A12 East Oregonian PEANUTS COFFEE BREAK Tuesday, February 16, 2021 DEAR ABBY BY CHARLES M . SCHULZ Surprise revelation of twins’ paternity is a family bombshell FOR BETTER OR WORSE BY LYNN JOHNSTON B.C. BY JOHNNY HART PICKLES BY BRIAN CRANE BEETLE BAILEY BY MORT WALKER GARFIELD BLONDIE DILBERT BY JIM DAVIS BY DEAN YOUNG AND STAN DRAKE BY SCOTT ADAMS Dear Abby: My son’s new wife — times — nothing sexual. Now she’s who has a daughter — insisted that moving away, and I feel heartbroken. his two children are not biologically How should I deal? I’m fighting back his. After a DNA test, it turns out she tears for someone I’m not even with. was right. They aren’t. My son, my What do I do? — Heartbroken in husband and I are heartbroken. His the East twins are 10, and they don’t under- Dear Heartbroken: A relation- stand what’s going on. ship does not have to be sexual to be My husband and I are trying to meaningful, and your co-worker was J eanne gently remain in their lives with phone filling a space in your life that was P hilliPs calls and limited visits. My son’s wife empty. That you feel a sense of loss ADVICE refuses to visit with us until we stop and sadness that she is moving is not communicating with the children, surprising. promise never to talk about them and Not knowing the unfortunate display no pictures in our home. She’s trying circumstances that caused the separation between you and your wife, I can only advise to convince our son to stop seeing us, as well. you to start looking for a way to mend fences What to do? — Disappointed in Texas Dear Disappointed: Those children, or change those circumstances so you can live regardless of who their birth father is, were together again, because clearly, you’re not raised believing you and your husband are doing well on your own. If that’s not possible, their grandparents. If you love them, do not start giving serious thought to how you plan knuckle under to your son’s new wife or it will to live the rest of your life, because this way be only the beginning of how she will attempt isn’t working. Dear Abby: The other day I was on a to control you. video conference call with our boss and two She does not have the right to dictate who you (or your son, for that matter) see and colleagues. When “Joan” came on the call, communicate with. She also does not have the “something” was hanging from one of her right to order you to remove any object from nostrils. She may have had a cold. I scratched your home. my nose and mustache a few times, trying to If your son opts to turn his back on those alert her of what was happening, to no avail. children, that’s a decision only he can make. If She didn’t react. No one else said anything. he also chooses to turn his back on you, then What would the correct protocol have been? Should I have left it alone or was I right to try you raised a milquetoast instead of a man. Dear Abby: I’m a married man, and I to let her know? I did what I would have done love my wife. We’re not living together at the in person. Should I have privately texted her? Please advise. — Telecommuting Woes moment due to unfortunate circumstances. Being far away from her, I get extremely Dear Telecommuting: If the person with lonely. I have a co-worker who became a good the leaky nose had been you, wouldn’t you friend, and I have feelings for her. I have told have wanted to know? Yes, you should have her how I feel, and we have hung out a few texted her. DAYS GONE BY 100 Years Ago From the East Oregonian Feb. 16, 1921 Sister Mary Ludovica, aged 75, the first sister to enter the field of service at St. Andrews Mission, died yesterday after 30 years of active work among the Indians. Her death, which was due to heart disease, occurred at St. Antho- ny’s hospital. When Sister Ludovica went from Pendleton to St. Andrews, her primitive quar- ters were on a barren hillside, flanked with mountains and fronting on the wide and deso- late prairie. The surroundings were made even more weird by the shrieks of roving coyotes. Here the sister’s work among the Umatillas and Cayuses began, and so successful was she in her endeavor that she received the special blessing of the Holy Father in a written testi- monial. Associated with her in the pioneer work was Sister Lucretia, who is still active in the field. Three of the first group sleep in the little Mission cemetery. 50 Years Ago From the East Oregonian Feb. 16, 1971 The Port of Arlington threw its hat into the nuclear siting arena in a meeting of the Feder- al-State Task Force on Nuclear Plant Sitings during a day-long nuclear power educational conference in Hermiston. Arlington joins the ports of Umatilla and Morrow in the nuclear plant race, with all three seeking evalua- tion and approval. According to Chi Wang, director of the Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering at Oregon State Univer- sity, “Considerations in choosing plant sites should not treat rural America as a place of refuge from environmental controls, but should emphasize the opportunities that a power plant can contribute to the full devel- opment of the nation.” Wang told about 350 at the conference that economic development in the state must be maintained to improve the quality of life. “In order to do this, controlled industrial growth is of primary importance to preserve environmental quality. Siting of a giant nuclear power plant appears to be one of the means to achieve these goals.” 25 Years Ago From the East Oregonian Feb. 16, 1996 For a decade now, dryland wheat farmer Larry Winn has let a portion of his land sit idle under a federal program that pays him to protect sensitive ground from erosion by not farming it. It’s a program that has worked well, stabilizing his steep ground with a dense cover of grass, and providing a spinoff benefit for the deer and upland game birds that live along remote Juniper Canyon. But partisan politics in Washington, D.C., have stymied Winn’s efforts to plan for the future. He needs to decide whether to keep his land in the Conservation Reserve Program or return it to production, but like so many others in the region, he’s waiting for passage of the federal farm bill. That should shed light on both what’s best for the land and what’s best for his farm income. A new farm bill could elimi- nate price-support subsidies and expose farm- ers to a free market system. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do because I don’t know what the government is going to do,” said Winn, who has 160 acres of CRP land. TODAY IN HISTORY THE WIZARD OF ID LUANN ZITS BY BRANT PARKER AND JOHNNY HART BY GREG EVANS BY JERRY SCOTT AND JIM BORGMAN On Feb. 16, 1959, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. In 1945, A mer ican troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philip- pines during World War II. In 1961, the United States launched the Explorer 9 satellite. In 1998, a China Airlines Airbus A300 trying to land in fog near Taipei, Taiwan, crashed, killing all 196 people on board, plus seven on the ground. In 2001, the United States and Britain staged air strikes against radar stations and air defense command centers in Iraq. In 2006, Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko beat world cham- pion Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland by 27.12 points to win the gold medal in men’s figure skating at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy. In 2019, the Vatican announced that former Cardinal Theodore McCa- rrick, who served as arch- bishop of Washington, D.C., had been found guilty by the Vatican of sex abuse and had been defrocked; McCa- rrick was the highest-rank- ing churchman and the first cardinal to face that punish- ment as the church dealt with clerical sex abuse. Today’s Birthdays: Jazz/ pop singer-actor Peggy King is 91. Actor William Katt is 70. Actor-rapper Ice-T is 63. Actor Sarah Clarke is 50. Olympic gold medal runner Cathy Freeman is 48. Actor Chloe Wepper is 35. PHOEBE AND HER UNICORN BY DANA SIMPSON BIG NATE BY LINCOLN PEIRCE