By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Our assignment this month from The Loop editors was to write a “spooky” Halloween story. Now normally we do not take story “assignments,” but this seemed a quite reasonable request since we were running low on story ideas, and a little additional “direction” came just in time to forestall…
By March Twisdale Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed the perfect proof that social media can churn up a hurricane of inaccurate memes, cherry-picked quotes, and other sloppily shared content that utterly misconstrues the true breadth and width of a person’s very public and very well documented life. As the world responded to…
By Suzanna Leigh Sailing season is winding down; I don’t sail much in winter any more. Now I’m off to a new adventure: making watercolor paint from plants. Color from plants gives me a very different palette than I am used to working with. Will I even like it? Have you ever tried to dye…
… or, “Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” By Michael Shook That, of course, is an iconic line from Stanley Kubrick’s classic science fiction film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Hal – the HAL9000 computer responsible for keeping the spacecraft operational – is malfunctioning badly. Rather than allow itself to be partially shut down, and having…
By Pam “Gates” Johnson It’s not spring, so why has the spring cleaning bug landed on my shoulder and begun to scream in my ear? It is telling me … PURGE! CLEAN! DOWNSIZE! I ignored the screams until they started to drown out everything and take over most of my waking thoughts. Okay. I get it….
By Dave B. Here it comes, the ferry discussion. I think we have heard it all, but here goes: Our wonderful ferries and the folks who ride them. Now THIS is a subject all Islanders have an opinion on. How do YOU feel about riding our WSF system? I can tell you if I had…
By Julia Carlson On a small Island like Vashon, it’s easy to believe we’re insulated from the turbulence of the outside world. But lately, even here, you can feel the weight pressing down on America. Conversations at the grocery store, whispers on the ferry, posts in local groups, it’s clear that the past few weeks…
By Kavi Rana It feels impossible to create or run a business or just survive when the world is crumbling around us. I know everyone is going through it right now. Our paths and future are as uncertain as ever. I am grasping on to hope for humanity and for our planet as we navigate…
… Or, resistance is futile. By Michael Shook When cell phones first arrived, I thought they were swell. Here was a handy thing to have, especially since I worked in construction. I could call our driver and tell him to pick up some more 2×6’s, or to swing by the shop for the table saw,…
By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman The origin of this story was probably about six years ago, when Seán and I were reviving a couple of old Motorola hand-held radios from his firefighting days. “Looks like we need batteries!” And Seán said, “Look in the freezer because I have several boxes of double A’s.”…