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The White House will halt the deportation of as many as 800,000 young illegal immigrants and in some cases give them work permits. People under 30 who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas when they were under the age of 16 will be immune from deportation if they have not committed a significant misdemeanor or felony and have graduated from a U.S. high school or joined the military.

They can apply for a renewable two-year work permit that won’t provide a path to citizenship but will allow them to work legally in the country. Applicants will have to prove they’ve lived in the country for five consecutive years.

The U.S. has been through this before and — yes — President Ronald Reagan got it wrong and admitted it. The Immigration and Reform Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was a blanket amnesty for illegal aliens.

The act required employers to attest to their employees’ immigration status, made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit unauthorized immigrants, granted amnesty to certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants and granted amnesty to illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had resided there continuously.  It introduced the I-9 form to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility to accept employment in the United States.

This law was supposed to be a compromise — an attempt to finally limit illegal immigration through strengthened border security and increased immigration enforcement against employers — combined with amnesty for the millions of illegal workers in the United States. President Ronald Reagan approved this “path to citizenship” amnesty due to what was believed to be a relatively small illegal immigrant population.

For the first six months after the amnesty there was a modest fall in illegal immigration, but within 12 months illegal immigration was breaking all previous records, rising to 800,000 per year. In fact, the 1986 amnesty resulted in more amnesties from 1994 to 2000, awarding legal status to another 3 million illegal immigrants.

By 1997, the number of illegal immigrants in the country was back up to the 5.0 million in the U.S. before the 1986 amnesty according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies. The same 1997 report says the cost of amnesty for 2.7 million illegal immigrants had accumulated to $156.7 billion in 1986 dollars.

Breaking that cost down farther shows that  after $78.7 billion in tax collections  — it cost U.S. taxpayers $29,148 in 1986 dollars for each amnestied ‘immigrant’ . Furthermore, it displaced 1,872,000 American workers over the next 10-years.

Later, Reagan said of IRCA, “The amnesty was the worst mistake of my presidency.”

Today, about 12 million illegal aliens reside in the U. S. Most of those who violate our borders come from Mexico and other Latin American countries while about 6 percent of illegal immigrants come from Canada and Europe.

Finally, in 1986, about three million illegal immigrants were eligible for amnesty.  This time, roughly 9 million people are expected to be eligible for legalization — not the 800,000 being floated by the current administration.

This is a Karok story, I believe, because it mentions the Klamath River and Weitchpec, which is a village that rests along the river’s bank in Humboldt County and home to the ‘Up-Stream’ peoples.

Once a family of doves lived with their grandmother in a sheltered cave, and were all very happy. A spring gushed up outside; grasses grew everywhere and best of all there was a large tree to which they could fly in case of danger.

One day the eldest brother decided he wanted to fly up the Klamath River as far as Weitchpec. While he was there he fell in with bad company, and learned how to gamble the Indian way.

He played and played, day in and day out. He forgot all about his poor, sick grandmother at home, who was waiting so patiently for him to come back.

Finally a younger brother went to search for him. On finding him he told the older dove that their grandmother was dead.

He was very sorrowful then, and said that he would mourn in the trees with a ‘coo’ which would tell all the world that his grief would never cease.

The first time I heard of “The Ox-Bow Incident,” I was perhaps 13 years-old. One of my cousins had to do a report for a high school English class and had the “Cliff Notes,” on the book.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I actually saw the movie starting Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan. Eventually, I got around to reading the novel written by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.

Clark was born in East Orland, Maine, August 9, 1909, but his family moved to Nevada when he was eight. He grew up and went to college in Reno, where his father was president of the University of Nevada.

Besides being well-educated Clark had a number of interests, including sports, art, music, theater, chess, western history, Indian lore, geology, mining, and ranching. Many of these interests are touched upon in his writing.

He’s also credited with editing the journals of Alfred Doten, no easy task since Doten’s personal papers are contained in a three-volume set covering  the period of 1849 to 1903. And the fact that he grew up in Northern Nevada caused me to want to know more about how he came to write such an unforgiving portrayal of the old West.

The story takes place in Bridger’s Wells, Nevada, a town located in a valley on the western side of the Continental Divide. Ox Bow Valley’s to the west of town and jus’ over the mountains.

The valley’s two or three miles long and half or three-quarters of a mile wide. A creek, in the middle of the valley, winds back on itself like a snake and so is called Ox Bow.

