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We all have touchstone moments in our lives, events that affect and shape us and that we carry from our youthful past till the day we die. That defines the term epoch, even if the tragic circumstance occurred at a distance. The shootings at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, “four dead in Ohio” and another nine wounded, is one of my moments. Monday was the 50th anniversary. For years I had planned to be there. I was there on the 25th anniversary in 1995. In May 1970 I was 15 and very unaware, wrapped up in basketball and uncertain about gir...
Poor Jay Inslee. Washington’s governor has his hands full with a solid portion of the state’s population, up to one-third, wanting to get back to the business of earning a living. The job loss in the last two months has been unprecedented, record breaking, huge. The explosive quickness of stopping the old normal, triggered by Inslee’s March 23 emergency order to stay home, sheltering in place except for food shopping essentials, has put all of us on an emotional roller coaster. With constantly climbing positive COVID-19 virus numbers: over...
Really wonderful and quite insightful article last week: “The New Normal: Reinventing our reality in a new era.” I enjoyed how you connected all the dots and express them in such a simple terms so everyone can understand. You asked us questions that we need to answer sooner better than later if not immediately! Thank You for sharing. Sasha Krivokapic...
Humans have seen troubled times before, but perhaps never quite like this. Certainly, World War I and World War II had huge global impacts, but not as quickly, nor as indiscriminately, as this world-wide pandemic. There is a lot of talk now about future changes, and what the New Normal might look like ... . Perhaps, first, we should take a hard look at the Old Normal – endless wars, political instability, escalating climate destruction, desperate refugees, homelessness, racism, mutual religious intolerance and millions living in...
We are not halfway there yet. We might not know or see or experience the halfway point. With luck, perhaps, it will pass, we will get past it, without realizing it. Patience. How hard that is, to be patient, whether we are three or 33 or 93? Of course, once we pass 13, we are challenged to be mature role models and to set an example for others. So here we are. Let us count the days. It is 51 days since the Skagit County commissioners declared a public health emergency; 44 days since Gov. Jay Inslee closed restaurants and then the next week,...
Learning certainly looks and feels different now but it is still happening. Our teachers updated their websites with office hours, class times and learning materials. I encourage you to check it out! There are some great learning resources available. Our office staff is planning how to deliver to and retrieve learning materials from families that are not able to access them electronically. All teachers are identifying what learning standards are the most important to explore with their students. Some creative learning experiences are arising...
“Love in the time of the Cholera” is a book famous in part because of its title. The 1985 novel by the Columbian Gabriel García Márquez traces the complex journey of a couple from their youthful marriage through a lifetime of lovers, beyond any one cholera epidemic. Cholera, a deadly infectious disease, is spread through contaminated water supplies. Best if we recognize laughter in the time of the coronavirus now, in the present moment. Even in this worst hard time, to echo the title of Tim Egan’s 2006 award winning history of th...
Today is the 50h anniversary of Earth Day. Conceived by Wisconsin U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson and brought to life by a 25 years old Denis Hayes, Earth Day burst forth on April 22, 1970, during the then never-ending Vietnam War and two weeks before students were shot dead at Jackson State and Kent State universities as campuses erupted over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Our country and our planet has known massive strife. In 1970 it was also a very dirty, polluted, world. But Earth Day and follow up actions by millions of Americans of all ages...
Our times compel a search for wisdom, if not distraction. We survey the landscape of snarky-yet-telling memes and self-help bromides. Eventually, when eyes weary of our umbilical, glowing beacons, we plumb the depths of more enduring traditions. Perhaps the most iconic account of global cataclysm, the Bible’s Flood Epic, comes readily to mind and heart in these strange days, less as facile fable of punishment for evil than as an embrace of catastrophe as opportunity. Judaism’s take on this ancient, shared saga goes beyond the mythic her...
Among everything else collapsing in our society, this pandemic could be the death knell for newspapers. Publishers are worried. Ads have disappeared, page numbers have shrunk – except for a so far stubbornly resistant Weekly News – and some have eliminated issues. The Cascadia Weekly is for now a bi-weekly. Subscriptions and retail sales are 16 percent of the Weekly News annual revenues. Paper sales just about cover the single cost of printing the paper annually. What does this mean? Newspaper subscribers get an incredible deal....
This was the Saturday that the 34th Annual Not-So-Impromptu Tulip Parade did not take place in the month the Tulip Festival was cancelled, in the spring that school stopped for the rest of the year. This is the year that a novel coronavirus conquered the world. This is the time that the economy stopped and people from Washington state to Washington D.C. were told to stay home and stay out of work, to close their shops, shutter and shut down their factories. This, the year of our Lord 2020, is the year without Easter services in church for the...
Do we really want things to go back to normal? Are you sure? One definition of normal is to be healthy in mind and body. Ahhh … that strikes a chord, doesn’t it? A global, unprecedented turn of events has focused the entire world’s attention away from life as normal. Now it’s on our collective health and its very personal impact as well as the dire, economic consequences to each individual on the planet when things go catastrophically awry. The COVID-19 virus is very different than anything we have ever faced before. It has certa...
There is a new normal out there but that day is still to arrive. It’s dawn is not yet on the horizon. The old normal, so much of the status quo, needs to spiral from crippled to life support. It is the one thing that needs to die and get buried. It has taken a crisis of once a century proportions to reveal the weaknesses behind the rhetoric and the structures of this, the greatest country in the world. Greatness stands solid in the storm. Strength shows in the protection of those first and most battered by disaster. Instead the winds and w...
