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Summer is well underway. It is hot, but not as hot as others have it around the country. It is not as hot – yet – as we experienced in 2021. We are fortunate that Skagit summers come with little humidity and cool evenings. For those of us who can afford it – and that might mean having the time – the calendar is full of entertainment to see, listen to and create from Stanwood and Snohomish counties up to the Canadian border and across it and east into the Cascades. For the adventuresome and patient, there is the hope ferries will arrive in Frid...
Thank you, editor, for your continued support of Skagit County Clean Energy Cooperative. I am compelled to correct some of last week’s front page article, “Solarize Skagit to power 129 homes.” Solarize Skagit had 129 homeowners sign up for the program. A “sign up” means the homeowner filled out an on-line form. Once “signed up” the homeowner receives a site visit from one of the three pre-vetted installers and if their home is conducive for solar the homeowner receives a cost estimate. At that point they make a decision to purchase sola...
I oppose the use of cluster munitions. Cluster munitions do not always detonate when deployed and civilians in countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have been killed and wounded by these explosive devices long after the end of the war. More than 120 countries have banned cluster bombs. The United States must do the same. I continue to stand with the Ukrainian people and for an independent and sovereign Ukraine. That is why I have consistently supported humanitarian, military, diplomatic and economic aid for Ukraine. That is why I have met...
About a month ago, I had to take my gasoline car into the dealer for routine maintenance. That cost about $2,000, and it needs more work. My car has been driven about 100,000 miles. It probably has at least another 100,000 to go before the end of its life. However, maintenance will be increasingly expensive from now on. I think $2,500 a year is a realistic estimate. My car gets about 20 miles per gallon. Even though I have a short commute here in La Conner, Jenelle and I visit family in Seattle...
CORRECTION / ADDITION The last sentence of the July 12 Musings was not printed. Here is the last paragraph: This musing is not about that history (the 1942 internment of Japanese-American citizens), as much as light shed on it and discussing it is needed. I was in Seattle in 2023 and was taken by all the colors and races of people on the streets with me. The city is a United Nations of blacks, browns, reds, whites and yellows. I have never got on an elevator or crossed a street in my life, in Seattle, La Conner or anywhere else – every s...
The Town of La Conner’ s emergency management commission will start meeting monthly after half a year of bi-weekly sessions. It has made some progress and is settling into a routine. The town council and mayor moved quickly to form the commission after December’s Swinomish Channel flooding got their attention. Maybe emergencies are required to form commissions and plan solutions to past problems. Will it take a flood of homeless people floating into taking up residency in Pioneer Park to engage town leaders to move toward significant developmen...
In Seattle in June I had an opportunity rarely considered, much less repeatedly realized: I went up in more elevators, stepped onto more escalators and craned my head up at more buildings in two days than I have in two years – indeed – ever, in La Conner. Wow. As Dorothy might have exclaimed, it certainly isn’t Kansas. I was staying on the 34th floor of the downtown Sheraton. Up and down I went. I took my friend Dick to the Smith Tower, for decades the tallest building in the country west of New York City and we went to the 35th floor obser...
In looking at the U.S. Supreme Court decisions at the end of June, it is heartening to see they are finally abiding by the Constitution and common sense instead of shooting from the hip regarding affirmative action. If today’s court had been in office in 1974 there would be no such thing as the George Boldt decision giving one percent of the population fifty percent of all harvestable resources from state waters. The backers of the Boldt decision pointed to the Point Elliot treaty of 1855 giving those rites to native tribes. The Point E...
In 2010 Christchurch, New Zealand was devastated by two magnitude 7 earthquakes only days apart. Buildings were shaken to the ground; roadbeds overturned; water pipes snapped, etc. Nearby, the hamlet of Littleton, a town somewhat larger but like La Conner, was similarly shaken. But Littleton had a secret: a neighborly system of sharing services hour for hour they called a “time bank.” When Littleton’s 300 time bankers heard about an elderly couple being left homeless by the quake, the time bankers found the couple a temporary home and tappe...
For a while I was googling for an engineer named Talmon for the 306 Center Street project. But now I see that the name of the project is the Talmon Project in drawings submitted by the developer to the Town of La Conner. Since projects are usually not named after engineers, I assume that the name is joke. Kind of funny. As is the project. It is still too big. Still lacks enough parking. Still has bad contamination on the western portion of the property. And it is still a design that is cookie cutter. It is an insult to the historic nature of...
News that President Biden intends to permit the release of cluster bombs to the war in Ukraine needs to be challenged on moral and legal grounds and I would ask that we reach out to Rep. Rick Larsen as a member of the House Armed Services Committee to ask him to oppose the cluster bombs transfer. Cluster bombs are some of the worst weaponry of war, especially on the citizenry. The cluster “bomblets” are designed to detonate in the air, but many fail to do so and fall to the ground leaving them especially vulnerable to children who are mai...
I recently had the pleasure of visiting La Conner for an impromptu girls’ trip. This was my first time here and it was so enjoyable that I booked another visit before I left! We came to watch our friend in the Pretty Woman polo tournament at the La Conner Polo Club. We had dinner that night at the barn with the other players and the tournament hosts – everyone was so kind and welcoming and the views were unbelievable! That night we stayed in a corner room at the La Conner Channel Lodge. From the moment we got there the staff was warm and wel...
