Basic Health is going on the chopping block in a special session of the state legislature convening Nov. 28. Yes, Basic Health has been threatened the last two years, yet this year the situation has become dire. The governor has ordered that there be $2 billion in budget cuts statewide — and that they need to be drastic, like cutting out entire programs (not just nibbling around the edges as in recent years) in order to take care of the growing financial crisis.
Kyle Loring says the Shoreline Master Program update is our opportunity to preserve vital shoreline resources for fish, wildlife, and people
Bill Evans, superintendent of Lopez Island School District, looks at the state of the school
John and Patsy Sangster ask where is the democracy in paving Watmough Road
Safety issues for dogs riding in the back of pick-ups
The letter discusses the controversy of chip-sealing Watmough Head Road
The Port of Lopez and their plan to reform the county solid waste system.
Lopezians discuss why the road on Lopez should be paved
Lopezians discuss why they are opposed to paving a road on the island
As our island population ages and circumstances change it is very important to a substantial portion of our community that we have an active real estate market.
WASHINGTON -- I come from a family where the “joke,” if you came home with a 97 on a math test, was to ask what happened to the other three points. The punch line, if you scored 100, was to ask whether there was any extra credit.
To think that Randy Gaylord would accept,(much less be given), a $19,000/year raise is not only obscene, it is totally inappropriate, given the stark realities we are facing these days of budget cuts, lack of money, ferry woes, transfer station problems, increased fees all across the board.
WASHINGTON -- “High Capacity Magazines ... When ten rounds isn’t enough,” the…
The San Juan County Solid Waste program is in trouble. For starters we suggest the following:
WASHINGTON -- The vice president calls, more than an hour after the appointed time but with an impeccable excuse: He was presiding over the Senate’s vote to ratify the New START treaty.
WASHINGTON -- I’m hoping for the moment when a federal judge picked by a Democratic president strikes down the health care law. Or when a Republican-appointed judge upholds it.
WASHINGTON -- The speaker got weepy.
A few of our County Council members are determined to help out the enormous US wireless industry by drafting a new ordinance that makes it easier to locate cell towers in tiny SJC. Bad idea, County Council! Improving cell phone service is essentially a form of manslaughter.
WASHINGTON -- Maybe I’m getting carried away because it is the season to believe in miracles, but the tax-cut deal just might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
WASHINGTON -- My family, as it happens, is taking the bus to Grandma’s this Thanksgiving. But our choice of transportation has nothing to do with anxiety about leering security screeners or fear of pat-downs.
WASHINGTON -- It was, or so I thought, a dandy column idea: an imaginary, missing chapter of George W. Bush’s “Decision Points,” in which the former president would admit to having made the wrong call on taxes.
WASHINGTON -- The day after his shellacking, the bruised president offered a sober, tripartite analysis of voters’ message. First, he said, voters are fed up with Washington partisanship and special-interest politics. Second, they feel insecure and uncertain, about their economic circumstances above all.
The President of the United States:
WASHINGTON -- Excuse me, Mary Fallin, did I just hear you say, “Woman up”?
WASHINGTON -- In this, the year of the Mama Grizzly, let’s stop stirring the moose chili for a moment to ponder three words -- “man up” and “whore” -- and what they have to tell us about the muddled state of gender politics.
WASHINGTON -- I’m not a witch.
WASHINGTON -- The Wal-Mart Moms were pessimistic, bordering on despondent, about the state of the country. Like, well, moms dealing with bickering children, they were exasperated by Washington lawmakers seemingly incapable of learning to get along.
WASHINGTON -- It was a jarring moment from an ordinarily smooth pol. Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi, chairman of the Republican Governors Association and 2012 presidential prospect -- which helped explain the big turnout at a breakfast Wednesday sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor -- was asked why so many people seem to believe that President Obama is Muslim.
The cast of characters here at Energy Matters suffer from a clear obsession for saving energy.
WASHINGTON -- I left the Glenn Beck rally worried that I didn’t have much of a story.
WASHINGTON -- There are times when I flirt with the notion that the country would be better off with divided government.
WASHINGTON — Congress has acted, after a cruel delay, to renew the extension of unemployment benefits. Those who are unemployed through no fault of their own will be eligible to collect benefits for as long as 99 weeks. This is an awfully long time, and it raises the question: Is Congress subsidizing slackers? To put it in a slightly less provocative way, do the beefed-up benefits encourage people not to work?
WASHINGTON -- Elena Kagan, no surprise, did not live up to the Kagan standard of openness in answering questions during her confirmation hearing. Mitch McConnell did not live up to the McConnell standard of deference in voting against her.
WASHINGTON -- Stop procrastinating. That is always good advice, and always hard to heed. But in some situations procrastination is more damaging than others. One of those involves getting the country’s fiscal health in order. The latest advice to stop procrastinating -- or, perhaps more important, the latest explanation of why procrastinating will only make matters worse and the fix that much more painful -- comes courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office, and its new report on the long-term budget outlook (http://tinyurl.com/25a7chn).
WASHINGTON -- If I were President Obama, I’d be seriously rethinking James Clapper’s nomination to be director of national intelligence. At the very least, I’d call him in -- along with the umpty-ump other intelligence chieftains -- and order up another look at the serious problems with the sprawling intelligence bureaucracy exposed by The Washington Post.
WASHINGTON -- I owe Sarah Palin an apology.
WASHINGTON -- As a matter of policy, President Obama’s nomination of Donald Berwick to oversee Medicare and Medicaid was inspired: Berwick, co-founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is the country’s leading evangelist for the proposition that it is possible to deliver higher quality medical care at a lower cost. He’s not only preached that gospel; he’s shown that it can be translated into reality.
WASHINGTON -- And sometimes, life imitates farce.
WASHINGTON -- What is this, middle school? I was all set to sit down and write about women in politics, and applaud Tuesday’s results, when off pops the new Republican nominee for senator from California, Carly Fiorina, with a comment that takes you back to the cattiness of the school cafeteria.
To my dear friends and patients of my Lopez and San Juan Island communities (Orcas and Shaw please don’t feel left out, it’s just I don’t know as many of you.)
