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I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. – Henry Thoreau, in “Conclusion” chapter, “Walden,” 1854 This issue is the 364th I have printed as the Weekly News publisher. It finishes my seventh year here. Next week, issue 365, begins my eighth year as owner of the La Conner Weekly News. It has been a great run. “Best job ever” has long been my mantra. I am blessed to ha...
The road to buying the La Conner Weekly News went through Vermont, with my summer 2016 contest entries to win the Hardwick Gazette. I shaped my third entry as a future editorial, my last before retiring. I imagined selling the paper to a co-op comprised of its staff and readers, they having organized to purchase it. This is a fable near impossibly hard to make true in real life. This was published in the July 12, 2017 La Conner Weekly News, my second issue as publisher. It’s my paper now, but I am only borrowing it. Franklin said “A Republic,...
La Conner Weekly News Team: Thank you for the wonderful story and photo last week, reporting about our dedication/blessing of the new pavilion at Conner Waterfront Park (June 19, page 1). One thing I said that day and would like to see reported is the idea for the park started with Parks Commissioner Brian Scheuch, who I said was the father of the park, along with his friend BJ Carol. Thank you, Ollie Iversen La Conner Parks Commissioner...
Is the La Conner economy like a log floating in the Swinomish Channel, carried by the tides, up or down channel as the tide rises and falls with no momentum except moon and wind? Sometimes the log travels for miles in a single day and over the course of days or weeks, maybe helped by the breeze or a favorable obstruction or beaching. The next rising tide continues its forward direction. If progress is measured in distance, then that log may have a phenomenally successful run. Other times a log’s movement is held back for any of a host of r...
One of the central themes of Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’, “On Care for our Common Home,” is Francis’ strong and repeated critique of anthropocentrism, or the tendency for us humans to not only prioritize our species over and against the rest of creation but also to promote a hubristic sense of our exceptionalism on this planet. The results of this misguided way of thinking, to borrow a phrase from the pope, have been devastating for the environment. We have put our own comfort, desire for wealth and distorted sense of dominion...
Some nominally recyclable organic materials, in some specific locations, may be better used as fuel for a waste-to-energy system, even if that system produces some carbon dioxide, for the purpose of replacing a fueled heating system that would produce even more carbon dioxide and reducing waste shipments. La Conner may be one such location. There are two major reasons to recycle. If you can reuse raw materials that have already been extracted and processed, you’ll reduce the need to extract n...
Summer doesn’t arrive for another eight days, but it sure looked and felt like summer this past weekend. After two Sundays of overcast skies and rain pouring down, this week the La Conner Live Gilkey Square concert band Adrian Xavier & Ska Island and listeners were blessed with sun, blue sky, a mild breeze and temperatures almost to 70 degrees. May Sundays all summer long be warm, but not climate change induced too hot. Next Sunday it is Skagit favorite Chris Eger Band. Concerts start at 1 p.m. through Sept. 8. Bring your lawn chair. There is a...
Elliot: Like most people I have heard numerous references to Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation. However, I did not understand the complexity and reach until I read this editorial column in the Seattle Times. I feel that if Project 2025 is adopted or even sections of it, everyone needs to have a better understanding of the effect on the U.S. Please republish. There are a multitude of issues that voters must assess when deciding between President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and the independent presidential candidates before...
Every year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers publishes updated statistics for water safety (or lack thereof) at its project locations throughout the country. In the eight years I’ve been working for USACE, the statistics on drownings have not significantly changed (that I can recall), regardless of the amount of focus and messaging the enterprise has published. Again, it’s no surprise that USACE data from 2023 shows that drowning victims at our locations are 88 percent male and 89 percent who weren’t wearing life jackets. This is an impor...
Thursday afternoon some 36 La Conner High School seniors will graduate in a ceremony at the football stadium. The weather forecast predicted sun and 71 degrees Sunday afternoon. In every way the ceremony, the parties afterward and through the weekend, the summer and the year and decades ahead ought to be a time of good weather, smooth sailing, enthusiasm and optimism as these students, like graduates from high schools and colleges all over the United States, move forward into adulthood, jobs, schooling, independence, relationships and the zilli...
Just a small rock face in town, not more than four stories high, slate or limestone. I don’t really know my rocks, but it is grey and adorned with flowers clinging to its face, flowers of many colors, Hesperus, California poppy, bachelor button, penstemon, oxeye daisy, moss and licorice fern, resilient plants making the best of it in clefts in the cliff, in pockets of soil blown up from the Skagit flats. Above is a ragged crown of juniper, twisted and gnarly. A gift, a thing of beauty that simple expanse of rock left unmolested for so many y...
A poem by Rabindranath Tagore is the epigraph at the beginning of Georgina Howell’s biography of Gertrude Bell: We are all the more one because we are many For we have made ample room for love in the gap where we are sundered. Our unlikeness reveals its breath of beauty radiant with one common life, Like mountain peaks in the morning sun. Bell, an English woman born in 1880, was a linguist, archeologist, author, poet and Arabist. She worked tirelessly on behalf of the Arab cause during World War I and helped establish a free and independent I...
