom period, plus the aromatic foliage is deer-resistant. One fact sheet described the foliage as being mint-scented, oregano-like foliage.

Calamint is rated as hardy. It is probably less well-known in our area due to its plant hardiness rating of Zone 5. Preference in plant selection for Central Oregon is usually for up to a Zone 4.

The blooms differ from the blue tones of the more common walkers low catmint.

Calamint blooms with plumes of tiny, tubular lilac to white flowers. The perennial needs full sun and soil that has good drainage. The low mounding or bushy habit is ideal for the front of a border or in rock gardens according to the Perennial Plant Association.

The National Garden Bureau has declared 2021 to be The Year of the Monarda. Monarda has a history of being used as a medicinal herb.

The Oswego Indian tribe used the plant to make an herbal tea. They taught American settlers how to make it, which came in handy following the Boston Tea Party in 1773. The settlers revolted against the British tax on tea so the settlers thumbed their noses at the tax and drank monarda tea instead.

The native plant was named for Nicholas Monardes, a physician from Seville. Monardes conducted trade between Seville and American, part of which included receiving medicinal plants. Monardes wrote about his findings in the publication Joyfull Newse out of the Newe found World in 1577. The plant was thought to soothe stings and bites from various insects resulting in the common name of bee balm.

Monarda is cold hardy in plant hardiness Zones 3 to 9, plant in full sun with moderate moisture. Monarda is considered a pollinator magnet. Each one of the flower heads is a cluster of long tubular, nectar-filled blooms. The shape of the bloom makes it easy for butterflies and hummingbirds to take a drink. Magenta or red varieties draw in the most pollinators to the garden. Bloom time is from mid-summer to fall.

Monarda is a member of the mint family but it wont take over the garden. The foliage is minty scented and unappealing to deer and rabbits. Some monarda varieties are more susceptible to powdery mildew than others. Jacob Cline, also spelled Kline, variety shows excellent resistance to mildew. Wide spacing between plants is advised to promote good air circulation to prevent powdery mildew.

Most monarda are listed as a growth height of 3 to 4 feet tall and 2 to 3 feet wide. The height and width of this size make them valuable as the back of a garden bed. Newer cultivars grow 8 to 12 inches tall and 12 to 24 inches wide. Make sure when you are shopping you are aware of the mature size of the variety.

Companion plants could include oxeye daisy, blanket flower and the native white yarrow.

If you are a trendsetter, you will be interested in the latest announcement from Pantone for the 2021 Colors of the Year.

The colors are Pantone 17-5104 Ultimate Gray plus Pantone 13-0647 Illuminating (a vivid yellow). The color combination is intended to send the message of strength and hopefulness that is both enduring and uplifting.

The bright yellow flower selections would be easy to choose. The gray plant pallet for us would be more limiting. Dusty Miller, artemesia varieties and Tanacetum come to mind.

Pantones Color of the Year has influenced product development in multiple industries from home furnishings, fashion and landscaping.

Keep your notepad handy, we have lots to talk about in the coming months.

Read the rest here:
Perennial plant of the year has long lasting blooms, attracts pollinators - Bend Bulletin

Well, weve arrived! This is the year that we look back fondly on the likes of George W. Bush, Michelle Bachman and the sense and sensibility of Sarah Palin. 2021 will prove itself to be that year when we long for days Michelle Bachman would pop off and we could just ignore her. I personally long for the days when Sarah Palin couldnt answer the simple question about what she read. And of course, Mission Accomplished, nuff said. As this year presses on, well look back at these simpler times and well miss and long for them. Because now, we have Space Lasers! Jewish Liberal Space Lasers setting California on fire. That was actually said out loud by a highly elected official!

When will it stop? How will it stop? Who will stop it? Because it needs to stop! Some rational people need to lead the charge and crush this line of speak. It cannot be allowed to present any faction of our government. Yet it now has a place on the Education Committee. Lets not even start to mention the other crazies that have entered into our political realm that represent what most dont want represented. Its a ground swell, those little wins I keep talking about, where one by one idiots get installed into higher positions of influence. It started with the Tea Party, and now we have headlines that read QAnon goes to Congress.

Okay lets reverse the lens on this for a moment to see how it exactly happened. Lets dial it back to 2015-2016. There were two clear cut front runners for the Democratic nomination. All the polling showed that Bernie was the peoples choice, leading in head-to-head polls with Trump by double digits Bernie by 14 points, Hillary by 9 points (just one of the poll samplings). So how did Hillary get elevated to be the Democratic nominee? Shenanigans and games played out by the Democratic National Committee. Those games opened the flood gates for a lot to go wrong, and it did. The Trump and Vlad contingent rose to power. So, we watched passively while this happened until it was far too late to do anything truly actionable about it. Now, were doing it again. Only the QAnon Congressteers (think Mouseketeers, only operating with 20 percent of the brain function and more heavily armed) are chasing victims of school shootings down the street proclaiming shes packing (Marjorie Taylor Greene). Say whatever you want about Hillary and what happened, but both you and I know that would never happen on her watch.

Fast forward to what we have now in the likes of Taylor Greene, which even has the most calculating GOPer Mitch McConnell calling her a cancer. So, what do you do? Between Lucy Laser Beam and Lauren Boebert we can add an asterisk to the hashtag The Future is Female. Ive only covered the crazy female contingent; I dont have enough words for the likes of Matt Gaetz, who seems to have a little bit of support these days from the aforementioned crazy twins and Josh Hawley, who wasnt even on the job yet when he goose-stepped into the chemically unbalanced pool. So, thats four fairly new to brand new Senatorial and Congressional leaders who can slowly bend the narrative. Now, all of a sudden Ted Cruz (who was always an oily snake) seems to have had his battery changed and has bought into the conspiracy that his dad did shoot Kennedy, all while the puppeteer Mitch McConnell pulls the strings guiding the weak and dumb to their demise. Then the rest of the folks with an R in front of their names follow suit, and now you have National Nightmare 2.0.

