4 I The Lovell Chronicle I March 18, 2010 www.LovellChronicle.com
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Tournament fever
in Las Vegas
Basketball tournaments are great
fun as any north Big Horn County
hoops fan can attest, but my fam-
ily attended a tournament last week
that ramped up the fun factor in a big
way - the Mountain West Conference
Championships in Las Vegas.
Wyoming high school officials have
put the kibosh on cheering to such
a great degree in the name of good David Peck
sportsmanship that it almost seems like
rooting for your home team is more of
a chore than a pleasure. Not so at the
college level. At the Thomas and Mack, fans were free to
whoop it up to their heart's content, and what fun it was!
Of course, the Wyoming Cowboys are horrible and made
a quick exit from the tournament, falling to Air Force in
the pigtail game, but the Cowgirls and Lovell's own Kris-
ten Schemer made us proud by ousting the host UNLV Lady
Rebels in round one before giving eventual tournament
champion San Diego State a battle in the second round be-
fore falling.
We saw some great basketball in Las Vegas. The men's
semifinal games Friday night featuring New Mexico vs. San
Diego State and BYU vs. UNLV were as fine a pair of college
basketball games as I've seen in a long time. (But then I am
a Wyoming Cowboys fan, so my hunger for quality basket-
ball is probably greater than other college fans since we've
been starved for so long.)
Before a sellout crowd of 18,500 at the Thomas and
Mack, with legendary UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian in atten-
dance, SDSU edged New Mexico 72-69 and UNLV stopped
BYU 70-66 in a game that began with a truly amazing dis-
play of three-point shooting by both squads.
But what truly made the tournament great fun was the
interaction among fans from the various schools. There
were only a couple of hundred Air Force fans and maybe
37 Colorado State fans - I'm not kidding - but there were
thousands of New Mexico and UNLV fans, several hundred
Wyoming, BYU and Utah fans and a goodly number of TCU
and San Diego State fans.
The arena was awash in red led by the Lobos and Reb-
els and joined by smaller number of Ute and Aztec fans.
One tall Aztec fan said to me as he slid by me to take his
seat after spying my Wyoming,cap, "You have great colors!
You're not red like everybody else,..The losers of this tourna-
ment should have to change their team colors!"
We saw lots of Utah and BYU fans banding together to
root against the top-seeded Lobos. Don't believe it when
Ute and Cougar fans tell you they are fierce rivals in the
Beehive State.
We found that we had a great affinity with New Mexi-
co fans. They seem to be friendly, laid-back folks who are
passionate about their Lobo basketball - both women's
and men's. And when some Wyoming fans wore specially-
made shirts reading "Alford Was Right" referring to com-
ments made by New Mexico coach Steve Alford about a BYU
player, for which he later apologized, Lobo fans ate it up.
One fellow bought the shirt off the back of one Wyoming
fan, and photos of the shirts reportedly made the Lobo fan
Website.
UNLV fans are also passionate about their basketball.
One fellow wearing a Larry Johnson jersey sitting in the row
in front of us was practically hugging everybody in sight af-
ter big plays during the BYU-UNLV game. But I have to say
that the UNLV "Re---bles, Re---bles" tomahawk chop cheer
is really, really annoying.
The other thing we discovered was that no one likes
BYU, perhaps because the Cougars have been so good over
the years. Many fans booed when the Cougar players - long
after their game against TCU Thursday night -- simply en-
tered the arena from the interview area to go through the
tunnel at floor level and get on their bus.
And when the Cougars began to take the floor for their
UNLV semifinal Friday night, the poor chap in front of me
wearing a BYU shirt had already plugged his ears in antici-
pation of the cascade of boos.
Another guy near us wore a BYU T-shirt until the Cou-
gars lost to UNLV, then wore a Wyoming shirt for Saturday
afternoon's finals.
As a Wyoming fan, after seeing such great basketball
with awesome shooting, passing, athleticism and defense, I
yearn for a return to glory by the Cowboys, but I don't see
it happening any time soon.
And although there was a large Wyoming crowd early
in the tournament at the T&M, many left aEer the Cow-
girls were eliminated. And that surely disappointed the beer
vendors and the local watering holes, given Wyoming fans'
reputation for having a good time.
