With my son Kyle, entering college this fall he’ll be a member of the Class of 2015. For him, Andre the Giant, River Phoenix, Frank Zappa, Arthur Ashe and the Commodore 64 have always been dead.

His classmates could include Taylor Momsen, Angus Jones, Howard Stern’s daughter Ashley, and the Dilley Sextuplets.

1. There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information super highway.

2. Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be his friend’s parents.

3. States and his parents have always required he wear his bike helmet.

4. The only significant labor disputes in his lifetime has been in major league sports.

5. There have always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.

6. He “swipes” his debit cards — not the merchandise.

7. He’s grown up on websites and cell phones and most adults in his life have constantly fretted about his alleged deficits of empathy and concentration.

8. His school’s “blackboards” have always been getting smarter.

9. “Don’t touch that dial!” What dial?

10. American tax forms have always been available in Spanish.

11. More Americans traveled to Latin America than to Europe.

12. Amazon never been just a river in South America.

13. Refer to LBJ, and he might assume you’re talking about LeBron James.

14. All his life, Whitney Houston has been declaring, “I Will Always Love You.”

15. O.J. Simpson has always been looking for the killers of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

16. Women have never been too old to have children.

17. Japan has always been importing rice.

18. Jim Carrey has always been bigger than a pet detective.

19. We have never asked, and they have never had to tell.

20. Life has always been like a box of chocolates.

21. He’s always gone to school with Mohammed and Jesus.

22. John Wayne Bobbitt has always slept with one eye open.

23. There has never been an official Communist Party in Russia.

24. “Yadda, yadda, yadda” has always come in handy to make long stories short.

25. Video games have always had ratings.

26. Chicken soup has always been soul food.

27. The Rocky Horror Picture Show has always been available on TV.

28. Jimmy Carter has always been a smiling elderly man who shows up on TV to promote fair elections and disaster relief.

29. Arnold Palmer has always been a drink.

30. Dial-up is soooooooooo last century!

31. Women have always been kissing women on television.

32. Older kids have told him about the days when Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were Mouseketeers.

33. Faux Christmas trees have always outsold real ones.

34. He’s always been able to dismiss boring old ideas with “been there, done that, gotten the T-shirt.”

35. The bloody conflict between the government and a religious cult has always made Waco sound a little wacko.

36. He spent his bedtime on his back until he learned to roll over.

37. Music has always been available via free downloads.

38. Grown-ups have always been arguing about health care policy.

39. Moderate amounts of red wine and baby aspirin have always been thought good for the heart.

40. Sears has never sold anything out of a Big Book that could also serve as a doorstop.

41. The United States has always been shedding fur.

42. Electric cars have always been humming in relative silence on the road.

43. No longer known for just gambling and quickie divorces, Nevada has always been one of the fastest growing states in the Union.

44. He’s part of the first generation to grow up hearing about the dangerous overuse of antibiotics.

45. He pressured his parents to take him to Taco Bell or Burger King to get free pogs.

46. Russia’s courts have always had juries.

47. No state has ever failed to observe Martin Luther King Day.

48. While he’s been playing outside, we’ve always worried about nasty new bugs borne by birds and mosquitoes.

49. Public schools have always made space available for advertising.

50. Some of his peers have been inspired to actually cook by watching the Food Channel.

51. Fidel Castro’s daughter and granddaughter have always lived in the United States.

52. His parents have always been able to create a will and other legal documents online.

53. Charter schools have always been an alternative.

54. He’s grown up with George Stephanopoulos as the Dick Clark of political analysts.

55. New kids have always been known as NKOTB.

56. His friends always wanted to be like Shaq or Kobe: Michael who?

57. His friends have broken up with their significant others via texting, Facebook, or MySpace.

58. His parents remember Woolworths as a store that used to be downtown.

59. Kim Jong Il has always been bluffing, but the West has always had to take him seriously.

60. Frasier, Sam, Woody and Rebecca have never Cheerfully frequented a bar in Boston during primetime.

61. Major League Baseball has never had fewer than three divisions and never lacked a wild-card entry in the playoffs.

62. Nurses have always been in short supply.

63. He won’t go near a retailer that lacks a website.

64. Altar girls have never been a big deal.

65. When he was 3, his parents may have battled other parents in toy stores to buy them a Tickle Me Elmo while they lasted.

