The swirl about K2 has a close relative in the desperate attempt to find a use for an expensive gadget you cannot for the life of you find a use for. A second cousin is finding a use for the unused portion of a batch of mixed epoxy: K2 is here, it is big, ergo the question is how to use it. But a far more important question goes unasked and that is how to use our Island. Pull your heads out of the swirl of words about K2 and look at what is happening willy nilly to America and will soon be happening to Vashon. Bled white and with the Damocles sword of abrupt climate change over our heads we join the third world. Predictions of when it will happen differ wildly but all trend sooner, not later. And while you are calculating, do not forget war. When, then? My mailbox finds a consensus of next summer. There’s the context, and the above noted far more important question is how we use Vashon. Let’s simplify the challenges by two slight exaggerations: when the change has fully developed ferry fares will prohibit commuting...

  (From Greener Times) The den of thieves back East are looting the country and we are supposed to celebrate Thanksgiving? Troops home by Christmas would be something to celebrate; too bad that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen says there are so many men and so much materiel in Iraq that a pullout would take years. And eviction of the Bush administration, so hoped for, is yet no cause to celebrate because Bush has planted stink bombs in every crevice of the crumbling bureaucracy of government. Thanks to Bush climate change has passed the threshold of instability with as yet no corrective measures taken, even some measures taken to speed up change. Coal burning could stop today yet not prevent the abrupt culmination of positive feedback that will occur within ten years. Ask James Hanson. Thanks to Bush morbid programs like No Child Left Behind, the Patriot act and Homeland Security are in place with no uninstall software available. And those are merely the tip of the smelly iceberg. In fact, Bush has instituted...

That's stretched a little from Bill Mc Kibben's current article in Mother Jones, this paragraph for instance:

"The final piece of the puzzle came early this year, and again from James Hansen. Twenty years after his crucial testimony, he published a paper with several coauthors called "Target Atmospheric CO2." It put, finally, a number on the table—indeed it did so in the boldest of terms. 'If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,' it said, 'paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.'   Stunned, I tried to get  my duck response team lined up so I could consult with the leader. The first clear response turned out to be a resolve to let my two granddaughters know what is going to happen to the next generation. Next, it became clear that duck number two wanted Vashon to sign on en masse to Fourth Corner Exchange, a trading scheme using...

During the Camp Casey period, Bush failing to  notice the grieving mother camped nearby, he had plenty of time to speak at an American Legion event, right there in Texas. A photographer caught this picture of the bon homie between the veteran and the draft dodger. When it appeared in the  news it was too much for me so I added Cindy. The combination says what i can't put into words about the callous hypocrisy of George Bush. The picture doesn't compliment the Legionaire for which I can't say I'm sorry.

To The Beachcomber Nov 3, 2008   New classrooms at this juncture are questionable in the extreme due to the financial meltdown underway and to the fact that such construction would belie Vashon’s growing spiritual need, a need due to imminent national mass hysteria over a corrupted government. School facilities should provide a” framework” that begs to be built upon. Yet school boards tend to put students “on Astroturf”, if you permit, so as to reduce cost. With “Astroturf” include electronics and other technological features that are seen as improving the effectiveness of teaching. Do the new classrooms improve education in proportion? The answer depends on the extent to which students are the “builders”. I believe it axiomatic that one learns by doing. Okay, then, here’s this broken down old school, and here’s this unruly crowd of muscle and charm, let one and one make three: hold a referendum on what they think will improve their education, and then next spring let it happen. Example? Astroturf aint green....