Indeed, Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist
Ron Kantowski put it this way in a Friday column about
his attempt to find "tournament atmosphere" in Las Ve-
gas: "When I arrived (at PT's Pub on Tropicana Avenue),
this particular watering hole wasn't like wildebeest on the
Serengeti during the rainy season. It was so quiet that a
guy was reading a book at the bar.
"This is what happens when Wyoming gets bounced
early."
Truer words were never spoken, but we still had a lot of
fun.
Hindsight is 2020
Welcome to the 10's, the most awk- (in North America, about
ward decade since 1910. What will we
call this decade when we look back? The
tens? The teens? The adolescent years?
The next 10 years promise to expand
on the traditions and technologies laid
out over the history of humankind, and
as always, no one really knows how much
impact the changes of the next 10 years
will make. It seems impossible to make
an accurate guess.
Recently, from my perspective, we
have been entering some crazy times -
the years that 1970s futuristic movies
were based on, showcasing on the silver
screen the crazy twists and turns of tech-
nology and society beyond the year 2000.
I've been waiting all these years and I'm
disappointed I don't have a flying car or
a hover board yet.
In the next decade, people born in 1999 will be
legal to drink alcohol. On their birthdays I was a
sophomore in high school, and I remember partying
in'99 like it was yesterday. Now I feel old.
In the next decade, drug use that has been il-
legal in the U.S. for more than 70 years could be
deemed as acceptable, as states and municipalities
around the country legalize medical marijuana and/
or personal use of marijuana. The debate about this
issue is a raging ongoing exchange; with some tout-
ing the regulation of marijuana as the savior to crip-
pled state budgets and others worried that it could
open the door to many more serious problems in so-
ciety.
The Internet will continue to spread its web of
cables, wireless networks and other modes of ser-
vice, allowing a large percentage of the human
race to be interfaced on the global level, sharing
information more easily as giant corporations like
Google and Microsoft develop new ways to use the
Web.
According to the Internet World Statistics, the
number of Internet users grew from 360 million in
2000 to 1.7 billion in September of 2009. This num-
ber represents 25 percent of the world population
Brad
Devereaux
A Flock of Words
75 percent
of the population is online). While we
might not ever see anything close to 100
percent of the world population on the
Internet, the Web is still growing with
no signs of stopping.
Technology is advancing, continuing
on a bell curve that is approaching a ver-
tical line of new developments. Universi-
ties have begun throwing billions of dol-
lars at nanotechnology research, which
some think, once 'realized, could impact
every area of our lives.
The world's largest atom smasher in
Geneva began a new research program
last month, increasing the energy used to
smash protons into each other in hopes
of revealing secrets of matter in the uni-
verse. The $10 billion machine was dam-
aged after it began smashing a year ago, but it came
back online in mid-2009 and has been running
smoothly since. Scientists think the machine could
shed light on phenomena scientist have theorized
about for years, like dark matter, antimatter, black
holes and the creation of the universe, also known as
the Big Bang Theory.
Others are scared that it could have a negative
effect, like creating a black hole that sucks the earth
and all of its inhabitants in, never to be seen again.
If that happens, I guess we'll never know.
Come to think of it, what did we call the past 10
years? I guess "the 2,000s." We seem to have made
it through the past 10 years OK, even with the con-
stant threats of A1 Qaeda, anthrax, global warming,
H1N1, Craigslist stalkers and txtin' n drivin.
The next 10 years will be a wild ride. Who knows
what will be the big news stories in the next decade.
The first woman president, World War III, the cre-
ation of perpetual motion and clean renewable ener-
gy, or a society that makes great leaps toward being
in harmony with nature are all possibilities.
I wonder what percentage of future generations
will be reading the Lovell Chronicle on ultra-thin
portable LED screens. I guess we'll have to wait and
see, because hindsight is 2020.
Health bill to be 'deemed' passed
An up or down vote on the health care
reform bill is looking unlikely, yet it ap-
pears by this weekend the deed will be
done. This controversial entitlement pro-
gram, which in part mandates Americans
to buy health insurance, will probably be
"deemed passed."
It's just one more ploy. The reconcili-
ation package contains the changes and
amendments that President Obama put
into the Senate bill on health care. Nan-
cy Pelosi has said that she is now look-
ing into the possibility of using a process
known as "deem and pass." It has been
used before, but never for anything this
massive and expensive.
"It's more insider and process-orient-
ed than most people want to know," she
said Monday. "But I like it because people don't have
to vote on the Senate bill."
