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Refugees I have read and heard a couple of commentaries last week suggesting where Jesus would be and who he would be with this week. There is no arguing the point: at his birth Jesus was homeless. Within weeks his was a refugee family as they escaped Herod’s death sentence by fleeing into Egypt. Don’t believe this newspaper. Read it in the Bible. Jesus was born into a poor refugee family. Given his ministry, it seems a straight connection to expect anyone who worships him will open their hearts, homes and pocketbooks – their har...
It is true: government regulations save lives. Best to not mince words: Congress has blood on its hands. For 50 years, at the behest of their lobbyist puppet masters, they throttled regulations the National Transportation Safety Board meant for railroads to adopt. What did the lobbyists win? Reprieve from having to install automatic braking equipment, called positive train control. Again and again Congress extended the implementation deadline. The cost to the American people since 1970: 298 deaths, 6,763 injuries and some $385 million in...
The truth is that the “Yes, Virginia” editorial is the single most reprinted editorial in history. Why? Maybe because it is generous, caring, and forward looking, even to the next 10,000 years. Is the editorial fake news? No. Is it true? It is capital-T True, which is what we have to be when we are speaking to children, telling personal truths and offering truths of character and of integrity. As a publisher, I have no doubts: there is no fake news: There are only truth and lies. Yes, papers make mistakes galore. I am an expert at mistakes and...
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun: Dear Editor — I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O’Hanlon 115 West Ninety Fifth Street Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not bel...
This is my sixth month in La Conner. I am a newcomer. Some 13 years ago Sandy Stokes was new to town. Soon she was co-publishing the newspaper and did so for ten years. Folks are rightfully proud of La Conner schools. Yet Tim Bruce, like Whitney Meissner, was once new. At his start 27 years ago he inherited a very different school system than today’s. Scott Thomas comes to work in January to a very stable town government. Many remember how chaotic the council and mayor could be before John Doyle became town administrator in 2008. Kim B...
Fires are raging in California, again. Sunday, National Public Radio staff reported from Houston, examining the massive work still to be done after Hurricane Harvey. Reports here are for potential future earthquakes. This is the new normal: an active, unsettled planet prone to disruption and destruction of human and natural environments, indiscriminately. But, of course, humans are a part of nature. There’s always the potential for thinking things through and planning and commitment to action, results. In La Conner the opportunity for a C...
If life is complex – and it is – consider how much more complex ecosystems are. About those orcas not getting enough salmon, their primary food source, the editorial in last week’s paper. Scientific research finds fellow marine mammals, seals and sea lions, are feeding on salmon disproportionately. Yes, humans are taking salmon, but they are not the only mammals and maybe not the primary cause of salmon decline. So, thanks to a Facebook post responding to my editorial and a link to the Seattle Times article about ongoing research a...
Ward Phillips may be a prophet, but it is possible that his greatest role is that of a catalyst, moving the volatile mix of community and commerce forward at a faster pace than might naturally occur. If he is a prophet, offering a vision of making La Conner great-er, again, it is still up to us, the people, as elected officials, merchants, landlords, artists, teachers, parents and citizens – all of us – to take the prophet’s cry and shape it into a reality and future that is to our liking. And maybe Mr. Phillips is blowing in the w...
Of all the true stories we need to hear, the one of the fragility and failing of the fishes of the Salish Sea is one of the most important and yet faintest. For fifteen weeks this fall, KNKX, public radio from Seattle, brought a variety of stories to us as they reflected on their “Return to the Salish Sea.” We can’t say we don’t know. Seventy-eight orcas and consistently plummeting salmon stocks are not just numbers signaling a wakeup call. They are a countdown to a disaster. A church friend told me that a fundraising consultant teaches that a...
I contributed to the overflow crowd at the all school band and choir concert two weeks ago. There weren’t 76 trombone and no attempt at a parade of any size, but all 51 fifth graders were on stage at the start. That is quite an accomplishment and one in which everyone involved can be rightly proud. We are fortunate to have a school district that makes available a musical instrument to every student wanting to be in the band. That is quite a commitment as well as an expense. No, actually, first, we are fortunate the school district hired M...
Start with the Salish Sea. The sea came first. That is how Genesis starts: “In the beginning … the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep.” Science coheres: for billions of years this was the water planet. And then there is the Skagit Valley. Basically at sea level. Claimed from the sea by blood, sweat, hard work and dikes. We can all agree on the beauty and bounty – historically – of the water and the land. I am thankful to be in this amazingly beautiful and bountiful place. It is awe ins...
Having the WA 129 poetry reading on your schedule is a good idea. It is not every day that a town of 900 and a zip code consisting of all of 4,000 people gets a group of noteworthy poets to visit, much less gather for a reading. Go. We just celebrated Art’s Alive. Come May, we need to go all out for the Skagit River Poetry Festival. No exaggeration: it is a world class event (full disclosure: I am on the board of the Foundation). For Saturday, brace yourselves. Be brave. I make attempts at writing poetry and I find listening to poetry d...
I write – well scribble at – poetry and I have trouble listening to it or reading it sometimes. True confession. Until I get in the groove, getting into the groove can be hard. Listening can be difficult. Reading with comprehension takes time. Maybe I am fighting myself, working too hard. Maybe I have more to learn. Maybe I need to relax. It’s easy to write relax into poetry – that line is a bit poetic – but relaxing can be a struggle without a guide. Maybe reading, period, much less reading poetry, is hard as we approac...
