We do our best, but every once in a while we have something slip through the net, and we’re sorry to say this happened for our December issue. You’ll be hearing from Vashon Bikes in our next issue, but in the meantime please be sure to drop by and thank them for being an island…
Our society champions the “freedom to love who you wish” with great consistency. The movie “Loving” portrays the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with a historic Supreme Court decision in 1967. The documentary film, “The Case Against…
Local experts, inspired by Yellowstone National Park, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks, have formulated an innovative plan to simultaneously curb Vashon Island’s growing coyote and deer populations. “These intelligent and adaptable animals now manage to occupy almost every conceivable habitat type, from…
I invite you back to mid-March 2020, when the COVID-19 lockdown started. It was seasonable on Vashon. But because it was not yet really spring, it was still easy to feel cold, especially at night. Most notable at that time was a sense of worry and waitfulness. An uncertainty regarding what would come next, combined…
“Despite living on Vashon Island for close to 20 years, I find our levy system confusing,” I said. “I understand,” laughed Elaine Ott-Rocheford, Vashon Park District Executive Director. “Our property tax system is one of the most complicated in the country.” After a two-hour meeting, and some seriously mind-bending exercises, I began to understand how…
Brette is a smart, bold, funny islander who always speaks her mind. Brette recently began working at Vashon Thriftway and utilizes a job coach accommodation through AtWork! – a supported-employment nonprofit organization that works throughout Washington state to match people with intellectual and developmental disabilities with good jobs in their communities. Brette and I shared…
In last month’s “Farming Is Easy,” we introduced our foster cow Minnie, the purebred yearling Holstein whose name was upgraded on delivery to Leslie Lou Minnie Moo. Standing barely shy of six feet at the shoulder, my personal code name for her, “Cowzilla,” was rejected by one and all as too negative, human-centric, and bovine-shaming….
The world of money has gone wild in recent years. The Loop planned a sequence of articles on the subject, starting with the basics – what is money? How is it created? However, we’ve decided to jump forward to a discussion of a new, particularly dangerous proposal that would impact how we keep and spend…
The path leading to my first gun purchase has been long. It began in the summer of 1992. I was a young, healthy, and carefree college student, riding my bike along the American River Bike Trail in Sacramento, CA every day, to and from college, work, and just for the fun of it. Until the…
Tuition loans have more than doubled in the last two decades, causing a myriad of problems for our country’s economy. And worst of all, a majority of this burden is held by people 20 to 30 years of age, a time in one’s life that should not be spent at the mercy of unpayable debts….
This month my “big” column is about money. But I don’t want to leave the world of tech commentary entirely behind, and I have found a surprising way to save money on technology. There are roughly four major cellular companies – that is, companies who put up cell towers and run the radios which talk…