There’s also a road along its edge at the south end, which is the only way in and out of the valley, because the mountains on the other three sides are steep. There’s a clearing right at the summit of the valley, but the road runs through the middle of it.

Technically speaking, neither Ox-Bow Valley or Bridger’s Wells exists geographically, but rather, they’re composites of other places. Instead, the landscape as described appears to be based on the historic Comstock town, Virginia City.

This is only supposition on my part.

As for the triple lynching — that comes from the biography of William J. Flake, who helped settle parts of Arizona, and was imprisoned for polygamy.

Authors Eric Kramer and Carol Sletten write in their 2010 book, “Story of the American West:  “He (Flake) went to Phoenix to recover livestock stolen during the Pleasant Valley war. He found the bodies of the young cowboys who were lynched near Heber in the true story that led to the writing and filming of the Ox-Bow incident.”

In August 1888, Jamie Stott, James Scott and Jake Wilson were arrested for allegedly shooting a rancher named Jake Lauffer. Furthermore, Deputy Sheriff J.D. Houck, who made the arrest, had a long-standing feud with Stott.

On their way to Prescott, a group of fifty masked vigilantes intercepted the deputy and his posse and took the three men from their custody. It’s believed Houck was in on the plan to take the trio.

Over the course of the next several hours, the vigilantes pretended to hang Stott’s friends, forcing him to watch. However when the two men refused to beg for their lives, their horses were driven out from under them and they were hanged for real.

They did much the same with Stott — stringing him up briefly then lowering him to the ground before he succumbed. However they left him hanging for too long and when they finally brought him down he was dead.

Their bodies were found a few days later by Flake and were buried in the same clearing in which they died. No one was ever punished as a result of the lynchings.

Along with some of the geography and history, the characters of The Ox-Bow Incident were drawn from real-life. For instance, Ma Grier, the burly proprietor of a boarding house, who is chosen as Major Tetley’s lieutenant, was based on an actual person.

One day Clark decided to stop at a roadside diner. Unfortunately, the place had been shut down and a group of people including the diner’s owner, a large woman, were in the process of loading equipment onto a truck.

When the time came to load the cook stove, the woman simply known as “Ma”, wrapped her arms around it, hoisting it onto the truck by herself. Clark recalled this and decided the image of “Ma” lifting her cook stove would make the kind of character rough-and-tumble men could respect.

Finally, the wide-exterior scenes shot during late June to early August 1942 were taken in Alabama Hills, near the small California town of Lone Pine, not far from the Comstock of Clark’s youth.  He would later serve as the writer-in-residence at the University of Nevada, Reno from 1962 until his death November 10th, 1971, in Virginia City.

For years I have been working to be the best “Silent Leader,” possible.

A ‘silent leader’ is someone who acts in such a way, others might follow their example. This can be anyone from a CEO if a Fortune 500 Company to the person cleaning the restrooms and everyone in between.

Much of it is derived from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament. “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house,” Jesus said in Matthew 5:14-15.

So how does this tie into being a ‘silent leader?’ First off know that in my view the ‘silent leader’ is based on ‘interpersonal relationships,’ which is defined as an association between two or more people who may range from fleeting to enduring.

These kinds of relationships are not often thought of as a biblical topic, but advice about dealing with other people makes up a large part of the teachings of Jesus and the wisdom books of the Old Testament.  We spend our entire life interfacing with fellow humans.

Without interaction with others, our lives would have virtually no meaning or purpose. Yet, it is our relating that creates most of our difficulties.

Imagine your life without another person in it. No arguments, no fights, no obligations, no misunderstandings, but also no love, no joy, no laughs and no life.

Obviously, the answer to difficult relationships is not to withdraw from or avoid interaction with others.  Rather it’s to learn how to relate in a meaningful, honoring and constructive way to a person.

All of the New Testament teachings on relationships spring from Jesus’ commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The English word “love” has many different meanings, but this “Christian love” of the Bible comes from the Greek word agape which means good-will and benevolent concern for the one loved. It is deliberate, purposeful love rather than an emotional or impulsive love.

“Love your neighbor” was not a new commandment, but the people of Jesus’ time had developed a rather narrow view of who should be considered a “neighbor.” In His parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus corrected that view and teaches us that a “neighbor” is anyone we come in contact with.

If you explore the Jesus story you begin to notice how He respected others, whether they were male or female, young or old. Jesus made it His priority to teach how to relate in every type of relationship.

