When people talk about “trusting the experts,” what they’re really talking about is delegating decision-making to someone else. Sometimes this makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t, but in all cases … it’s an illusion. Our decisions are always our own, including a decision to follow another person’s lead. Life is challenging. Anyone telling you it isn’t…
Editorial Page
Code of Ethics in Action
Reflections on the SPJ Code of Ethics As a receiver of information, a reader of newspapers, a browser of magazines, a participant in social media platforms, a subscriber on YouTube, Rumble, Substack (and other platforms), a listener of radio shows and an all-around consumer of media … what does honesty look like to you? Isn’t…
Entertainment
Sometimes You Hear the Light
By March Twisdale Welcome to our new series, focused on Island Businesses that lie well outside of Vashon Town. For the Island newbie and the occasional visitor, this network of resources, services, professionals, experts, and knowledge is almost entirely hidden from view, and discovery is not easy. Many do not advertise. Some do not even…
Literary
Hard History = Powerful Stories
By March Twisdale Written roughly 100 years ago, Upton Sinclair’s novel, “The Jungle,” captures the breadth of human behavior, both then and now. There is an interesting fact about fictional stories. No matter how far the author’s imagination strays from what is considered real or mundane, the fundamental basis of their work, the world, the…
Entertainment
Welcoming The Beautiful Dark – Crossword Puzzle
Note: #8 Across and #4 Down are multiple words. The space between the words is one character long. SPOILERS!!!! Answers follow. Are you really ready to look? Okay. Here they are. Across: 1. Candles 3. Cashmere 8. The Vashon Loop 9. Jupiter 12. Ofrenda 15. Copal 16. Soup Down: 2. Luminarias 4. Muck boots 5….
Commentary, Editorial Page, Island Voices
What We Hold in Our Hands
Money. Hold-in-your-hand coins. Pull-out-of-your-wallet cash. Circles of metal that last decades, centuries and millennia … matter. Not only are coins “literally” matter, but they offer an experience, a record of human society, an imprint on our lives and tactile memories that no electricity-dependent, Virtual Reality method of accounting or digital currency can offer. A child,…
Editorial Page
Covid – What’s On Your Mind?
COVID-19 is one of the biggest challenges we face today. As such, it deserves our utmost attention. But talking about anything related to COVID-19 has become progressively harder. What’s an independent newspaper to do? At The Vashon Loop, our decision is to turn to you for guidance before we start including this coverage. Readers, neighbors,…
Editorial Page
When We Embrace Death
Who among us can say, “I embrace death?” There are only two experiences all humans share in common. Birth and death. Since our earliest beginnings, humans have managed to deal with, avoid, celebrate, flee, focus upon, ignore, formulate theories, and flagrantly seek to deny these two inevitable events with exquisite creativity. Proving one thing: Birth…
Island Resilience
Home Maintenance, Series #1 – What Goes in Must Come Out…
Many people who move to Vashon Island are unfamiliar with rural living and landowner responsibilities. Whether you’re from a small town, big city, or suburb, who provides your drinking water and manages your sewage matters only when the tap won’t work or the toilet floweth over! Here on the island, it’s a bit different. On…
Announcements
WA Trails Association Comes to Vashon
Trails are incredible for a reason! Humans clear them, protect them, design them, and otherwise bring them into being, and all of this is usually done by volunteer teams working together. Want to spend a day on the trail, in the company of awesome folk, under the gracefully swaying branches of colossal trees as fall…