66. It seems the United States has always been looking for an acceptable means of capital execution.

67. Folks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have always been able to energize with Pepsi-Cola.

68. Andy Warhol is a museum in Pittsburgh.

69. He grew up hearing about suspiciously vanishing frogs.

70. He’s always had the privilege of talking with a chatterbot.

71. Refugees and prisoners have always been housed by the U.S. government at Guantanamo.

72. Women have always been Venusians; men, Martians.

73. McDonald’s coffee has always been just a little too hot to handle.

74. “PC” has come to mean personal computer, not political correctness.

75. The New York Times and The Boston Globe have never been rival newspapers.

Good luck, Kyle. I’m very proud of you!

Nevada delegates for Ron Paul closed ranks with like-minded delegates from other states like Iowa, Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. And on the last night of the Republican National Convention, those same delegates exchanged state flag pins with others as a sign of solidarity.

At any other time — this might seem unimportant — however not after seventeen of Nevada’s 27 Republican delegates voted in favor of Ron Paul with 5 abstaining and one casting their ballot for Mitt Romney.  Under binding caucus rules, most of Nevada’s delegates were to vote for Romney, who In February’s Nevada caucus won half of the state’s vote.

Former Nevada Governor Robert List says he’s never seen anything like the Paul supporters, who broke their pledges.

“You know other delegations have had their issues from time to time and there were others here this time that did,” List told KOH in Reno. “But this is the first time I’ve seen Nevada go off the rails like that.”

Sparks dentist, Paul supporter and chairman of the Nevada delegation Wayne Terhune said after being frustrated when the convention adopted new rules, he recorded the votes of each Nevada delegate, as they wanted, not as assigned. and that led to the delegations vote. Still others say the Paul delegates were simply waiting for something — anything — to use as an excuse to go off the beaten path.

“In the spirit of freedom that inspired the founding of our country,” Terhune said, “and in honor of the liberty that has made these states the greatest country on earth, we proudly cast 17 votes for Congressman Ron Paul.”

A former Carson City District Attorney and Nevada Attorney General, List called Terhune an “outlaw.” He also said he corrected the official Nevada delegate nomination vote as 20 for Romney and eight for Paul.

“Some of them are novices  and thought they could come here and do something unheard of, but Romney had this thing locked up two months ago,” List told the news-talk radio station. “This whole thing was just an exercise in futility on their part.”

Had Terhune correctly announced Nevada’s vote, the delegation could have put Romney over the top in the delegate count. Instead that honor now rests with New Jersey.

The International Security Assistance Force said in a brief statement a crash killed four of its members, three U.S. service members, three members of the Afghan national security forces and an Afghan civilian interpreter.

U.S. Army Sgt. Richard Essex, 23, was among 11 people killed August 16th, when the Black Hawk helicopter they were riding in crashed.  Essex was the helicopter’s gunner.

The cause of the crash is under investigation. However, media reports have stated the Taliban has claimed credit for shooting down the helicopter in Kandahar province.

A member of the Army’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Essex is the twenty-first North Coast service member killed in the Global War on Terror since 2001.  He previously served a yearlong tour in Iraq, deployed to Afghanistan last fall and was due home in November.

He was a 2008 graduate of Kelseyville High School. He played the bass guitar, was an artist and a published poet, with one book of poetry to his credit and another ready to be published soon.

Along U.S. 101, emergency personnel and private citizens gathered on overpasses to honor the soldier’s passing motorcade. Crowds waving American flags, holding thank-you signs and saluting lined the streets in Kelseyville.

“What a wonderful welcome home for Richard,” Noella Essex, Richard’s step-mother, wrote on her Facebook page. “People lined up for miles as his body was taken home — twenty or so police cars from all around, fire trucks, people with flags flying for their home town solider.”

Essex is survived by his mother and step-father, Marion and Brett Hopkins of Kelseyville; father and step-mother, Charles and Noella Essex of Crescent City, sisters, Stacey Hopkins and Jennifer Williamson; and brother, Michael Essex.

The daughter of a murdered Nevada lawmaker has been found dead in Phoenix, Arizona, after allegedly shooting and killing her lesbian partner.

Dallas Augustine, who worked as a correctional officer in Florence, is suspected of shooting Jessie McCaskill before taking her own life. Police discovered the bodies of the women after a family member called 9-1-1 concerned for their welfare.

The couple married at the Hotel Del Coronado, in San Diego, September 22nd, 2007.  In May 2008, Dallas unsuccessfully ran for the Las Vegas Assembly District 12 seat her mother, Kathy held when she first entered politics in 1992.