In many ways, all of Jesus’ teaching addresses our responses in relationships. For example, Jesus also said in Matthew: “And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

Is the practice of being a ‘silent leader’ hard? You bet – but nothing good ever comes easy.

Finally, in the course of life we all come across difficult situations in which we are unsure how to relate. It’s how we respond that makes us either a ‘lamp on its stand’ — or one placed ‘under a bowl.’

A coroner has officially ruled that a dingo took and ate Azaria Chamberlain and that her mother had nothing to do with the infant’s death.

Azaria, a nine-week-old baby girl from Australia, lost her life in a dingo attack in August 1980, and her body never recovered. Just 20 years old at the time, I remember being horrified by the idea of a wild dog stealing a baby and making a meal of the infant.

Azaria’s parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain informed authorities that a dingo had taken their baby from their tent. However, investigators did not believe them because of the fallacy that “dingoes do not attack unless provoked.”

Despite the absence of evidence linking her to her daughter’s disappearance, Lindy found herself accused of cutting the throat of the infant. To this day, nobody has ever advanced a plausible motive.

A six-week trial resulted in a wrongful conviction that saw her imprisoned for over three years. Michael found guilty of being an accessory after the fact, was saved from prison by Justice James Muirhead, who disagreed with the verdict, gave him a suspended sentence, and put him on a bond.

In 1986, Lindy was released from prison after someone discovered Azaria’s jacket in an area frequented by dingoes. The revelation led to her being compensated $1.3 million for the wrongful imprisonment.

After Chamberlain’s conviction, there were other instances of dingo attacks on children, including the fatal mauling of nine-year-old Clinton Gage on Queensland’s Fraser Island in 2001. The attacks provided further evidence needed to end the nearly 32-year-old mystery.

Three weeks ago I decided to clean out some of my news notes I’d collected from work. I had nearly one-hundred pieces of paper regarding the disappearance of Steve Fossett.

In order to do this, I spent the day copying and transcribing these notes and such — creating a massive computer database file. By the time I was finished I realized I had more than enough information to write several short stories about the ‘Fossett Incident.’

As I organized these notes further, I knew I could take what I’d normally regard as ‘future story material,’ and write a booklet. To me that’s any publication that’s smaller than 80-page, in which case a publisher will not place the book’s title on the spine.

Called, “Final Flight,” it’s about adventurer Steve Fossett, who was lost in a plane crash in the Sierra Nevada mountain Range of eastern California in 2007. Since that time I’ve held onto or collected news articles from the wire and other sources in order to write a full account of not only his disappearance and recover, but of his life and achievements.

A quick read at only 84-pages, it documents many of the behind-the-scene events that lead up to his fatal crash, as well as those involving the search for the lost flier. It culminates with the discovery of personal items, the recovery of bone fragments and the finding of local and federal authorities.

You can order your ‘print-on-demand’ copy exclusively from FastPencil. And thank you for your support in advance.

Virginia City’s beginning is described by a Dr. Pierson in a letter to the Carson Tribune, dated August 1879:

“I visited the spot known as Virginia and found not a house, but two tents in the ground. One was owned by John L. Blackburn who died by an assassin’s knife. I saw the first mine and formed an acquaintance with Mr. Comstock, the man whose man is perpetrated everywhere mines ar known throughout the world.”

Dr. Pierson continues:  “I also met old Virginia for whom the place is named. On that day in June (1859), the writer saw $1900.00 in black gold valued at $11.00 an ounce washed out of the surface ground at the Ophir.”

By the late 1860’s, Virginia City had more than 30,000 people. Not bad for a place that boasted only two-tents when it was first established.

Why the big turn around? It was a simple chance encounter that created the eventual rush from the California gold fields to the Comstock’s silver mines.

Most of the miners in the area were plagued by what was known as “that infernal blue stuff.” The soft, blue-tinted mud got in the way of their serious work — the mining of gold.

It was simply shoveled out-of-the-way and forgotten.

Then one afternoon a Carson rancher named W.P. Morrison, having heard of the strikes being made in Gold Canyon went to have a look for himself. There he found the unwanted mud and intrigued by it, collected some of it.

Months later, Morrison had the sample analyzed. He jus’ happened to have some of the stuff with him the day he rode into Grass Valley, California, where he decided to have it assayed.

The assayer, J.J. Ott took the sample and checked it for gold. It assayed out at $1600.00 and ounce — but he felt compelled to double-check his findings because of what else he’d found.

