End of the Year
The January All Point Bulletin is out with its recap of what we’ve all been through this past year in Point Roberts. Although it's been a kind of crushing year for many, many people, the Point has come through pretty well, I’d think. The library and the Parks Board got their levy increases, and there is a move afoot to try to encourage the County to do something about restoring the dock/boat launch at Light House Park. All good things. More of Lily Point was conserved and it appears that the historic remains will remain where they historically have been. There have been deaths of course, perhaps most notably, that of Irene Waters, but that is the truth of every year. And we haven’t lost anything --other than dock and the curbside trash collection--that we formerly had, although one of the banks is looking a little poorly.
The newspaper also has a bunch of cheerful letters, thanking people for good things that came to pass recently. And then, at the very end of this letter string, there is a downer: a letter, initially about the Aydon Wellness Clinic, which the letter writer is hoping will soon go out of existence, because, apparently, it is a great burden on his existence.
Of course, many other people—probably most residents of Point Roberts-- find the clinic very helpful, find its staff knowledgeable and resourceful and able to get them to more complex health care when it is needed. Thus, it’s a little hard to sympathize with whatever personal burden the letter writer feels about the clinic’s existence.
Not content with hoping for the end of the clinic, the letter writer takes on health care reform as well, which he also hopes will go out of existence. I spent a lot of years working in and around health care, so I’m pretty sympathetic to those who are frustrated with how the ‘system’ (or ‘no-system’) works. But our letter writer’s grievance is largely that he is going to have to buy health insurance, even though he’d rather spend his money on gym membership and natural food supplements. But he’s not going to buy health insurance, he says.
Well, I doubt if he’s discovered the secret of eternal life, either in gyms or health food stores or organic vegetables. But I certainly hope that he’s willing to follow a life of true principle such that when and if he should experience the ominous chest pain that might precede a heart attack, or the strangely slurred speech that can appear as a sign of stroke, or the grievous loss of blood and the intense pain that can occur after, say an accident involving cars or in homes with guns...well, I hope he proceeds immediately to his gym for a workout, or calls his health food store and asks which supplements can be delivered to him ASAP. The unprincipled alternative, of course, would be to get himself to a hospital, where the rest of us will have to pay his bill.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
My Best Book List, 2009
Here it is, the annual (well, I did it in 2008, and now again in 2009, so I guess that qualifies as annual) list of the ten best books I’ve read this year:
1. Jane Meyer, The Dark Side.
2. Lawrence Weschler, A Universe, a Miracle.
These two non-fiction works are both about torture, but they both get past the inherent problem of writing about torture. Meyer, who writes for The New Yorker, does a terrific job of showing us how the U.S. turned into a torture purveyor and suborner, and lost its status as a supporter of human rights. Weschler, in a fine piece of look-back journalism, written long before Meyer started thinking about U.S. torture, investigates the ways in which Uruguay and Brazil came to terms with the fact that, in a troubled period in their recent histories, each country’s government turned to torture. No sign yet, of course, that the U.S. is planning to do any coming to terms, but here are some guidelines if we should choose that path.
3. Susan Choi, A Person of Interest.
4. Hari Kunzru, Revolutions.
These two books, both novels, offer compelling imaginings about just how it is that someone becomes a terrorist, but in the case of Kunzru’s hero, it’s not a Muslim teenager; it’s a middle-class white kid in the U.K. in the 1970’s. And what becomes of him over the years. Choi comes at it from the other side: how it is that law enforcement agencies come to see someone as a terrorist, even when he is not one. (Strong reminders of Wen Ho Lee in this second novel.)
5. John LeCarre, A Most Wanted Man.
Also about terrorists, but more about spies and mostly the best LeCarre novel in years.
6. Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.
Iran and an Ayatollah (Khatami), as we don’t usually see them in the news. This non-fiction book, written before this summer’s election chaos, is about the political nature of Iran and the status of dissent and dissenters, even among the Ayatollahs, in the country.
7. Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad.
This is a touching and unsentimental novel about old age and memory and what old age does to memory, as well as how memory makes old age possible.
8. Lesley Chung, Chinese Factory Girls.
Another non-fiction work, this time about the astonishingly and suddenly changed lives of the teenage peasant girls from small villages in China who go to work in bigger towns in big factories. Where all that stuff we buy comes from, in addition to who makes it, and the very different kind of life they are creating along with all that stuff in the Dollar Stores.
