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It is budget time again. Across Washington state and throughout the country, governments of towns, cities and countries with fiscal years starting January 1 are going through similar steps of developing their annual operating budgets. Big yawn, right? This is the time of year when newspaper subscribers really learn of – if not realize – the value of their subscriptions. For about $1.15 a week Weekly News readers get the advantage of reading stories by professional journalists summarizing and analyzing their local government’s budget proce...
Ken, regarding your last two editorials commenting on the presidential election results, your apparent inability to comprehend that for some people there are just as many logical, valid, righteous and positive reasons to vote for Donald Trump as you have for voting for Kamala Harris reflects an immense shallowness in your journalistic curiosity (see CNN’s Scott Jennings’ article latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-11-01/election-donald-trump-kamala-harris for a different perspective). Your further reflexive impulse to ascribe only the most hat...
The Moore Clark building and property is a blight and a danger with breaches to the chain link fence that does not secure it but prevents public access to right of way along the waterfront (photo sent to Weekly News). The derelict owner should pay a daily fine for this mess and be required to carry appropriate insurance for the hazard of collapse and injury to victims. I am a near neighbor to the property. Sincerely, Breta Malcolm La Conner...
Republican readers may be sitting back and ordering Christmas sweaters featuring newborns sitting on oil rigs ("Drill, baby, drill"), but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't remind everyone: If you're hoping that drilling for oil is sufficient to create low, stable energy prices and U.S. energy independence, your information about energy costs and alternatives is out of date. Even the reddest of red hat wearers has reasons to be in favor of more renewable energy development in the U.S. After...
Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. — Henry Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” 1848 We – the American people – had an election on Nov. 5 and our democracy worked. That is, our system of voting – which started in most states weeks earlier and which in some states the final counts will not be finished for another week or two – brought out over 155 million people to express their opinion. This year, this election, Donald Trump collected the most votes as well as a smashing victory in the Electoral College. Trump met the needs of 77-plus...
Last week’s editorial was wrong in stating that “Kamala Harris will win the national popular count.” The editor assumed more than 156 million people – the 2020 presidential turnout – would vote. Instead, when another 4 million California ballots are counted, the 2024 turnout will be just over 152 million – almost 5 million fewer voters than in 2020. The editor’s analysis is that Harris’s popular vote victory evaporated because 5 million people stayed home. The editor regrets not knowing that fact when he finished his editorial on Nov. 4....
My fellow mammal mates, the Earth has been struck with the equivalent of the comet that took out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Yet life did not give up. The Earth has suffered many extinctions (five major ones). We are now living in the sixth extinction referred to as the Anthropocene. In geological history, 99 percent of everything that has lived has been wiped out. The tree of life is not a towering, lofty oak tree or redwood. The tree of life is a crust that has been beaten and burned and stumped on. Yet life goes on. Some think...
Most of what I write in this space is about innovations in electric generation and storage, because that’s where the biggest market changes are happening. Innovations that will increase the use of renewable energy are also happening for liquid and gas fuels. Renewable liquid and gas fuels are derived from “biomass,” which is exactly what it sounds like: biologically derived matter. Plant materials (agricultural wastes, waste paper, purpose-grown crops) and animal-related waste materials can a...
The presidential election has ended but the vote counting continues. If there was no surprising surge to one candidate, we may not know who won the Electoral College this morning, this day, or even this weekend. Writing ahead of Tuesday’s press deadline, here are ten almost certainly true facts. First, Kamala Harris will win the national popular count by probably over a million votes. Second, Donald Trump will top 75 million votes, above his 2020 total of 74.2 million. Third, Trump will claim victory and challenge any other result, for he is a...
Sunday dawned gloriously, the last day of the weekend, the first morning of again waking to standard time. Morning light was behind the curtains around 6:30 a.m., exactly the right time, as Mother Nature made it and intended all days to be. Standard Time. It comes to us the first Saturday in November, when we set our clocks back an hour for the next four-and-a-half months and our body rhythms again align with the cycle of the earth and the sun. That is too short a period. Congress shrunk it down from five months almost 20 years ago. Used to be...
As you read these words, the continent of Africa is being ripped apart. In spite of what you might have seen on YouTube, that statement is true. Like a planetary zipper, a gaping wound is opening from northern Ethiopia south through Kenya, Tanzania and parts south. Volcanic ash that accumulated in the scar over a million years, a desolate place called Olduvai Gorge, gave anthropologists the first fossils of our human ancestors. A similar gorge emerges from the northern Atlantic Ocean and extends through present day Iceland. Planet Earth is...
Yeah, I’m still alive and well, or so it seems, given my operation of this sophisticated piece of machinery, two moving parts. The small ball swirling at the end of the plastic tube full of ink moves nearly constantly in the hand of a decent writer, one who usually has a few words out, already thought, at the beginning of a sentence. The ball stops when the mind stops, to either consider the next best word, or maybe a whole new twist to the plot. Each consideration deserves its own mental slot. Who knows, in the future a thought may find a s...
The Dodgers are playing the Yankees in the World Series, and this brings back wonderful memories. I was born in the Bronx, N.Y., where the Yankees were, and lived in upper Manhattan near where the Giants were. When I moved to Long Island, my Uncle Izzy from Brooklyn would always turn on Vin Scully covering the Brooklyn Dodgers games when he visited our house in Roslyn. Sandy Koufax was the Dodgers’ star pitcher and he was Jewish, so I became a Dodger fan. The Dodgers hadn’t won a World Ser...