The House will vote on the reconciliation pack-
age as a "rule vote." They want us to believe that
they are voting on a reconciliation rule and on the
more palatable fixes to the bill, not the reform bill it-
self. There is a line in that package which says that
as soon these changes pass, the bill which they affect
is automatically assumed to have been previously
passed, when the votes are tallied and if the recon-
ciliation package passes and is signed by the presi-
dent, the health care bill was passed retroactively.
Just how dumb do they think Americans are?
Our kids and grandkids are about to be saddled
with huge new law and not a single member of Con-
gress actually will have signed it. All they have to
do is vote on the "changes" and the health care bill
is "deemed" law. The majority of them haven't even
read it.
Nobody on Capitol Hill agrees on how much this
will cost. Nobody agrees on how it will be paid for.
Nobody agrees on how this will affect Medicare. No-
body can tell us how people who can barely afford
groceries are supposed to be able to buy mandated
health insurance. Nobody up there can say for sure
whether this bill will or will not use taxpayer money
to fund abortions. Most of those pushing this par-
liamentary farce through believe that the average
American hasn't got the sense to see this for what it
is - the elite telllng us to sit down and shut up ]e-
cause they alone know what's good for us.
They claim that this bill will lower insurance
premiums. How, by undercutting the insurance
companies? Supposedly Medicare/Medicaid will be
made solvent. How, by further reductions in fees for
services to doctors and hospitals? They tell us that
we will be able to keep our current insurance plans
and doctors. How will that work when both are out
Diane
Badget
View from the
soapbox
of business?
The legislature should be ashamed of
this. Most Americans don't want this par-
ticular bill. It smacks of shady deals. The
unions are threatening Representatives
who are undecided or who are leaning to-
ward a "no" vote. Parliamentary rule is
being voted on instead of the substance of
the bill. If this bill is so doggone good why
has it taken all of this conniving to get it
done?
With this "deem and pass" vote, this
bill can become law without single Repre-
sentative facing constil;ubnts back home
and explaining a yes or no on health care.
Keeps everybody happy and in office,
right? How much has this cost us so far
just in hiring extra staff, paying for late
night sessions and in printing supplies?
Just in case you hadn't heard, in an attempt to
persuade lawmakers still on the fence, the student
loan reform package has been sneaked into health
care reform. That kind of sweetens the pot for some,
doesn't it? What heros!
Let's not forget that this plan will "create jobs!"
Unfortunately they are government jobs. Have you
seen the size of the bureaucracy this monstrosity
will create?
There is no doubt that there are aspects of our
health care system that need improvement. We
need to change the way insurance companies take
advantage of fine print, denying coverage for pre-
existing conditions and dropping coverage if some-
one becomes seriously ill. Premium costs need to be
brought under control and made much more afford-
able. We need to allow purchase of health insurance
across state lines.
We must aggressively pursue Medicare/Medicaid
fraud wherever it exists and punish the perpetrators
with more than a slap on the wrist. Frivolous law-
suits lead to unneeded testing and malpractice in-
surance rates drive operating costs up for our health
care providers - costs which must be passed on to
patients - so Tort reform should be on the table.
Why couldn't they tackle those things one at a
time instead of all at once? The most obvious rea-
sons are arrogance and power. When we "owe" the
government for our safety, prosperity and daily lives
then we have given the government the power to
rule us instead of the right to lead us.
The whole reason for this "deem and pass" vote
is because the majority has realized that it proba-
bly doesn't have enough votes to pass health reform.
Well, DUH! If they don't have enough votes to pass
the bill then maybe the bill just shouldn't pass! Nah,
that'll never fly. It's too obvious.
Letter to the editor
Separated yard waste accepted at farm
Editor:
On a trial basis, Blue 80 Con-
struction is happy to accept yard
waste delivered to our farm at no
charge.
We will accept yard waste ev-
ery Saturday through May from
9 a.m. until 4 p.m. We are locat-
ed seven miles east of Lovell at
606 Hwy. 14A East.
Grass clippings, leaves and
compost will need to be separated
from wood debris on site. No gar-
bage will be accepted. Compost
waste will be incorporated into
heavy soils to increase tilth, and
wood waste will be burned in a
pit, ashes to be used for selective
horse-powered organic farming in
the future. Please check out the
"composting" link on our Website,
www.icfinstall.com for further
specific information.
Kevin Schilthuis, President
Blue 80 Construction
Company
Lovell
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