By Anne Cotter Moses
Commentary, Editorial Page, January 2024
Making a Living Without a Degree
By Andy Valencia My last article provided a strongly negative take on college. It wasn’t fair or balanced, because pretty much everything else you’ll read concerning college will tell you that, unless you buy a college degree, you’ll die disfigured and alone in a gutter somewhere. Before you reach your mid-twenties, most likely. Read anything…
Commentary, Editorial Page, November 2023
Does College Still Make Sense?
By Andy Valencia It’s hardly worth printing as news: college is horrendously expensive. Over the span of my life, its price has doubled several times. When making financial decisions, there’s the useful concept of cost versus benefit. You spend a certain amount of, say, money. And in return you receive something of a certain value….
Commentary, Island Voices, October 2023
Please Don’t Search?
By Andy Valencia Over the years of my life, the US has been shedding ability at a pretty decent pace. We sent manufacturing overseas, and now we have almost nobody who knows how to design for manufacturing, how to set up injection molding, how to use a mill and lathe to fabricate custom parts. We’ve…
Commentary, Island Voices, September 2023
Housing Solutions For Everyone – Not Only the Wealthy
By David Earle Vashon, along with many other established communities in western Washington, has a serious housing problem. Land hoarding is a thing. For instance, the Reed family of Tacoma owns 770,000 acres of land in Washington State. There are many landowners in the United States who own more than 1,000,000 acres. Our property tax code encourages…
Commentary, Island Businesses, Island Resilience, September 2023
How to Avoid Being Nickel and Dimed
By March Twisdale While researching my first article about choosing cash over debit and credit cards, the Vashon Island business community showed considerable interest. I followed this up with online research, but the bulk of the data influencing my articles comes from local business owners. We, as consumers, have a brilliant opportunity to listen to…
August 2023, Commentary, Editorial Page
How To Run a Stop Sign
Blowing through stop signs or, should any present themselves, red lights, yields tangible benefits. It increases fuel economy, saves a few seconds, fights global warming, and generally makes humdrum lives a little edgier. Downsides include making everyone else’s lives a little edgier and slightly shorter in an actuarial sense, plus the fact that there are…
August 2023, Commentary
What Is Money?
By Stephen Buller In my previous article, we discussed how you can give more of your hard-earned money to your neighbors when shopping at local businesses by avoiding credit card fees. We also touched on the reasons the banks want you to use credit cards – spoiler: they profit. Now, let’s look at some other…
Commentary
A Dream of Islands
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…