A local organization of volunteers wants to rent the Senior Center for a banquet for a statewide meeting they will be hosting. The banquet will be a catered by a local business and a glass of wine will be an optional part of the menu. A delegation of 10 senior citizens was there, in good voice, opposed to allowing any alcohol use in "our" Senior Center.

Now we aren't talking the clientele of Sarge's Bar; more like the patrons of the Looking Glass or Coppermill and I love them all, especially the protestors.

The Council voted, three to one, to grant the temporary liquor license as requested but it isn't over. At some future meeting the Council has agreed to set policy concerning granting limited liquor licenses for events at the Senior Center. I sure hope that someone doesn't decide that they want to rent the place and display the Ten Commandments.

Mayor Berry's almost grand idea of renaming McCook Regional Airport to honor Sen. Ben Nelson is sticking in my craw. Now I like Ben, he is a good one and generally has been good for Nebraska.

For the moment we will ignore his expensive decision to ignore the multi-state hazardous waste compact but that only cost us about a $1.0 billion, pocket change in Washington D.C.

Ben is not a pilot so he doesn't use the McCook airport. I have a problem with congressional "pork" or the more genteel term "earmarks" for the same rip-off.

Either term means the concept of a politician already in office using our tax money to buy our votes for his next election.

Yes it is nice to be the recipient of such largess, and McCook Airport will soon have an instrument landing system in part from a favor by Ben. He didn't personally pony up the money but slipped the requirement into some kind of unrelated spending bill.

I like that part, when the favor comes our way, but am not sure that "pork" is in the best interests of the whole country.

Ben has been a big help on McCook keeping Essential Air Service but I can't remember him ever arriving at the airport on any of our feeder airlines. Travel by private jet seems to be a little more to his liking!

Why not rename Lincoln Municipal airport for Sen. Nelson or Millard Airport near his home in Omaha?

How about Washington National becoming Ben Nelson (Senator Ben Nelson?) Airport?

I see value in having the name of the airport giving meaningful association of place. After all, if one wants to travel to McCook, Nebraska, it would be logical to look for McCook Airport.

Where the heck is Ben Nelson Airport? The recent renaming of McCook Airport from Municipal, which it is, to Regional, which McCook is, was rather a useless exercise in preening someone's ego. It just wasn't worth the effort or wasted paper to make the change in my humble opinion. 

If we really want to honor Ben why not make the Work Ethic Camp (fancy name for prison) on the north edge of town the "Ben Nelson Prison." Gov. Ben Nelson had everything to do with McCook getting the WEC when we got rooked out after winning the bid for the penitentiary expansion that went to Tecumseh ... proving once again the imperative of keeping the bulk of government spending close by Eastern Nebraska. 

Gov. Ben was just doing his part to spread the largess of tax spending to western Nebraska. Sen. Ernie Chambers hasn't forgiven him yet.

Don't tell me that the good Lord doesn't have a sense of humor. Big liberal Democrat Jon Corzine, Governor of New Jersey, learned the pain of sin recently.

Doing 91 mph in a 65 mph zone, his highway patrol driver loses it and eats a guard rail. The picture of the wreckage looks pretty survivable for seat-belted occupants.

I still think the Lord has deemed not wearing a seatbelt a sin and punishes accordingly! Possibly he isn't convinced that big important liberal Democrats are exempt from the laws of physics.

That is the way that I see it.