How do I know good art? There is a “wow” factor, right? With really great art it might be an out loud gasp. My first reaction may be “I like that.” Or “that’s beautiful.” Or “listening to that gives me joy.” Or, “that makes me happy.” What creates the attraction, gets my attention? Good art is beauty. And good art brings joy. And there’s one more piece: Good art is true, truth. Even if a painting is a composite place, a combination of locations on the Palouse, as a Cynthia Richardson’s painting is. Art must be true, even if it is not real, a...
Wasn’t Art’s Alive! great? We are fortunate, and I am grateful, that Karen Gosetti, Rebecca Strong, Amy Carson, John Leaver and other committee members live in our midst and dedicate their efforts to realize their vision of art alive in our community. That is arts, plural. At Friday’s reception folks were entertained with music and delighted with culinary treats. And the visual arts extended from paper cutouts though ceramics, glass, photography and various painting media. Art in the community, of course, is good for business. People went...
What a wondrous gift – certainly in Ohio, but even more so in a late October western Washington sky – to see a spangling of stars. And whatever their cause, meteorologically and scientifically speaking, what a blessing to see their patterns and these multitudes. The night sky makes my head swim. So much to consider: Odd words like spangle: It is good to use spangle in more contexts. And while multitudes bring to mind the Birth story and Jesus in the manager, my mind first traces the dots outlining Greek gods and warriors and the...
The paper in your hands is new, literally. Skagit Publishing in Mount Vernon is now printing the Weekly News. A local newspaper, we are now printing in Skagit County. The new printer brings improvements: the page is slightly narrower and easier to handle, and whiter newsprint makes photos and graphics more appealing. The paper is now the same size as The New York Times. The bridge in our flag, symbol that it is of this community, stands out in its brighter orange. Front and center is the tagline “Your independent hometown award winning n...
Last week I finally got my Washington driver’s license and license plates. Then I went to the Mount Vernon library to work. Here is a slice of my life: The clerk at the Department of Licensing asked if I wanted to register to vote. Bless her. Yes, I did, and did. No forms or anything. It was part of the state, automatic. Sometimes citizenship needs to be that easy. The Department of Licensing is an agency of state government. Great. In Ohio, licensing bureaus are contract companies the state hires. The owners get a piece of every t...
This year’s elections are underway. Registered voters have till 8 p.m., November 7 to vote. New Washingtonians can register through October 30. While voting is at the heart of the democratic process, heavy lifting precedes it. Our local ballot is surprisingly long. My policy is to only vote for candidates who have earned my vote. My obligation is to find out where each candidate stands. If I don’t know the pertinent positions and the office’s demands, I am a sloppy citizen if I cast a vote anyway. Yet I am irresponsible if I don’t vote. O...
Town council members, planning commissioners and a few citizens spent last Thursday and Friday touring La Conner with a panel of scientists, engineers and professors. Survival, not tourism, was the focus. This design charrette was in support of next year’s updating of the Town’s comprehensive plan. Town administrator John Doyle brought together staffs from the University of Washington’s Climate Impact Group, United States Geological Survey and the Skagit Climate Science Consortium to focus on infrastructure needed to protect the town from the c...
It might be raining when you read this or maybe about to rain again. Rain is forecast through the week. Is this the beginning of the region’s rainy season? Don Coyote’s photo for last week’s paper so perfectly captured the reality of the first three weeks of fall weather in the western Skagit Valley: a gentle rippling, temperatures having cooled, certainly and definitely, even defiantly, now dipping below 40 degrees, now raising their head above 60 degrees. Fall had tiptoed in, without bringing blasts of rain or boisterous wind. Summe...
We cannot say it is none of us. Or that this is not local. The Las Vegas shooting has touched La Conner lives. The massacre is the story, the event everyone is discussing – or at least was last week. This is this month’s shooting. It is true that violence is American as cherry pie. It is true that America is unique. Our individual and collective acquiescence to violence in our society provides the permission for shootings to continue. We allow the epidemic of killing to go on. By not stopping this sickness we are responsible for it. T...
One. “The largest massacre in modern American history.” Two. The definition of a massacre is premeditated killing of large numbers “of usually helpless or unresisting human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty.” Three. I hardly ever check Facebook. When I did last week, Audrey, a “friend,” a Native American from Minnesota, had posted the fact and history of Wounded Knee, the December 1890 massacre of some 300 Lakotas by the U.S. Army’s Seventh Calvary. Four. As a journalist, words are my currency. Word choice, and what gets emp...
October is international co-op month. Co-ops in countries across the world, in big cities and rural counties, are celebrating their successes in serving their members. They are championing their example of getting along: mutual cooperation. They are offering an alternative model of business ownership: equal equity. And they are proving that a different ownership structure – democratic governance – works. In Japan, 91 percent of farmers belong to co-ops; 95 percent of New Zealand’s milk is from co-op dairies. Over 36 percent of D...
When I returned to Cincinnati from La Conner in March, having decided to buy the Weekly News, the first thing I did was call the commercial loan department of my credit union. With a loan, the paper would buy the paper, about two thirds of it, over time. My introduction “I have been a member of this credit union for over 20 years. I am buying a weekly newspaper in Washington state. Will the credit union consider my loan application?” Scott’s reply: “Yours would be our first loan in Washington. We primarily make loans on property purchases. But,...