The White House Dear Mr. President: Congratulations on your decision to extend your national social distancing directive through April. The strength you displayed in changing your mind is admirable. It is a wonderous show of courage, that you are large enough to refute your earlier words, your hope that churches would be packed on Easter. I write as one who has questioned and even criticized actions of your presidency. But your directive opened my eyes to your path to reelection. I, too, love my country, and, like you, fear for its future, and...
Steady as she goes. In the old days, before planes or even cars, the metaphor for the nation was Ship of State. Is it smooth sailing? Are we battered by high winds and storms? Are there clouds on the horizon? Can we get over the (sand) bar? Are we on course? Never fear, the Captain’s steady hand is on the helm. The Captain will guide us into port. As a nation, we have always embraced the myth of a strong leader, whether that was General Washington or General Custer. From the first landings in Virginia and Massachusetts we have always pushed f...
Timothy Eagan wrote a book titled “The Worst Hard Time.” I have been thinking of my mother’s journey and the hard times that shaped her. My mom, born in 1920, would have been 100 in May. She was nine in 1929 and a child of the Great Depression and, at 20, not old enough to vote for Roosevelt in the 1940 election. But more than that, she was 100 percent Lithuanian. All four of her grandparents were born in Lithuania. My mom grew up in the ghetto in Brooklyn and didn’t speak English until she started school. All of that, more than I know or can...
Saturday Nikki Hamilton, a friend of mine from church, died of the COVID-19 virus. She was a member of the Skagit Valley Chorale, which made the decision to practice earlier in March. That decision was based on public health guidelines. Now the group of 60 is a “cluster” and Skagit County Public Health has found thta “more than half of attendees who were at this gathering are now confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19.” Sunday folks from at least Seattle and Everett were shopping on First Street and picnicking at the pocket parks on the boa...
To our valued citizens during these unprecedented and uncertain times: Although town hall is closed to the public until further notice, your local government will continue to operate and provide essential services. In an effort to stem the severity of the virus outbreak, the governor has instituted a policy of social distancing. I ask that every citizen follow this guidance. However, at this critical time there is also a great need to make sure we are looking out for our friends and neighbors. And although a face-to-face encounter is ill...
Slow down, you move too fast — Paul Simon If Part I was before the virus, we are now in the second phase, living and hunkering down with it. None of us wanted a role in this play but now we are all on stage with it, with La Conner restaurants and tourist-focused retail some of the main players. This is a tragedy in the making. The Washington state response continues to reach further into our communities, with Gov. Inslee announcing Sunday that all restaurants and bars are closed for the rest of March. The state has been at ground zero...
It’s been a short, but busy 60-day session. Legislators have debated hundreds of bills, refining them as they move through the legislative process. With budget negotiations on track to be finalized, this short session should come to an end tomorrow. In even-numbered years, such as this one, the Legislature adjusts the two-year state budget passed in odd-numbered years. Investments made in these supplemental budget years are generally more modest but are important to ensure the most critical needs across our state are addressed. Although by t...
Out local CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) leaders have been advising for years that families prepare for the Big One by assembling 72 hour emergency kits of food, water, flashlights and much more, but certainly toilet paper. No one will know when an earthquake, tsunami or volcanic eruption will leave us cutoff, without power or water or transportation access. No one ever expected the big one would come ashore as a virus, whether in the dark of night, or not. And, if we are not devastated, we are afraid. The shelves empty of hand saniti...
As a farmer and outdoorsman, I despise litter. Maybe it’s because the wind blows on Whidbey Island, but it seems we spend an inordinate amount of time picking up litter that has blown into our fields and woods: plastic bags, pet-food bags, flowerpots, cardboard boxes, even trampolines. But litter is an inanimate object, like the chair you stubbed your toe on – yelling at it doesn’t help. The real culprit is always human. Our state imposes steep fines ($50 to $5,000) for littering, but it still occurs. Whether the cause is ignorance, apa...
It is one week until Washington’s presidential primary election day. Five days from now, Sunday, March 8th, is International Women’s Day. Since 1987, first Congress then presidents have designated March as Women’s History Month. Besides apple pie, what is more American than voting? Who is more loved than mom? Ain’t it great that women won the right to vote 100 years ago this August, when the 19th Amendment was adopted? Who could be against mom? Or voting? One hundred years ago a lot of people were. Call them the usual suspects, the establi...
Last week, the Legislature finished the house-of-origin cutoff. This means that House bills needed to pass the House – and Senate bills needed to pass the Senate – in order to stay alive for consideration during this legislative session. There are only a few budget-related exceptions that don’t fall on this timeline. Fortunately, nearly all of the bills I sponsored this session were passed by the House and are now in the Senate. This includes the three bills I sponsored to expand veterans’ benefits and a bill to explore summer sch...
Let’s slow down and stop the name calling. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders defines himself as a democratic socialist. He respects people enough that he is not afraid of anyone looking closely at his proposals, his record and his words. His 40 year career since first elected mayor of Burlington is plain to see. So is the record of our president, Donald Trump. He is the real radical in the race. He is hiding in plain sight. By definition, radical change is fundamental and historic. That is what Trump has objectively done. His tax cuts reduced r...