Yesterday was July 4th, the 247th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, the colonies splitting from the most powerful country on the planet. Read again the Declaration of Independence. Start at the beginning. What did the colonies declare? First, it was a “unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America.” Second, it was a statement from “one people.” Third, they held “these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain u...
It is a strange business with an odd purpose, newspaper publishing. It is a business and earns its profits by selling the interest and purchasing power of its readers to advertisers. It attracts its readers with the news of the day, but that is more than just the facts that pop up in town. Reporting does start with, for example, news of water line breaks, whether on Channel Drive or Reservation Road. But that is the start of the story, both for staff and what appears on the page. Journalism occurs when the editor and staff analyze underlying...
Music, what’s it to you, does it shiver your timbers, does it cause you to snap your fingers and tap your toes or make you breathe more easily through your nose? Certainly, one person’s music is another person’s noise, yet even in rip tearing rap, can be found a soft slap. Yeah, in righteous rock and roll can be found smooth harmonics and rad riffs and then there’s the country twang, the nasty slide guitar, harmonica, sax, drums and bass, they all can bring smiles to my face. Heck, I even enjoy karaoke, again, more as a listener, than partici...
Just 20 years ago, a kilowatt of new photovoltaic solar panel electric generation capacity cost more than a hundred times as much as a new kilowatt of natural gas capacity (although the difference was less significant with ongoing fuel costs for the gas plant factored in). General Motors’ EV1 in 1996 completely failed to bring electric cars back. Technology doesn’t stand still. Today, solar and wind energy are usually the least expensive sources of new generation. Electric vehicles are clo...
Probably not even the most loyal reader of the Weekly News noticed that this issue is volume 10, issue 11. Every week the issue number advances one and on the paper’s birth-anniversary date the volume increases one. This is the 312th issue under my ownership, completing my sixth year editing and managing the Weekly News. Year seven, with issue 313, starts next week. News editor Bill Reynolds has quoted me, “I own it but it is the community's newspaper.” I do own it but my hope for and ask of readers has always been for engagement and parti...
Women, women everywhere. I noticed more women recently in places where we hadn’t seen them before, such as covering men’s sporting events on television and serving as governors and in the police and military. You can even watch all-women’s basketball on television – or attend and watch them play live. This gave me hope that we were making good progress in gender equality until I looked it up and found that the experts predict equality in gender will not be achieved for another 137 years....
Oh dear god it’s almost all I wanna do, to hear music that makes my body move, yeah, like it’s in a smooth groove. Some might see me in my trance, moving from a slide to prance, jumping and gliding like a bird, from branch to branch. Yeah, all I wanna do is dance! Oh dear god, it’s what you made me pretty good at, I think I’m supposed to move the way I do, besides, it’s you that takes ahold of my feet, and flaps them around like they’re on high heat. Yeah, all I wanna do is dance! Oh dear god, what would they do if they saw me in France, would...
The weather at the start of this week is cool and a bit rainy. Wet is certainly needed, as the year's precipitation deficit is a whooping 6.2 inches as we head into the heart of the Skagit's summer dry season. A damp and cool week is a toe-in-the-water dip into a June gloom. It has been too sunny and too warm the first half of the month and many have turned off their office natural gas heating systems. Once it is gloomy though, it seems to linger. This week's and this month's weather is just that, clouds passing by, not even minutes in the...
Once again, I find myself in the infuriating position of responding to the news of yet another horrific mass shooting in the United States. Despite the common defensive refrain offered by gun advocates that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” the simple truth remains that people with guns kill people. And people with guns are killing more people every day and for seemingly trivial reasons. This spring alone we have witnessed several of these horrific shootings. Tragically, this list could go on and on. While much of the Ameri...
The secondary heading for this editorial is "our ossified leadership." The political state – and status – of our country is our society-wide failure, whether you read many newspapers or none and whether you discuss vigorously, halfheartedly or not at all with your neighbors, families and friends. About the ossified leadership: Our accepting presidential candidates on either side of 80-years-old is a failure on Joe Biden and Donald Trump's parts, the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties – and financers – politically involved citiz...
I’ve lived in La Conner and the surrounding area for 38 years and continue to be thrilled by all the wonderful organizations here that support gardening, farming, land conservation, the Sunrise Food Bank, Kiwanis, Rotary and Soroptimists, to name a few. And the businesses here are unique and charming. We have a feast of restaurants here to satisfy so many tastes, fish from the sea, burgers, tacos, fine dining, ice cream, breakfasts and sliders. And coffee, the best anywhere. My favorite place in La Conner is Seaport Books. Janna and company h...
Thank you for your spot-on Musings (June 7 Weekly News) in regard to Memorial Day, especially the service at Pleasant Ridge Cemetery on May 29. As always, it was a moving service, conducted quite ably by Rev. Don Robinson. As I listened to and observed the folding of the flag protocol and recounting of the military conflicts that our flag has symbolized, whether noble or otherwise, I, too, was struck by the omission of the Civil War. This was no careless omission. The Civil War was the most pivotal point in the history of the United States. It...
I recently received an invitation from the Skagit County Republican Party to its annual Lincoln-Reagan gala. I've never voted for a Republican, but I do recall long political discussions with my father, a lifelong Republican,. We often disagreed on policy, but never about basic facts. So, out of curiosity, I explored the website of the Skagit County Republicans and was immediately swept down the proverbial rabbit hole. In one blog post (April 27) county chairman Bill Bruch refers to "the Marxists who are currently running our country", meaning...
