By Tom on 6/28/2009 6:41 AM

To the Beachcomber:  Vashon is now well on its way to readiness for a natural disaster thanks to the long-time work of Be Prepared and now the publication of its well-done brochure. And what about economic disaster? Ask which is the more likely to occur within say the next two years, the Big One or collapse of the US economy? Think about that. The earthquake operates on probability, but the US economy is a serial cliff-hanger. How do you like the latest episode in which the Government propped up the General Motors corporate logo and kicked the auto workers into the gutter? Right, and has Vashon taken a single step toward self-sufficiency? Right. We could have retrofit K2 for making self-sustaining products but we blew it. But we love our commute. With many well–deserved cheers for our hard working Transportation Committee, what we really need is a Transition Committee.

Read More »

By Tom on 6/27/2009 5:46 AM

(This is the Agenda for a committee meeting. June 25, 2009. Reprinted here for those who didn't make the meeting.) Translation: Sensible, humane, health care will be dead on arrival at President Obama’s desk. The death sentence is coded into the phrase “Public Option” which doesn’t take the brains of an eleven-year old to decipher. It means a “free lunch” which is impossible. Without imposing a new tax it will not be possible for the Government to pay the cost of care for everybody including those already sick while at the same time continuing existing subsidies to the HMOs. That’s the free lunch analysis of what’s going on now in Congress. There’s another analysis that ignores the Public Option scam in preference to wiring shut the gaping maw of the health insurance industry. It’s having a “free lunch” on us and we are fed up. The agenda for tonight, June 25, addresses the single payer movement now underway on Vashon under the auspices of others with more sense than this ad hoc chairperson. Whereas national...

Read More »

By Wooden Bowl on 6/10/2009 6:45 AM

No one has been posting info on the monthly meetings, but we’ve generally been holding them as scheduled at Joy Goldstein’s house at 10329 S.W. Bank Road, a half mile west of Vashon center. We’ll continue to take advantage of her hospitality for the next meeting: July 14th, at 7 PM.

By Tom on 6/2/2009 1:34 PM

This past Monday evening the Council Board discussed my motion for a new committee to be called the Transition Committee. The title came from the book Transition Handbook, and the text also except that I replaced Rob Hopkins' words with my own and threw in some local names, like Vashon, and like "commute". The reaction was two-fold, bury it in an existing committee, or forget the idea. There's merit in each.  As to creating another committee there's no way a committee could accomplish much and the reason for that is given in Hopkins' book: progress comes from the root up, never from the council.  As to burying it in an existing committee of similar charter, the board might have gone along with that but I think that Hopkins' point applies there as well. So, then, why did I try? As you might guess it was a way of finding out how the Board felt about the coming perfect economic storm. Gathering together the comments, I'd say most of the board are just as worried as I am, but have their hands full doing what needs...

Read More »