Here’s a thought…
Letter to Editor | Regarding OPALCO rate hike
||| FROM ALLAN ROSATO and DARCEY MILLER ||| We are writing out of concern regarding OPALCO’s recently-announced plan to raise the fixed monthly service access charge for residential members. While this may appear to simplify
Letter to Editor | Odd Fellows hall Thanksgiving dinner gratitude
||| FROM ORCAS ISLAND ODD FELLOWS ||| The Community Thanksgiving dinner at the Odd Fellows Hall was a great success! The Hall was filled with community members and guests to the island. We would like
Midnight Mutterings | Thinking about Japan
||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES ||| Almost a half century ago, when I was living in Seattle with my family, the house next door was bought by a Japanese couple who were working at
Friends of Rural Public Transportation comments on SJCs’ Comprehensive Plan transportation element
||| FROM COLIN WILLIAMS ||| Dear Planning Commission Members, I'm Colin Williams from the Deer Harbor hamlet on Orcas Island. I have spent perhaps 20 'adult years' and part of adolescence in the Orcas Island
As the Paradigm Shifts | Yes, no, and the space in between
The big fat be-with of the whole bewildering, holy mess ||| AS THE PARADIGM SHIFTS by ROSIE KUHN ||| I used to paint — I loved to paint. Then I stopped. Even though I really
No Place Like Loam | Winter Garden: What my grandfather’s war garden still teaches me
||| NO PLACE LIKE LOAM by ALEX TAMAYA-WOLF ||| Before dawn the wind comes down off Turtleback like it’s got something personal against me. I step out anyway, half-awake, basketless, breath fogging into the dark.
Guest Opinion | The future of democracy in the United States
An historical perspective ||| FROM DAVID KOBRIN ||| In a representative democracy, it is the people themselves who determine who their leaders will be. This is done through majority rule in open and fair elections.
Midnight Mutterings | The right to be fat
||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES ||| I have been reading a bit about Kate Manne, an Australian-born, Cornell philosophy professor, who, among her published books, writes about ‘fat phobia.’ and the prejudice against people
A Community Conversation on Island Transportation
Colin Williams The following letter, originally sent to Island Rides and local transportation officials, raises questions about Orcas Island's transportation future that deserve community-wide discussion. Rather than keeping this conversation limited to government agencies and
As the Paradigm Shifts | Letting go and letting the universe be the alchemist
||| AS THE PARADIGM SHIFTS by ROSIE. KUHN ||| I seem to be passing through something—like being threaded through the eye of a needle. YEOWEE!!! Sometimes the passage feels like grace itself. Other times, it
This is Actually Good | Bubble & Squeak
||| THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD by RACHEL FACTOR ||| It's potato time at Island Hardware! I know you are likely celebrating as we are in my household. There's only one thing better than potatoes and
The Path Less Taken: Part 1
||| FROM ROBIN ELIZABETH BALDWIN ||| Intro: Path Less Taken Over thirty years ago, islander Joe Symons began writing The Path Less Taken, found in entirety here: https://doebay.net/cpupdate/pathlessibook.pdf —a series of essays exploring growth, limits,
No Place Like Loam | Growing Wine Grapes in Seattle? Part 3: Earth, Wind, and Wire
||| NO PLACE LIKE LOAM by ALEX TAMAYO-WOLF ||| Viticulture reached the Pacific Northwest not with romance but with recordkeeping. In the 1820s, clerks of the Hudson’s Bay Company planted grapes at Fort Vancouver, a
Letter to Editor | Odd Fellows Hall Halloween gratitude
||| FROM DIDIER GINCIG for ODD FELLOWS HALL ||| The annual Halloween Dance at the Odd Fellows Hall was a great success! Thank you to all who attended. Gratitude to Lilo the disc jockey for
Midnight Mutterings |This coming winter
||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES ||| Somehow, I’m less enthusiastic about the approaching winter than usual. Is is that the early dark and late daylight seem to affect me negatively more than in the