Kathy Augustine also served in the state Senate before being elected state controller in 1998 and re-elected to a second term. The first woman to hold the job, she became the first constitutional officer in Nevada history to be impeached and convicted after she pleaded guilty to three ethics violations in 2004.

She was found unconscious in her Reno home, July 8th, 2006, dying four days later without regaining consciousness. Although early reports stated the cause of death was a massive heart attack, police soon came to suspect foul play.

Augustine’s husband, Chaz Higgs, attempted suicide by slitting his wrists in the couple’s Las Vegas home, July 14th.  He was later arrested in Virginia, September 29th, 2006, and charged with first degree murder in her death.

Higgs, a critical care nurse, allegedly made suspicious remarks to a co-worker about how to kill someone using succinylcholine. He was convicted of murder in Reno, June 29th, 2007.

Dallas’ father, Delta Air Lines pilot Charles Augustine, died from complications of a stroke August 19th, 2003. Since Higgs was his private nurse at the time, authorities had him disinterred in October 2006 where they determined his death was due to natural causes.

Higg was sentenced to life in prison, with a chance of parole after 20 years. In May 2009, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld his murder conviction in a majority decision.

The Maricopa County medical examiner’s office says Augustine and McCaskill are scheduled for autopsies by the end of the week.

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

When half of the people get the idea they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that’s the beginning of the end of any nation.

There was a colt, which every time he heard anyone coming, he ran away. One afternoon, Uncle Adam came to where the pony was, but it just lowered his head, kicked up his hooves and galloped away.

Every time Uncle Adam got near him, the colt raced across the field. And his mother galloped with him and stayed by his side.

But Uncle Adam knew a lot about horses. So he jus’ went and leaned against a fence post and whistled gently to himself, never looking at the pony or his mother.

The colt saw Uncle Adam and he heard him whistling. However the pony jus’ lowered his head and nibbled grass.

Uncle Adam didn’t move and kept on whistling. Curious, the colt moved closer, nibbling some grass nearer to Uncle Adam.

But still Uncle Adam didn’t move and he kept on whistling. Then after a while he walked out of the field the way he had come and went away.

The next day he came back, and he stood there whistling and he gave the mother horse a cube of sugar. The third day when he came, he walked over to the mother horse and put a halter over her head and gave her another cube of sugar.

Then Uncle Adam led her around the field, and the pony followed after, close to his mother’s side.  After a few times around the pasture, he let the mother go and walked away, paying no attention to the colt whatsoever.

Uncle Adam returned a fifth day and a sixth, giving the mother a cube of sugar and walking her around the pasture, with the pony close to her side. By this time the colt was feeling more comfortable with Uncle Adam’s presence.

On the seventh day, Uncle Adam returned and instead of offering the mother a cube of sugar, he offered it to the pony. The little horse gladly accepted, and from then on he freely followed Uncle Adam around the pasture.

It was then Uncle Adam knew it was time to start training the colt to be a working ranch horse.

Democratic officials believe the growing Hispanic population in battleground states like Nevada gives those who embrace the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors amnesty legislation or DREAM Act, an edge in November’s elections. Nevada Congresswoman and U.S. Senate candidate Shelley Berkley supports the act and Senator Harry Reid made it the centerpiece of his reelection win in 2010.

Yet, three times, Congress voted down the DREAM Act. It should be clear to President Obama and others, that so-called middle-class Americans do not want amnesty enacted, especially not while our borders remain unsecured.

On the day Obamnesty went into effect, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed an executive order directing state agencies to deny driver’s licenses and other public benefits to illegal aliens granted “deferred action” amnesty and work authorizations after hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants began lining up across the nation to apply. In Arizona, an estimated 80,000 eligible illegal immigrants will apply for amnesty resulting in what Brewer calls “significant and lasting impacts on the Arizona budget, its health care system and additional public benefits that Arizona taxpayers fund.”

Ohio State Congressman Courtney Combs proposed an Arizona-style immigration law after the Supreme Court’s June ruling to uphold the key enforcement provision of Arizona’s SB 1070. If this anti-amnesty legislation passes, it will relieve Ohio taxpayers of $878 million in annual costs to support, educate, and care for illegal aliens and their dependents.

But Americans in other states aren’t so lucky.

Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin announced $275,000 in funds to cover thousands of illegal aliens’ $465 application fees. Then New York state officials set aside $450,000 in grants to be donated to three advocacy groups helping thousands of illegal aliens apply for Obamnesty work permits.

So not only will 1.8 million illegal aliens be competing for our jobs, but politicians are make it easier for them to do it.