9. Peter Schejldahl, Let’s See.
10. Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment.
Schejldahl writes the weekly art piece for The New Yorker, and he is, for my money, the best art writer/critic around. The ‘best’ in the sense that he shows me how he sees a piece of art, even when I am not actually looking at it with him, and yet, I do see it. Dyer does an astonishing and similar piece of work on photography. These are both men who not only know how to look at something, but how to tell the reader what their seeing tells them about the larger issues of meaning.
And, not number 11, but a shout out for all of Geoff Dyer’s books that I’ve read so far. If you are interested in D.H. Lawrence or in writing/literature more generally, try Out of Sheer Rage. If you’re interested in travel writing, try Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It. If you are a fan of classic jazz, especially, try But Beautiful. Thinking about life and death? Try Jeff in Venice, Death in Varnasi. He’s got other books out there as well, but I haven’t read them all yet. He’s the most interesting writer I’ve run into in years. His books are novels that are simultaneously non-fiction (or vice versa). Asked about which they were, he replied that “there’s only an inch of difference between fiction and non-fiction, but all the art’s in that inch.” And he's putting an amazing amount of art into it.
1. Jane Meyer, The Dark Side.
2. Lawrence Weschler, A Universe, a Miracle.
These two non-fiction works are both about torture, but they both get past the inherent problem of writing about torture. Meyer, who writes for The New Yorker, does a terrific job of showing us how the U.S. turned into a torture purveyor and suborner, and lost its status as a supporter of human rights. Weschler, in a fine piece of look-back journalism, written long before Meyer started thinking about U.S. torture, investigates the ways in which Uruguay and Brazil came to terms with the fact that, in a troubled period in their recent histories, each country’s government turned to torture. No sign yet, of course, that the U.S. is planning to do any coming to terms, but here are some guidelines if we should choose that path.
3. Susan Choi, A Person of Interest.
4. Hari Kunzru, Revolutions.
These two books, both novels, offer compelling imaginings about just how it is that someone becomes a terrorist, but in the case of Kunzru’s hero, it’s not a Muslim teenager; it’s a middle-class white kid in the U.K. in the 1970’s. And what becomes of him over the years. Choi comes at it from the other side: how it is that law enforcement agencies come to see someone as a terrorist, even when he is not one. (Strong reminders of Wen Ho Lee in this second novel.)
5. John LeCarre, A Most Wanted Man.
Also about terrorists, but more about spies and mostly the best LeCarre novel in years.
6. Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ.
Iran and an Ayatollah (Khatami), as we don’t usually see them in the news. This non-fiction book, written before this summer’s election chaos, is about the political nature of Iran and the status of dissent and dissenters, even among the Ayatollahs, in the country.
7. Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad.
This is a touching and unsentimental novel about old age and memory and what old age does to memory, as well as how memory makes old age possible.
8. Lesley Chung, Chinese Factory Girls.
Another non-fiction work, this time about the astonishingly and suddenly changed lives of the teenage peasant girls from small villages in China who go to work in bigger towns in big factories. Where all that stuff we buy comes from, in addition to who makes it, and the very different kind of life they are creating along with all that stuff in the Dollar Stores.
9. Peter Schejldahl, Let’s See.
10. Geoff Dyer, The Ongoing Moment.
Schejldahl writes the weekly art piece for The New Yorker, and he is, for my money, the best art writer/critic around. The ‘best’ in the sense that he shows me how he sees a piece of art, even when I am not actually looking at it with him, and yet, I do see it. Dyer does an astonishing and similar piece of work on photography. These are both men who not only know how to look at something, but how to tell the reader what their seeing tells them about the larger issues of meaning.
And, not number 11, but a shout out for all of Geoff Dyer’s books that I’ve read so far. If you are interested in D.H. Lawrence or in writing/literature more generally, try Out of Sheer Rage. If you’re interested in travel writing, try Yoga for People Who Can’t be Bothered to Do It. If you are a fan of classic jazz, especially, try But Beautiful. Thinking about life and death? Try Jeff in Venice, Death in Varnasi. He’s got other books out there as well, but I haven’t read them all yet. He’s the most interesting writer I’ve run into in years. His books are novels that are simultaneously non-fiction (or vice versa). Asked about which they were, he replied that “there’s only an inch of difference between fiction and non-fiction, but all the art’s in that inch.” And he's putting an amazing amount of art into it.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Boxing Day
The other Boxing Day tradition up here, I think, is one that I’ve never participated in: the going to the stores for the Boxing Day discounts. In fact, this may well be the primary Boxing Day tradition: you go to the stores, buy up tons of goods on deep discount, and take your boxes/packages home with you. By contrast, we never get the leftovers of the holiday feast put into little boxes for us to take home.