This is the last week of National Co-op Month. This year’s theme is “The Future is Cooperative.” Of course, the future for all of us is cooperative. Either we get along together and join hands in brotherhood and sisterhood or we will die. We can choose to make our future cooperative, or not. Without a doubt, the future is relentlessly pressing itself on us all. While many of the 1,650 agricultural co-ops with almost $300 billion in annual revenue are some of the largest of the over 30,000 co-ops nationally, even they offer the oppor...
Every year, we have a public Halloween festival – where kids parade through town in their outfits and go from shopfront to shopfront to get their candy loot. Sure, some families keep sweets at home in case anyone shows up in the evening, but trick-or-treating isn’t really a custom here. Newcomers are baffled by this. A lot of old-time residents just accept it as one of La Conner’s many quirks. Why do we have a public party instead of trick-or-treating? Only a few know the true origin story. Here it is: My grandfather and his friends got it ba...
Flabbergasted, astounded, staggered and dumbfounded, I find it hard to wrap my head around it. The privatization of war, once called the condottieri, now referred to as mercenaries, these private military companies, really hired killers is what they are. Moving on to another topic we learn of a philanthropic billionaire behaving quite neurotic, attempting to buy our vote. At a million a day he’s hoping to sway the election his way, to the candidate he promotes. AI powered by nukes seems like one for the books thought up by a bunch of kooks o...
Calling all patriots, the polls have opened, the mail in ballots are already delivered and it’s down to the wire, crunch time! My last letter established the basic criteria for selecting your representatives and now I’ll mention some tools for research: 1) Google each candidate and their statements. 2) go to Ballotpedia.org, for in depth coverage of each candidate and their responses. 3) go to Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, www.pdc.wa.gov, to which every candidate must be accountable and disclose their actual financial rec...
The choice is ours. Life or death. Freedom of religion or suppression of religion. Borders or no borders. Liberty or socialism/ Marxism/communism. The American Dream or rampant inflation. Constitutional republic or tyranny. Respected by the world powers or laughed at and used. Rule of law or lawlessness. Protection of our innocent children or brain washing our children in America’s schools and colleges. Respect for the Supreme Court or challenging the authority of the Supreme Court. Peace in our country or criminal chaos in our cities and st...
PEO Chapter JG of La Conner held “Gifts Galore,” an auction and brunch in Maple Hall on Oct. 19 to raise money to support women’s education. We offer financial help in the form of educational grants and scholarships to qualified women. We can only do this with the support of family, friends and donations from merchants. We thank the following merchants of La Conner for the donations to our auction: Red Door, Hellams, Waterfront Café, Apothecary, Skagit Cellers, Tim Winstrom, Stompin’ Grounds, Country Lady, Nell Thorn, The Stall, Ginger G...
As I’ve mentioned before, heating – including both space heating and water heating – accounts for up to two-thirds of the energy use in the average Western Washington home. If you’re trying to reduce your heating bills, start by looking at the possibility of updating your building envelope – all of the surfaces of your home, plus its insulation. Our home in Shelter Bay was insulated well in 1978, when it was built. However, today’s insulation codes, depending on the type of space (e.g., wall...
The Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific and Guemes Island Ferry Workers, a bargaining unit of the IBU, urge voters to vote no on Initiative 2117. If approved, I-2117 would remove 25% of the funding for new ferries to replace Washington State Ferries’ aging fleet; and would eliminate 100% of the shore power project funding for the new Mark II ferries. I-2117 would also eliminate funding for the Guemes Island Ferry replacement project. As stated in materials IBU members have been distributing, chronic underfunding of the state ferry system for...
Our mailboxes have been deluged with attack ads against our State Senator Ron Muzzall, saying he is a “two-faced” liar trying to “take away our reproductive freedom.” Some reality therapy: Washington has been one of the states most protective of a right to abortion for over half a century. In 1991, the voters narrowly (50.1% to 49.9%) approved Initiative 120, declaring a right to abortion for any reason until viability (when a child can survive outside the womb) and for any “health” reason after that. In 2018 the Reproductive Parity Act made it...
I am writing as a Skagit County farmer who is eager to see new energy and fresh ideas in our local government. The upcoming election has given us an exciting opportunity, particularly with Rylee Fleury running for county commissioner. It’s not just about electing a younger candidate – it’s about bringing a much-needed change to the way our county addresses key issues like farming and housing. For 16 years, we’ve seen the same face making the same decisions and frankly, the status quo isn’t working for many of us. Our farms, which are the backb...
Thank you, Ken for last week’s editorial concerning the massacre of Israeli innocents on Oct. 7, 2023 and the horrifying war on Hamas and the people of Gaza that is being waged by the present government of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (“After a Year of Slaughters,” Oct. 9). Though I appreciate parts of your editorial, it’s very important especially at this time to portray Israel as a country with many different voices. Yes, the present government is waging this war, but the present government doesn’t speak for the majority of Israel...
Should Skagit County approve utility scale battery energy storage projects? Yes. The size of the project, the type of battery and where, exactly, those projects should be located are subjects that will require public discussion. However, as their costs have fallen more than 99% over the last 20 years, large batteries have become very helpful in keeping electricity rates down. Here’s why: The American electric generation system is significantly overbuilt. There’s more capacity to generate ele...