After the second assaying, he knew his first findings were correct. The “infernal blue stuff” yielded $4,971.00 a ton and it was simply being thrown away.

By the next morning the word had spread throughout Grass Valley and the rush east over the Sierra Nevada was on.

She knew she wasn’t supposed to have the thing – let alone have it in her bedroom. Bette’s father had forbidden it and now she was sitting on the couch listening to him lecture on the evils of the Ouija Board.

“But its jus’ harmless game board,” Bette protested.

Her father either didn’t hear her or he ignored her completely. Instead he continued his rant on the evils of the Ouija Board and how it was a vulgar item in the face of their Catholic religion.

As he did this, she sat on the couch watching the thing burn in the living room fireplace behind her father. As she watched, the smoke curled and rolled up the chimney flue.

She became transfixed on the gray clouds as they grew darker and darker, until they nearly blacked out the flames engulfing the board. Bette could smell the smoke – it seemed tainted – like a burning steak.

She found herself smiling as the smoke started bellowing outward, hanging low along the shag carpet. Bette was no longer listening to her father’s voice as it suddenly sounded miles away.

There was a sudden flash – followed by a long fall into darkness. It seemed like hours before she wakened to the unfamiliar sight of flashing red lights and the feel of the chill of evening air.

“I don’t know what happened,” Bette heard herself say to the fire investigator.

It was then she realized she was sitting outside on the curb as what was left her parent’s home crumbled into an ash heap.  She was confused but otherwise unharmed.

Beside her rested the Ouija Board – undamaged.

Beijing, China based Xinyuan Real Estate Co. Ltd. purchased a portfolio of 325 finished lots and 185 acres of raw land across northern Nevada for $7.4 million, according to Lou Berrego of West Haven Development Group.

The properties, which had been owned by Wells Fargo Bank, extend from Wingfield Springs to Washoe Valley to Gardnerville, Berrego says. The deal was closed in May 2012 and was the first U.S. market property purchase the company has ever made.

The company, along with Lou Berrego, looked at over 100 properties across the United States, including properties in Miami, Chicago, Orange County and New York. The first deal picked was the Reno area properties.

All that was missing was a passable road through the area, so Hanson ordered one to be cut. A survey was made of the coast from the Klamath to Crescent City as 1855 was nearing its end.  Building a road in rugged and steep terrain had its trouble, but not as many as the difficulties with Capt. Robert G. Buchanan and his hot temper.

Buchanan’s temper prompted the man first ordered to create the Agency, S.G. Whipple to ask that the company of soldiers still in his area not be subject to orders from Fort Humboldt.  Whipple asked that the men be permanently assigned to the Klamath Reservation.

However, when Henley brought up the subject with Brig. Gen. John E. Wool, the commander of the Department of the Pacific, he was told that the detachment was being recalled because they had no quarters on the reservation. This left Whipple with 5,000 Indians who has recently “been hostile.”

As the year 1855 came to a close, Whipple busied himself purchasing flour from a mill near Kepel, directing his agents to ready gardens for the Indians to use for potatoes and other plants.  They bought gardening tools for them, along with seeds and twine for fishing nets.

And as the nearby war on the Rogue River ended, Whipple asked them to move to Wilson Creek. He promised them the government would help them until land could be cultivated and food grown.

He also promised to reimburse them for their fisheries and 900 square miles of land with money paid to them in their currency, Ali-cachuck.  But Whipple resigned in 1856 and was replaced by Agent by James A. Patterson.

Patterson repudiated the agreement, whereby the Tolowa returned to their Rancherias on the Smith River and the coast north of Crescent City.  In October 1856, Lt. Hezekiah Garder of the 4th Infantry concentrated them on Smith Island, where he issued those rations and clothing at the government’s expense.

Patterson was found so drunk in Crescent City in January 1857,  that he slept in his clothes in the bar of a local hotel.  He continued drinking the next day and passed out in a local stable’s stall and an investigation of his conduct was called for.

When the charges were substantiated, he was ordered removed, and replaced by V.E. Geiger. However, Geiger declined the appointment, so Maj. H. P. Heintzelman was nominated as sub-agent and told to take charge of the Klamath River Reservation. 

Unlike his predecessor, Heintzelman was industrious and “God-fearing.” He prohibited liquor and gambling on the reservation, ordered his employees not to drink or co-habit with Indian women on pain of discharge. 

He too, would soon find himself being discharged.