Never going to a Boxing Day sale is one of the things that is easy to accomplish when you live in an out-of-the-way part of the country. There aren’t that many things that I need or want a lot extra of, at least the things that are on sale. If they knocked 50% off the price of eggs or imported cheese or smoked sausage, I’d be more interested, I suppose. But for now, Boxing Day is, like Christmas Day, a day that doesn’t require you to do much of anything prior to dinner time, when you put on clean clothes and present yourself to the neighbors’ table.
This year, though, the dinner had a touch of sadness, as the neighbors have put their house up for sale and we are about to do the same, and there probably won't be another Boxing Day dinner at the neighbors for us. But what is not in the future doesn't overcome what was in the past. Thanks, Don and Jean, for always being there for us.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Christmas, the Eve, the Day
For some of us in our eighth decade, everything seems to be less about the present than about the past, but I think that for virtually all adults who do not have young children in their immediate environment, Christmas Eve is pretty much all nostalgia, all the time. And the older one gets, the farther back that nostalgia goes. If I just knew something about my mother’s or my grandmother’s childhood Christmases, I’d probably be nostalgic for them.
Comparing Christmas Eve in the 1930’s and ‘40’s with Christmas in the first decade of the 21st Century presents such an enormous gap that I can scarcely make my way across it. I was in Idaho, then. It was always cold at Christmas, bitterly cold, and snow was abundantly available usually. By Christmas, the town government people would have flooded a vacant lot with water and there we could take our new skates to try out on Christmas Day itself. I don’t know that anybody floods anything anywhere for skating rinks anymore. We’ve found other ways, for pretty much everything, I guess.
Before, during, and immediately after the war, Christmas was a tree with decorations, and singing on Christmas Eve plus the opening of one carefully chosen gift from those under the tree, and then on the following morning, the rest of the presents. It seemed like a lot of presents, but there were seven of us by 1945, and since everyone bought at least one gift for everyone else, plus the grandparents’ gifts, the abundance was largely sheer volume. The childrens’ presents always included new pajamas/nightgowns, slippers, a game, a book, maybe new mittens, and one big phenomenon: a train set, ice skates, a bicycle, although those big gifts were more a post-war phenomenon.
In early December each year, my parents would give us each a little money, $3 or $4, as I recall, and with this we were expected to produce about ten presents: one for each of the other 8 family members, and a couple for friends. We made some things. I remember embroidering baby bibs for my youngest sister one winter, knitting scarves or mittens when we were ten or so. We spent many hours in the five and dime stores (Woolworth, Kress, Newberry’s) imagining buying a little bottle of perfume for our mother (Evening in Paris, in a blue bottle), some candy for our father, little salt and pepper shaker sets for my grandmother who was a collector of such things, barrettes or hair ribbons for another sister, a deck of cards for my older brother, a simple toy for the baby (I recall painting empty wooden thread spools with red fingernail polish and then stringing them together one year), and I don’t know what for the friends. Coloring books? Stickers? Jacks or marbles? Possibly.
During the war, there just wasn’t that much stuff around for presents. I remember one year, my grandparents gave me a can of mushrooms, while my older brother received a package of cinnamon rolls. I remember my next younger sister receiving several pieces of Fleer’s DoubleBubble gum, gum whose taste I can recall vibrantly still. Our stockings had fifteen or twenty cents at the bottom, a tangerine, a few pecans and walnuts in their shells, a package or two of life-savers, a small package of maple sugar candy, some crayons or colored pencils, maybe a little notebook. And we were plenty excited about such wonderful things because, in general, we didn’t have very many things.
Today’s children and grandchildren have so much of everything that they already have everything long before Christmas is even an emerging holiday. And they’re surely not spending their days trying to imagine what they might give to someone else. To my surprise, it turns out that I share that experience with this current generation of children: now, I too have or have had just about everything I could ever want; such an abundance of things, experiences, and relationships that I cannot imagine ever needing more, although I definitely continue to need those I still have. And all I have to give is the work of my hand.
Merry Christmas to all those I know and love, to all those who read this, many of whom I do not know, to all those of good will: May the abundance of life ever reside in your heart.
