The holiday shopping season is on all of our minds this time of year. I don’t have a particularly vast shopping list this year, as it seems right to give priority to the necessities over the luxuries in life. So my thoughts have turned more to where I don’t shop, rather than where I do [...]
Some random comments on this new holiday that is quickly becoming more prominent than Christmas itself: So, we have learned that the day after Thanksgiving in the US is a new holiday known as “Black Friday.” This is not to be confused with Black Tuesday, the day that the New York Stock Exchange crashed in [...]
There are many ways to describe what Cascadia is. It has been described differently by a multitude of people, both as a region and as a way of life. I see it as both — both as a geographic region and as a way of life. I will take the rest of this page to [...]
Anyone who has grown up in the Seattle area, especially if they are over the age of 40, is familiar with the exploits of Ivar Haglund. Ivar is the well known founder of Ivar’s Restaurants in Seattle and throughout Cascadia. He was also well known as a character and practical joker who formed a part [...]
It has been surprising to me how quickly the new term “Salish Sea” has come into usage to describe the inland waterways that comprise the areas we still call Puget Sound, the Georgia Strait, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Even the name of this blog suggests that the environment of our region of [...]
I have been asked by more than the average number of people lately whether I believe that the world is coming to an end. Yes, it will. Depending upon your belief system, it will happen when the Creator says so, or when the Son of God returns to Earth, or when some catastrophic event from [...]
Well, it’s likely not the bubonic plague or anything like that. It might feel like it, of course, but it isn’t. Really, I think I have the common cold. In my 47 years of experience as a human, the symptoms I have seem to match up with that scenario. But I have one other concern. [...]
We are still wondering about the motivation of how an army Major, a physician no less, could open fire and kill or injure 43 people at the US Army base where he worked in Texas. This was the largest peacetime crime ever on a domestic military base, and by any measure, a truly great tragedy [...]
Sometimes you read a story and you just have to wonder how things got this far. An article in today’s Oregonian tells us the story of a 19-year-old Vancouver WA girl named Blanca Catt. Despite having a hard start in life, she had become a success story of a bad situation turning out well. But [...]
Vote-by-mail ballots are on their way out for the upcoming election in Washington. It’s time to look at some of the issues to be decided. Again, we are looking mostly at issues that have clear choices. In the latest legislative session, the Washington Legislature decided correctly to expand the rights of domestic partners in the [...]
