DIY Exercise: Use your favorite graphics program to design a USPS-style Forever stamp depicting President Trump. Whether you save the file is optional.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Current Events
Le Grand Orange
DIY task: Please supply your own color photo of President Trump.
This morning, while watching his Rose Garden speech about the “deal” to end the government shutdown, I wondered, again, if it would be appropriate to recycle former Major League Baseball player Rusty Staub’s nickname when referring to President Trump. With his carrot-top hairdo and tanning-salon-hued skin, the president clearly fits the bill for the third word of the wondrous French phrase Le Grand Orange. He falls short, though, when you consider the true meaning of the second word.
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Government, Sports
Forever Due
Return to sender.
Last week, in a senior moment, I mailed in my final 2018 quarterly tax payment with one big omission. Yep, I forgot to stick on a Forever stamp (currently $.50 in postage), thus denying the letter a smooth flight to the IRS office in San Francisco. And now forever is due (see photo).
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Government
Core Dump: The War of 1812
Old Ironsides
To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the War of 1812, the USPS will issue a stamp later this year (see illustration). This post covers everything I know, or thought I knew, about the War of 1812. It’s not a long write-up. My knowledge comes from the National Anthem, a decades-old public school education, and the lyrics to the 1959 pop hit by Johnny Horton called “The Battle of New Orleans.”
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Government
I Shouldn’t Have Bothered
On Thursday I posted an entry about the strike against Waste Management in King and Snohomish counties. I had no inside information about the walkout. My knowledge of it was based on reports in the local media. Still that didn’t stop me from writing more than 500 words expressing my observations. Later that afternoon, after Waste Management agreed to return to the bargaining table, the union instructed its members to return to work on Friday. That doesn’t mean the two sides will reach an agreement, but it does get the strike off the front page. It also made me question the wisdom of commenting on fluid breaking-news stories.
Posted in Current Events
Waste Management Strike
Yesterday trash haulers walked off the job in King and Snohomish counties affecting about one million Waste Management customers. The union had been working without a contract since April 1st. The company made its final offer on April 2nd, and since then hasn’t offered any substantive changes to its proposal. The work stoppage is intended to force Waste Management back to the bargaining table. After reading a Seattle Times article about the strike, I have a few observations:
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events
Why I Want to Help Tiger
In everything I have read or seen about the Tiger Woods scandal, no pundit has addressed what I think is the most important question: Is there anything the average person can do to help Tiger? Of course to even begin to answer the question assumes the public would want to help Tiger, whose downfall seem to be self-inflicted. For purely personal reasons, I do. I would like to see him save his marriage and rejoin the PGA tour next year.
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Friends & Family
No Painting Congressman Dicks into a Corner on Health Care
Last month I criticized Congressman Norm Dicks for not holding a town hall meeting on health care. Since then the congressman has changed his mind, and I applaud him for facing his constituents, although I think he was uncomfortable and not well prepared. But try as they might, attendees in the noisy crowd couldn’t paint the bulldog Dicks into a corner on any of HR 3200’s controversial sections.
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Government
Have You Gone Overboard on News/Talk Radio?
I have spent most of the summer on Treasure Island and have been keeping up with current events by listening to news/talk radio. That’s because the TV no longer works since we haven’t gone digital, we don’t take a newspaper, and there’s no computer. According to the Center for American Progress web site, I’m not alone when it comes to tuning in to news/talk radio. They estimate the weekly audience at 50 million, supporting 1700 commercial stations nationwide. Clearly the format is popular. Lately, however, I have been wondering if I and others have gone overboard in our allegiance to this mostly conservative medium. To answer that question, I devised a test.
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events
No Town Halls Near Here
You cannot turn on talk show radio these days without hearing endless and repetitive opinions about the congressional town hall meetings on health care. Conservative hosts are framing the issue as one in which some members of Congress are refusing to listen to the public before passing a bill that literally affects life and death for all Americans. Liberal hosts point out that the status quo is unacceptable, a lot of misinformation is being spread, and the current bills need some work but are the best approach to comprehensive health-care reform. To get some first-hand information on these opposing views, I contacted my congressional representatives about attending a local town hall meeting.
Continue reading
Posted in Current Events, Government
Mud Bay Blog 