Once again Senator Harry Reid is busy rewriting both Nevada and U.S. history.  When asked about renaming Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport during a ceremony at the airport’s new Terminal Three, he said he was for it — but that’s not all he had to say.

“Pat McCarran was one of the most anti-Semitic — some of you might know my wife’s Jewish — one of the most anti-black, one of the most prejudiced people who has ever served in the Senate,” said Reid, “It’s not a decision I’m going to make, but if you ask me to give my opinion, I don’t think his name should be on anything.”

McCarran was a United States Senator from Nevada from 1933 until his death in 1954.  He was also Nevada Chief Justice, chairman of the Nevada State Board of Parole Commissioners, chairman of the Nevada State Board of Bar Examiners and district attorney for Nye County.

The only thing he was “anti-” on was Communism — which he hated with a passion.

This is the second time Reid has attacked a deceased Nevada politician. In 2009, he released his biography, “The Good Fight,” a play on words referring to his boxing background, claiming Nevada U.S. Congressman Walter Baring told him President John Kennedy’s assassination was “a good thing.”

“There is no way my dad would have said anything like that, much less to Harry Reid,” said Jeff Baring, son of former Congressman Walter Baring, “Simply, no way.”

As I said then — and repeat now — Reid needs mental health help.

Nevada voters have one less choice in November, now that a federal judge struck down the states voting option of “none of the above,” saying it’s unconstitutional and should be removed from the ballot.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jones says that because the option can never win, even if it gets the most votes, those votes are worthless. A federal lawsuit filed in June and backed by the Republican National Committee argued Nevada’s voter option disenfranchises voters because it’s a perpetual loser.

However, former Sparks Assemblyman and state Senator Don Mello, who created the 1976 law disagrees.

“Talking about disenfranchising the voter?” he tells KOLO 8 News. “That’s what he’s trying to do, by telling them they’re not allowed to go to the polls and vote none of the above.”

“It tells the candidate something too.” Mello adds. “That they’d better change their ways if they want to stay in office.”

Jones is a 2003 Bush appointee and because of this Mello, a Democrat, sees the ruling as another GOP efforts to suppress votes by creating stricter voter ID requirements.

“If the Republican party doesn’t like it,” Mello says,” they ought to run better candidates.”

Recently, the Obama administration has battled state’s over their requirement voters produce a picture ID to vote, saying it disenfranchises minorities and the elderly. Furthermore, the Department of Justice has taken several states to court to stop them from removing the dead, illegal aliens, felons and those who’ve moved to another state or country from the voter rolls.

Meanwhile, the September 20^th deadline for finalizing ballots looms for officials across the state who have the last-minute job of making the changes to the ballots before mailing them to overseas voters.  Secretary of State Ross Miller says his office will pursue “an immediate and expedited appeal.”

More and more, the Republican and Democratic parties are looking like the same party.

Joseph Russ was born in 1825 in Maine, and came west in 1850. In fall of 1852 he purchased 100 cattle in Placerville, and with two hired cowboys, drove them over the Coast Range to Humboldt County, selling them in Eureka to the Army which was buying beef for its troops on the north coast where there were Indian wars.

The following spring he filed a claim and built a log cabin near Fern Cottage. He and a partner, Barry Adams, went to the Sacramento area to buy a large herd of cattle, eventually opening a meat market in Eureka.

He met his future wife Zipporah in Sacramento and persuaded her family to move to the Ferndale area. Though she was 16 and he was 29, they married December 17, 1854, having 13 children throughout the years.

In the mid-1850s they began to buy ranch land, ultimately owning some 50,000 acres. Over time Russ enterprises included timber and lumber, an abattoir, several meat markets, a bank, ships, and a dry goods emporium.

Joseph conducted his business activities from the home in Fern Cottage; the children went to school, and the home was the center of a dairy farm. Across the street were barns, stables and living quarters for ranch hands.

Bertha Russ Lytel, the youngest of Joseph and Zipporah’s children, died in 1972. She was the last direct descendant to live in the Fern Cottage home, built originally in 1866.

All the furniture and furnishings are original to the house and the family, but not of the same period. Many of Zipporah’s dresses are on display in her bedroom or sitting room.

According to the homes website, ferncottage.org: “Of the 182 direct descendants of Joseph and Zipporah Russ on our records, 36 live in Ferndale, another 19 elsewhere in Humboldt County, for a total of 30.1 percent in the county.  Another 60 live elsewhere in Northern California and 19 in Southern California.”