On May 30 the New York City Criminal Court stepped on a rake with the ensuing pain to be felt the worst in 158 days by the Biden supporters of the nation. If past history is an indicator of what takes place after a resounding defeat and loss of power, the liberals usually resort to setting fires or worse. We can only hope the National Guard is strong enough to pinch it in the bud so a reelected President Trump can continue to make America great again. Denny Sather Mount Vernon...
Last week Donald Trump was convicted unanimously by 12 jurors, people much like you and me. They were selected by both the prosecution and the defense, each side with equal ability to remove individual prospectives from the jury pool. To tell me that the choosing of jurors and alternates was somehow “rigged” is nonsense. To tell me that you, the diehard Trumper, are certain that all of those chosen jurors were Biden/Dem supporters is more nonsense – because you cannot know that. (And it only takes one to hang a jury.) The jury heard and saw a...
About half to two-thirds of the average Western Washington home’s energy use is for space heating and cooling, and water heating. Normally, temperature management is either accomplished by burning gas or propane, or by using an electric resistance heater or air-source heat pump. There’s another, more energy-efficient option: Water-source heat pumps. These systems operate on the same basic principles as other heat pumps. They transfer heat from one side of the system to the other. In an air...
No, my obsession is no longer Donald Trump or the Mariners or preparing to vote for the Oscars. My obsession is BIRDS. I sit in my hot tub at least twice a day and I am transfixed by the bird feeders that I have in my backyard. The birds scatter when I walk by but I settle down and don't move around at all and they come back in droves. I've also placed a feeder in my front yard that I can watch while I am sitting in front of the television in my living room. This has led to a very important...
Memorial Day this year was cool and gray. That did not prevent people from gathering with family and friends. Outside picnics might have been few, but lots of folks celebrated, boating, home barbecuing and going out in the many ways we do on holidays. The U.S. Transportation Security Administration reported record numbers of passengers at the nations’ airports. In greater La Conner scores of people attended services at Pleasant Ridge Cemetery and the Swinomish Cemetery to honor departed military, pioneer and family members. That is how l...
Memorial Day was May 29th this year. That is John F. Kennedy’s birthday. I know that because it is also my mother’s birthday, Mary Madeline Nemunis Stern. My mother was born in 1920. She would have been 103. I believe my mother hated war. She never told me that. Nor did she ever take her five children to a demonstration against the Vietnam War or go on her own. She did tell me this story once, that in 1964 my parents were at some work-related social function of my dad’s, of course, for few women worked outside the home then. He worked for t...
Home Trust of Skagit is a community land trust that serves all of Skagit County. Currently, we are serving 28 homeowners and 18 renters. Home Trust of Skagit offers affordable homes now and preserves that affordability for future homebuyers. Our goal is to have homes in neighborhoods and communities throughout Skagit County (preferably near community transit routes) and to provide opportunities for both homeownership and affordable rentals. With a healthy mix of housing types and home sizes available, we strive to serve those earning up to 80%...
The Rexville Grange is so grateful for the many inquiries and requests to help support or join our local Grange hall. Our thanks to Anne Basye, Ken Stern and the La Conner Weekly News for highlighting the history of this unique community hall and explaining some of our current concerns (Weekly News May 1 and 8). We are so pleased to hear from many of our neighbors and new friends willing to help us grow into a bright future. Reach us at [email protected]. Thank you. Rexville Grange board president Greater La Conner...
Thank you, Maggie, for your letter addressing concerns about Glyphosate / Roundup and the considerable and the enormous dangers to our environment. I would like to support that with some additional information. In 2016, Monsanto was taken to the World Court in the Hague and found guilty of health crimes against humanity and the environment, among other things. The suit was brought by over 1,000 international organizations including the Organic Consumers Association; Greenpeace; Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights; Ecoworld of Scandinavia;...
Wind energy – both on land and offshore – has been falling in cost almost as dramatically as solar power. It’s down well over 90% since 2000. The relevant technologies are still improving. Furthermore, wind has some advantages over other forms of electricity generation, including other renewable generation systems. For instance, wind generators can be installed in far more places than hydroelectric or geothermal generation plants, both of which require very specific geology. On average, a well-...
If there is fault to be had and people to be held accountable for the state auditor’s staff finding shortcomings in the oversight of the La Conner Rural Partial County Library District – for that is what the library’s official name is – that fault lies with all the Skagit County commissioners for the years and decades of a lack of vision and leadership that has allowed all residents countywide to languish with antiquated, piecemeal and completely underfunded and understaffed independent municipal and partial county library districts. It is no...
Almost 50 years ago I extracted myself from a life and livelihood in our nearest metropolis to follow a dream, a soul mandate, to live in Skagit Valley. A decade earlier, when I was 16 years old, I’d seen it for the first time and its beauty kept calling: those flat vistas, miles of mist and farmland. As the greening of this place happens once again and we celebrate this season, let me, please, rain a bit on your parade by mentioning something your sense of beauty, indeed none of your senses, will be good at detecting: Glyphosate. While Mons...
Well, I don’t need to write what is happening in our own country and around the world. Unless one is living under a rock, or is deliberately denying what is before our very eyes each day, we clearly see the U.S. and other countries are in a world of hurt. The only solution, in my opinion, is: we better turn back to the God of the universe, repent of our sins and let God back into our individual lives, our government, our schools, our business ventures, etc. In other words, recognize He is God and we desperately need Him. He is the answer. We a...
