Patricia Buchanan’s green burial was a first at the Vashon Cemetery, but not the first on our island. Long before European colonists arrived, the native people living in the Puget Sound received what we today would call a green burial. Begging the question, what exactly is a green burial? Within the realm of traditional burials,…
Editorial Page, Terms of Concern
Terms of Concern
Totalitarianism is a form of government / political system that prohibits opposition, outlaws individual and group challenges to state-sponsored claims, suppresses free speech, freedom of movement, and freedom of philosophical beliefs / religion, exerting excessive control and regulation over public and private life. How do we recognize a totalitarian state in the making? Answers to…
Island Businesses
Farm Animals Need Food, Too – Part One
Eighteen years ago, my family moved to the island. Our beloved family dog, Tiny, spent one night on our amazingly dark and quiet property. The next day, I walked to town, carrying my sweet, seven-pound companion in a soft, cushioned bag, met the staff of Fair Isle Vet, and called my dad on the phone,…
Recipes
The Best 3-Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever!
About a decade ago, I was blessed with the friendship of a wonderful Island family. Among the many amazing ways we enriched one another’s lives, we enjoyed cooking together. Today, I share one of the best chocolate cookie recipes I’ve ever encountered, and yes, it has only three ingredients. Imagine a gooey yet crunchy, sweet…
Island Businesses
Vashon Cemetery’s First Green Burial
On January 21, 2023, Patricia Buchanan was laid to rest in the manner of her choosing, in the new Green Burial section of the Vashon Cemetery. After a lifetime of achievements, both as a community organizer and a world-class triathlete, her son Donnie Sakaida said, “Mom was ultra-competitive, so being the first one there, and…
Editorial Page
Challenges LOVE Creative Solutions
In the summer of 2022, three members of our Editorial Team gathered in a garden to discuss our Island’s media landscape. No one newspaper can do it all, we concluded, and voila! The Vashon Loop was rebirthed, under new ownership! At the same time, the cost of paper and fuel skyrocketed. Two months later, we…
Editorial Page
How Does a Mistake Become a Lie?
Many of us have heard the story of a regretful young George Washington who, upon being accused of harming his father’s cherry tree, said something along the lines of, “I cannot tell a lie … I did cut it with my hatchet.” This story perfectly illustrates the well-understood and universally accepted axiom that honesty is…
Island Voices
Falling Through the Cracks – Part 2
In Part One, I shared how our family found itself deserted by the Social Security Administration, for over ten months and counting… Thankfully, I speak Spanish. Thankfully, the Mexican Consulate helped us piece together this bureaucratic puzzle. Thankfully, I have a cell phone service that allows me to call Mexico. Thankfully, after a woman put…
Literary
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm and Other Lost Treasures!
I grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Long before high tech games and distractions became ubiquitous and childhood changed in so many ways. Gone are the days when children burst forth into their neighborhoods, playing Red Light, Green Light in the streets, dodging slow-moving cars headed home as the work day came…
Editorial Page
Code of Ethics – Power of the Pen
Since the advent of the printing press, around 1436, by German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (and much earlier, in China and Korea), the written word has had a staggering effect on our world. Venice – a primary, Mediterranean shipping hub in the late 15th century – was fertile ground for a fledgling global news network, as…