Comparing Christmas Eve in the 1930’s and ‘40’s with Christmas in the first decade of the 21st Century presents such an enormous gap that I can scarcely make my way across it. I was in Idaho, then. It was always cold at Christmas, bitterly cold, and snow was abundantly available usually. By Christmas, the town government people would have flooded a vacant lot with water and there we could take our new skates to try out on Christmas Day itself. I don’t know that anybody floods anything anywhere for skating rinks anymore. We’ve found other ways, for pretty much everything, I guess.
Before, during, and immediately after the war, Christmas was a tree with decorations, and singing on Christmas Eve plus the opening of one carefully chosen gift from those under the tree, and then on the following morning, the rest of the presents. It seemed like a lot of presents, but there were seven of us by 1945, and since everyone bought at least one gift for everyone else, plus the grandparents’ gifts, the abundance was largely sheer volume. The childrens’ presents always included new pajamas/nightgowns, slippers, a game, a book, maybe new mittens, and one big phenomenon: a train set, ice skates, a bicycle, although those big gifts were more a post-war phenomenon.
In early December each year, my parents would give us each a little money, $3 or $4, as I recall, and with this we were expected to produce about ten presents: one for each of the other 8 family members, and a couple for friends. We made some things. I remember embroidering baby bibs for my youngest sister one winter, knitting scarves or mittens when we were ten or so. We spent many hours in the five and dime stores (Woolworth, Kress, Newberry’s) imagining buying a little bottle of perfume for our mother (Evening in Paris, in a blue bottle), some candy for our father, little salt and pepper shaker sets for my grandmother who was a collector of such things, barrettes or hair ribbons for another sister, a deck of cards for my older brother, a simple toy for the baby (I recall painting empty wooden thread spools with red fingernail polish and then stringing them together one year), and I don’t know what for the friends. Coloring books? Stickers? Jacks or marbles? Possibly.
During the war, there just wasn’t that much stuff around for presents. I remember one year, my grandparents gave me a can of mushrooms, while my older brother received a package of cinnamon rolls. I remember my next younger sister receiving several pieces of Fleer’s DoubleBubble gum, gum whose taste I can recall vibrantly still. Our stockings had fifteen or twenty cents at the bottom, a tangerine, a few pecans and walnuts in their shells, a package or two of life-savers, a small package of maple sugar candy, some crayons or colored pencils, maybe a little notebook. And we were plenty excited about such wonderful things because, in general, we didn’t have very many things.
Today’s children and grandchildren have so much of everything that they already have everything long before Christmas is even an emerging holiday. And they’re surely not spending their days trying to imagine what they might give to someone else. To my surprise, it turns out that I share that experience with this current generation of children: now, I too have or have had just about everything I could ever want; such an abundance of things, experiences, and relationships that I cannot imagine ever needing more, although I definitely continue to need those I still have. And all I have to give is the work of my hand.
Merry Christmas to all those I know and love, to all those who read this, many of whom I do not know, to all those of good will: May the abundance of life ever reside in your heart.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wrapping It Up
Last January, I started a project in which I made one furoshiki/wrapping cloth each week. Today, I finished the last of the 52. The furoshiki originated in Japan, but it is also found, although in a slightly different form, in Korea, where it’s called a pojagi (or sometimes bojagi). In both places, it is cloth that is used to wrap a gift or some other object that could be more easily carried if wrapped (e.g., bento—lunch--boxes in Japan). In Japan, it is a specially designed cloth made just for this purpose; in Korea, it is more likely to be pieced from other cloth, more like an American quilt is pieced. The sizes vary, depending upon what is being wrapped.
I came to wrapping cloths in the gift wrapping form. I imagined a beautiful cloth loosely wrapping an exquisite but small gift: maybe a perfect apple, or a luscious chocolate bar, or a small hand-made Shaker basket. My idea was to make one a week during 2009, using different techniques, and then to send them out as Christmas 'gifts' in December, leaving the recipients with the option of keeping them as gifts for themselves, or as wrapping for a gift that they were giving to someone else.
