Columns

Column: Six Factors Affecting Auto Insurance Premiums

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Six Factors Affecting Auto Insurance Premiums
Column by ABE DISPENNETTE

There are a number of key factors most insurance companies use to calculate how much you’ll end up paying for your auto insurance.

What’s important to remember is that you can control many of these factors.

Your location, age and driving habits all play a major role, as do the types of vehicles you drive and your record of accidents.

In many cases, the choices you make about the coverage you want determine the cost of your premium.

Below is a more detailed look at six key factors that affect your auto insurance premiums, as well Read More

A View From the Stacks: National Library Week and Library Programs

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Column by STEVEN THOMAS
Library Manager

April 14-20 is National Library Week, with the theme of Communities Matter @ Your Library.

First held in 1958, National Library Week is sponsored by the American Library Association and libraries across the country each April.

It’s a time to celebrate the contributions of libraries and librarians as well as to promote library use and support.

Public libraries continue to play an enormous role in our communities and in our nation as a whole.

For example, did you know:

  • Reference librarians in the nation’s public and academic libraries answer nearly 6.6
Read More

Hannemann’s Music Corner: Living Things

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Hannemann’s Music Corner: Living Things
By RICHARD HANNEMANN
 
Friday April 19, from 5-7 p.m., the Karen Wray Studios will present an exhibition entitled “Living Things.”
 
I will be providing the music, which makes sense given that instruments are living things as well.
 
Never thought of it that way?
 
Back in the day, when I lived in the LA Apartments (1971-ish), I had a Lyle classical guitar.
 
I’ve always been a bit fortunate in the guitars I’ve owned – in terms of the quality of their voice – and this Lyle, my first classical, was no
Read More

Help With The Hard Stuff: ‘Resolve if Possible’

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Help With The Hard Stuff

Part 5 (of 10) –“Resolve if Possible”
By GINI NELSON, JD, MA

I ended my last column asking you to remember William Ury’s “third-sider” motto, “Contain if necessary, resolve if possible, best of all prevent.”

In that column we looked at Prevent, and the three prevention roles Ury identified as Provider, Teacher, and Bridge-Builder.

This week we look at Resolve. Remember, Uri’s strategy is to catch and handle conflict as early and constructively as possible, to limit its escalation and destructiveness.

He quotes Shakespeare: “A little fire is quickly trodden out, which, Read More

PEEC Amateutur Naturalist: Turkey Vultures Return to Los Alamos Ice Rink

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PEEC Amateutur Naturalist
By Robert Dryja

The Mission of San Juan Capistrano is known for swallows returning each year.

There even is a website dedicated to this event. 

Turkey Vultures are one of Los Alamos’s earliest returning birds, but they’re not quite as endearing as the swallows.

Turkey Vulture. Photo by Bob Dryja

Four Turkey Vultures were seen migrating through the area or returning to their roost high in a tree near the Los Alamos Canyon ice rink on March 16, 2013. 

The road by the ice rink forms a loop and heads up the north side of the canyon. A parking area at the top of the canyon Read More

Money IQ: Required Minimum Distributions

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Money IQ
By TAMMY M. THORN

Required Minimum Distributions (RMD)

Several months ago in Money IQ, the focus was on retirement savings, specifically what IRA Savings Plan was best suited for you in reducing your tax bill.

What’s next?

Retirement and Required Minimum Distribution (RMD): The IRS mandates that an individual is subject to a Required Minimum Distribution from Traditional IRA Savings Plans or other retirement plan savings (Roth IRAs excluded) once one attains age 70 and ½.  

Definition: RMD is the minimum amount an IRA owner must withdraw from their retirement account Read More

Column: A Gathering of Heroes

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A GATHERING OF HEROES
By Vern Woodward, husband of a Breast Cancer Survivor

As a former member of the elite American Special Operations community, I became accustomed to daily interaction with extraordinary people who had undergone a most intensive examination and evaluation process to identify those individuals who would seek out and address dangerous situations in the interest of American safety and security. 

I learned that one could grow casually familiar with astonishingly unique people. 

It was not until I entered the civilian world where I met another group of astonishing Read More

Letter to the Editor: An Unhappy Marker of How Far We Have to Go

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Equal Pay Day
(An unhappy marker of how far we have to go)
 
By Judy Prono and Natalie Markin
Co-Facilitators, AAUW-Los Alamos Branch

Today, Tuesday April 9, is Equal Pay Day. It marks how far into the year a woman must work to earn as much as a man earned in the previous year.

The day is an unhappy marker of how far we have to go before we close the gender wage gap. This gap hasn’t budged in nearly a decade, leaving women and their families to suffer the effects of lost wages.

Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which requires employers to give women and men equal pay for Read More

Food on the Hill: Lemon Bars

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Photo by Sue York/ladailypost.com
 
This Week’s Recipe:
 
Lemon Bars
 
Photo by Sue York/ladailypost.com
 
Ingredients:
 
1 box yellow pudding cake mix
1 jumbo egg
1 stick butter, melted
1 box,less 2 tablespoons(reserved) confectioners sugar
1-8oz cream cheese, softened
2 jumbo eggs
1 lemon
 
Photo by Sue York/ladailypost.com
Directions:
 
Mix cake mix, 1 egg, butter and zest from lemon (see picture.)
 
Photo by Sue York/ladailypost.com
 
Put into a greased 9×13 pan and press flat.
 
Photo by Sue York/ladailypost.com
 
Read More

Amazing Aging: Issues, Trends and Resources in Los Alamos

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Anne Hays Egan
 
Amazing Aging: Issues, Trends and Resources in Los Alamos
By Anne Hays Egan with Pauline Schneider

We have what aging leader Ken Dychwald calls an “Age Wave.” Ken, a longtime friend of aging activist Maggie Kuhn, has talked about this age wave for decades. And, it’s here.

Trends

In a recent article, “How Older Adult Demographics Will Rock Your World,” Anne Hays Egan outlined some important trends, issues and some key things to remember. Demographic trend watchers tell us that older adults are the fastest growing age cohort in the U.S.

Within the group of older adults, those Read More