Awhile back, I began to question my credit/debit card habit. It felt like a convenience – with a hidden cost – and I wasn’t the only one to notice. “Keep Cash Alive” and “Cash is King” have entered the public sphere, along with several reasons for returning to good old-fashioned paper money. For me, two…
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…
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…
Centuries ago, when the colonists decided to throw off the yoke of British control, they were faced with a monumental task. Create, seemingly from scratch, a new government system that might serve the interests of the people better than most or all previous attempts. Of course, the founding families and their supporters didn’t pull ideas…
Given the age demographics of Vashon-Maury Island, a considerable number of us grew up during a time when “trust in polls” was high. For decades, “exit polls” were especially accurate, with a nearly 100% accuracy rate when compared to actual election results. Then, things changed. It’s universally acknowledged that polling results failed miserably during the…
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In January and February 2023, rumors began to circulate. A proposal was afoot! The goal? Rehiring Washington state employees lost due to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. On the Jason Rantz Show (Conservative Talk Radio 770 KTTH), King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn stressed the need to “rehire” King County employees lost to vaccination mandates. He’s standing on…
Photo by Julian Dahl. Used with permission. Several of us were out on the land, picking out microplastics from the compost-laden field (see “Plastics in the Soil” on page x). Our friends had put out a call the day before that they needed help, and here we were, on a beautiful almost-spring morning, plastic bags…
The United States of America was founded on a set of agreements and goals that were unique in their time, and remain unique today. As of Monday, February 27th, only 336,142,103 humans enjoy the protections of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which specifies our individual rights in relationship to our government. Such…