I had very few rules for myself in the process of making them. They were to be 16 inches square; they were to be made of ordinary fabrics that I had around; they were to be lined; they were not to be quilted; and no more than 8 cloths could feature a single technique. As it turned out, there are a few that are unlined because I had some beautiful linen pieces that were previously hemmed and I didn’t see a way to line them. Otherwise, the rules held. I found different themes interested me over time. There are a half-dozen that are related to ways of mending and closing fabric: these include classic mends/darning as well as buttonholes and buttons. There are a number of takeoffs from traditional Japanese art forms: Haiku (in my version, the fabric forms/components are arranged in a 5-7-5 design); flower arranging; and sand raking (in which stitching lines take over for raking lines). There are a number of cloths that feature indigo dyes, shibori dying, and various Asian silks (Thai, Chinese, and Japanese).
All 52 of the furoshikis can be seen here. At the upper right corner of the flickr page, there’s a ‘slideshow’ choice, which is a nice way to see them individually, but for information about the individual cloth, you have to click on the individual picture.
And now they are all gone. The first, which did indeed enclose a small hand-made Shaker box, went to a granddaughter for her 13th birthday. I kept one for myself, a genuine Japanese furoshiki (whose photo is not included in the set) given to me by a quilting friend who knew I was doing this project. But the rest have all flown away throughout the U.S.
And now, there's only a week to figure out what kind of project 2010 needs to have.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Quagmire
The very word is so nostalgic, so late-60’s, so Vietnam War-ish. But nowadays, quagmire means so much more: Afghanistan, health care reform, trash collection. Yes, I’m afraid it’s once more time to get a trash collection update. It’s been maybe six months now since those of us in Point Roberts lost all curbside trash collection, in addition to curbside recycling pick-up. Each month, it seems as if the WUTC has yet another problem to contend with in respect to getting this knotty problem solved. Mostly, WUTC thinks that it needs another thirty days to do whatever needs to be done.
And what needs to be done? At the moment, we seem to have applications from two candidates: Freedom 2000, the Dave Gellatly/Ron Caulder outfit; and Point Recyling and Refuse, the Arthur Wilkowski outfit which, up until six months-ish ago actually had a certificate to provide those services and was in fact providing at least the trash collection part. In fact, Wilkowski recently offered up several ways in which he might provide some services, but WUTC turned him down on the ‘temporary’ plan, and now we seem to be fixed on the full plan, which is not exactly as full as he used to provide. And that is perhaps because the business model for the ‘full’ plan—curbside pickup of trash and recycling--is no better now than it was when he cut the curbside recycling because the business model had too few customers to make it a viable model. You still with me?
The WUTC may now be as confused as many of us are. I say this because their current plan (since Dec. 4) is to wait about 25 days and then have a public hearing on the issue. The official reason for this is that, because the Commission has decided to combine its consideration of these two applicants—even though they are not applying to provide exactly the same service--it would be ‘appropriate to hold a public hearing. . . to provide an opportunity for members of the public to comment orally on the record concerning the pending applications.’ It’s particularly worth noting, I think, that on a matter that is of great concern to and (far too) lively comment among the residents of Point Roberts and of interest to virtually no one else in the State of Washington, the WUTC has decided to hold the hearing in Olympia, Washington, maybe 150 miles away from us. To their credit, they scheduled it for 1:30 in the afternoon. On the other side of the balance sheet, there’s not only the location but also the date: December 29. So, if you aren’t too busy with post-Christmas shopping, or sunk in the post-Christmas blues, and have cleared out the Christmas guests, or returned from your Christmas travel, well...here’s an event that might attract your interest, fill up your otherwise blank calendar in that strange week between holidays, assuming the weather isn’t so unseemly as to make driving dicey.
If you don’t care that much or aren’t able to make the trip, however, WUTC will accept your written views up until January 4. After that, I guess, they’ll be taking about 30 days either to make a decision, or to figure out how to get some information that they don’t already have.
The residents and sometime-users of trash and recycling collection have been busy making their views known to WUTC over the past months, of course. The WUTC puts all comments on line, so you can check out your neighbors’ views here. This is a list of all the documents they’ve received, and if, say, you want to see what Knick or Gordon thinks, click on the date of the document (the far left column). Then you usually have to choose to see the document in either a ‘pdf’ or a ‘word’ format. It’s not the friendliest website I’ve ever seen, but if you keep at it for awhile, you’ll probably get the knack. If you lose the site, it might help to know that the docket # is 091687.
The complainant ladies trio are represented among these commenters, although if you read the APB you probably already know what they think. Reading Mr. Wilkowski’s response to their comments may be of interest, though. I, at least, had not seen his response to their views anywhere, and it is certainly the case that there are two sides (at least) to this dispute. His response is here.