Ive said it before and Ill say it again, the cream does not rise to the top in this country. Over and over again weve seen it. From The Rent is too Damn High Party to whatever is going on right now! Somewhere we need to pull the plug because even though Jimmy McMillan (Rent Party) didnt win, he got plenty of attention, and attention creates traction. Now, Boebert, Taylor Greene, Gaetz and Hawley all have a national platform to continue to feed lies to the American people and walk them right off a cliff. Its time to rise up; dont knit a hat this time, grab a hammer!

Peter Fish Case is a man with an opinion. He offers up a weekly podcast discussion that can be heard at http://www.theearspoon.com. Questions, compliments and complaints can be sent to him at fish@theearspoon.com. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of the Brattleboro Reformer.

Read more:
Fish: Rescue us from QAnon 'Congressteers' and their space laser conspiracies - Brattleboro Reformer

He was an arm-draping pol as a senator. He hung out in the Senate cloakroom chatting up legislators as vice president. He pitched himself during the presidential campaign as someone who could get people working together and lower the temperature in a Washington overheated by Donald Trump.

Now, after his first full week as president, Joe Biden is coming face to face with the potential limitations of his ability to work across the aisle as he pushes for a $1.9 trillioncoronavirus relief billthat is the first big test of his tenure.

Republicans are balking at the price tag and Democrats are sending signals that theyre willing to push the bill through without GOP help as Bidens campaign pitch to be a deal-maker appears to be giving way to the reality of a Senate that does not resemble the one he once inhabited.

In a nod to reality, Biden told reporters on Friday: I support passing COVID relief with support from Republicans if we can get it. But the COVID relief has to pass no ifs, ands or buts.

The White House has not given up hope of landing some GOP support for the package, and Bidens call list bears that out. But some of Bidens courtship is also directed at members of his own party to make sure a deal gets done.

He has called Sen. Susan Collins of Maine several times since his inauguration, and the moderate Republican says she has a closer relationship with Biden than she did with Trump.

Biden has made repeated calls to senators in his own party, including two centrists Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona who have expressed some concerns about the package, according to three people familiar with the calls who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations.

A retail politician who never misses a chance for small talk or schmooze, Biden has been penned in somewhat by the pandemic, which limits the face-to-face interactions on which he thrives. But theres still his peerless phone book, built over four decades of dealing with senators on both sides of the political divide.

When he decides to make one of those calls, he doesnt really require a call sheet, a sheet that tells him exactly what to say to a member of Congress and how to outline the bill, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in an interview on MSNBC. He knows. Hes known a lot of these people for decades.

Claire McCaskill, a former Democratic senator from Missouri, says Biden is workman-like in terms of his outreach and it was not unusual for me to run into Joe Biden in the Senate cloakroom when he was vice president to Barack Obama.

He burned up the phone lines, McCaskill said. Obama was terrible at that part of the job, while Biden was good at it, to both parties.

Having spent 36 years in the Senate and eight as vice president, Biden made bipartisan outreach a central promise, even when many in his party argued that Republicans no longer were interested in working across the aisle.

Bidens most notable deal-making success came in the Obama-era fiscal showdowns during the rise of the tea party Republicans. The landmark agreements locked in tax and spending cuts for a decade and soured some progressive Democrats on Bidens brand of compromise.

As vice president, Biden was a trusted emissary to Capitol Hill for Obama, who had served just four years in the Senate.

Biden arrived as a presence in the halls of Congress at several critical junctures. He helped cut a 2010 deal to prevent the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, then negotiated on the landmark Budget Control Act of 2011 that slashed spending and walked the country back from the 2012 fiscal cliff of looming tax increases and budget reductions.

Bidens chief virtue as a negotiator is the understanding that Look, you have politics on your side, I have politics on my side, we both have to live within our political constraints, said Rohit Kumar, former deputy chief of staff to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. His pitch: I know there are certain things you cant do and I am not going to make them deal breakers. We have to get a deal I can sell, a deal you can sell.

As senator, Biden also prized his relationships with colleagues, even though his nightly commute home to Delaware cut into his ability to socialize with other lawmakers.

Well, I dont want to ruin him, but he did work with us on occasion, said former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.

Lott said Biden was not someone he recalls as often being in the room when Senate leadership was trying to work out a deal on major bills. But Lott pointed to two major instances when he was: the 1994 crime bill and the 2002 Iraq War resolution, a pair of measures for which Biden has since expressed regret.

Still, Lott said Bidens relationship with McConnell was real and could pay dividends again.

They worked out an agreement that basically is what theyve been working off ever since, Lott said. Somebody in the media referred to Biden then as the McConnell whisperer.

Still, the Senate has changed markedly since Biden first joined decades ago, with different skills now in currency as senators gain status on social media, raise money beyond their home states and spend less time socializing with one another in Washington.

Bidens style of old-school, one-on-one cajoling may be less persuasive for senators from either party who cultivate their own brands and dont necessarily rely on proximity to presidential power to raise their profiles.

And, of course, policy matters. The parties are more split than ever over the legislative remedies for the nation, a partisan divide that political scientists see as on par with the rifts of the Civil War era.

Biden aides worry that Republicans will continue to balk no matter how many personal phone calls they get from the president or post-pandemic invitations they receive to high-profile events at the White House.

Their boss may be the last one to buy in to that.

Theres people who say you cant work with the other side, Biden said a year ago. And if thats the case, prepare your children for a totally different U.S., a totally different world. I dont believe it.

More here:
COVID-19 relief bill brings Biden face to face with potential limitations of ability to work across the aisle - KTLA