By Marc J. Elzenbeck The Pacific scales in at about 70 million square miles. Thousands of islands, far fewer than you’d expect, scatter across its vast third of the Earth. Ours is nestled deep into the ocean’s easternmost pocket, bobbing on maps like a jagged splinter of cork near the bottom of a curvy wine…
Short of being plugged directly into Hanford’s nuclear power reservation, Vashon and Maury Islands are the ideal run-about ranges for electric vehicles. Although the Island has enough elevation changes to be notorious to visiting bicyclists during the annual “Passport to Pain,” we sit at a confluence of undersea cables sending us clean, stable, and practically…
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….
Empty pastures are like the vacuums which nature abhors. If you happen to have one, fenced and reasonably capable of growing grass, things will appear to fill it. Soon enough, someone is bound to notice, and ask, “Would you like a slightly used goat? How about two?” If you respond, “Yes, but only if you…
“It was a pleasure to burn.” As many remember, that is the opening line to “Fahrenheit 451.” Published in 1953, it still occupies the #7 spot on the New York Public Library’s list of their most-borrowed books of all time. Its author, a pulp magazine story writer from the Midwest, tapped most of it out on…
In the summer of 1947, Harold Dahl, a tugboat captain from Tacoma, described the hollow-centered crafts he saw as flying donuts. Edward R. Murrow, the nation’s foremost journalist, flew out to interview eyewitnesses, and he reported what they saw as “flying saucers.” The phrase was soon adopted as common parlance. But doesn’t “flying donuts” sound…
On November 15, the Vashon school board voted unanimously to rescind the bond request for $19.5 million slated for 2023. Their decision was somewhat surprising, but in the finest and most refreshing sense, they elected to confront hard realities boiling down to a stew of bad timing. We should take this decision as a solid…
By Marc J. Elzenbeck Sadly, no one has ever offered me a free LED TV. If they did, probably the first thing I would ask is, “How big is it?” If they said, “32 by 18 inches,” I might accept it to be polite, then maybe set it up on the barn to play calming…
By Marc J. Elzenbeck It’s that time in the decade when a school district’s thoughts naturally turn to bonds, and next February, the Island will be asked to approve a $19.5 million capital raise. The math works out to a 20¢ increase per $1000 of King County-assessed property values. Those property values went up a…
By Marc J. Elzenbeck Whether by trying to conduct business at the speed of thought or due to plain old self-sabotage, institutions and traditions are stressed out and stretched thin. Such could also be said for the Postal Service ever since Ben Franklin took it over from King George in 1775. If only Ben had…