About thirty people have taken the time to communicate their views and, having read them all, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag. Some support Freedom 2000, some support Point Recycling, some support them both but just want a solution, some primarily support mandatory participation in a trash collection system in order to make sure that it’s economically viable. I found it problematic to offer my views to WUTC insofar as I have no special or specific information (as opposed to rumors) that the WUTC lacks about either applicant or about the nature of trash and recycling collection. On the other hand, perhaps they need to know where Point Roberts is located. I do know that.
And what needs to be done? At the moment, we seem to have applications from two candidates: Freedom 2000, the Dave Gellatly/Ron Caulder outfit; and Point Recyling and Refuse, the Arthur Wilkowski outfit which, up until six months-ish ago actually had a certificate to provide those services and was in fact providing at least the trash collection part. In fact, Wilkowski recently offered up several ways in which he might provide some services, but WUTC turned him down on the ‘temporary’ plan, and now we seem to be fixed on the full plan, which is not exactly as full as he used to provide. And that is perhaps because the business model for the ‘full’ plan—curbside pickup of trash and recycling--is no better now than it was when he cut the curbside recycling because the business model had too few customers to make it a viable model. You still with me?
The WUTC may now be as confused as many of us are. I say this because their current plan (since Dec. 4) is to wait about 25 days and then have a public hearing on the issue. The official reason for this is that, because the Commission has decided to combine its consideration of these two applicants—even though they are not applying to provide exactly the same service--it would be ‘appropriate to hold a public hearing. . . to provide an opportunity for members of the public to comment orally on the record concerning the pending applications.’ It’s particularly worth noting, I think, that on a matter that is of great concern to and (far too) lively comment among the residents of Point Roberts and of interest to virtually no one else in the State of Washington, the WUTC has decided to hold the hearing in Olympia, Washington, maybe 150 miles away from us. To their credit, they scheduled it for 1:30 in the afternoon. On the other side of the balance sheet, there’s not only the location but also the date: December 29. So, if you aren’t too busy with post-Christmas shopping, or sunk in the post-Christmas blues, and have cleared out the Christmas guests, or returned from your Christmas travel, well...here’s an event that might attract your interest, fill up your otherwise blank calendar in that strange week between holidays, assuming the weather isn’t so unseemly as to make driving dicey.
If you don’t care that much or aren’t able to make the trip, however, WUTC will accept your written views up until January 4. After that, I guess, they’ll be taking about 30 days either to make a decision, or to figure out how to get some information that they don’t already have.
The residents and sometime-users of trash and recycling collection have been busy making their views known to WUTC over the past months, of course. The WUTC puts all comments on line, so you can check out your neighbors’ views here. This is a list of all the documents they’ve received, and if, say, you want to see what Knick or Gordon thinks, click on the date of the document (the far left column). Then you usually have to choose to see the document in either a ‘pdf’ or a ‘word’ format. It’s not the friendliest website I’ve ever seen, but if you keep at it for awhile, you’ll probably get the knack. If you lose the site, it might help to know that the docket # is 091687.
The complainant ladies trio are represented among these commenters, although if you read the APB you probably already know what they think. Reading Mr. Wilkowski’s response to their comments may be of interest, though. I, at least, had not seen his response to their views anywhere, and it is certainly the case that there are two sides (at least) to this dispute. His response is here.
About thirty people have taken the time to communicate their views and, having read them all, I can tell you it’s a mixed bag. Some support Freedom 2000, some support Point Recycling, some support them both but just want a solution, some primarily support mandatory participation in a trash collection system in order to make sure that it’s economically viable. I found it problematic to offer my views to WUTC insofar as I have no special or specific information (as opposed to rumors) that the WUTC lacks about either applicant or about the nature of trash and recycling collection. On the other hand, perhaps they need to know where Point Roberts is located. I do know that.
Friday, December 18, 2009
'Tis the Season
Today’s results from Copenhagen are not, I suppose, surprising. It looks as if North Americans will be reluctant to do much about changing their/our energy use patterns until a lot of people who didn’t expect ever to have beach property are looking right out at the ocean. That might even include me, I guess; unless all of Point Roberts is underwater. But even if I have beach, I suppose I'll be living on an island. What chance, then, of a ferry from Bellingham? Or what used to be Bellingham?
Well, a colorful Christmas, certainly. And then there's the alien invasion over the Kremlin to entertain us, too.
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