Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891
Sorted by date Results 855 - 879 of 2569
To The Eagle: For our next foray into the Climate Change Calamity we have to take a page or two from Chemistry 101. Our atmosphere is comprised of nitrogen 78 percent, oxygen 21 percent, and “other gases” 1 percent. The other gases include carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, water vapor, helium, hydrogen, and argon. Since these other gases are rattling around inside that last one percent, their presence is reported in ppm’s or parts per million, which provides larger scarier numbers to produce public panic. Since 1960, the ppm’s of CO2 have in...
To The Eagle: Beginning on Tuesday, March 17, the Cathlamet Public Library will be closed until further notice. We have taken this difficult step out of concern for the health for our community, patrons, and volunteers. Evidence is compelling that limiting social contacts can help reduce the potential for the Coronavirus/COVID-19 to spread throughout our community. Libraries by nature provide publically shared materials and spaces. If we can in any way restore services at some level, we will share this welcome news as soon and as widely as...
To The Eagle: This might be the shortest letter ever. Fantastic, tremendous, really great...sure. Peace, James Roberts Cathlamet...
To The Eagle: Starting to look like wash and repeat yet again. Just like 2016 when the DNC basically threw Bernie under the bus even though he had huge crowds at his rallies and quite possibly would have prevailed in the general. I'm beginning to not only think it but am ever more convinced that the DNC would rather see Trump in than Bernie. After all, the RNC and the DNC are both feeding from the same trough and every few years shoulder each other out of the way for their turn. Even though nearly every country on earth has single payer health...
To The Eagle: Here’s Chapter 2 concerning Gordon’s Climate Change Calamity, focusing on his specious supposition that we need more fuel economy restrictions in place: When you stomp on the gas in a conventional car, gasoline travels a few feet to the engine where it ignites, expands, and cranks the wheels around. The fuel for your shiny new electric car comes from a distant power source run wholly or partially by coal or natural gas and piped through many miles of wire, attenuating (shrinking) all the way, to be stored in the car’s ineff...
To The Eagle: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created by the Nixon administration in 1970 to coordinate the welter of confusing, often ineffective environmental protection laws enacted by states and communities. The Clean Water ACT of the EPA sets and enforces national water pollution-control standards to protect the viability and purity of our nation’s rivers and lakes. The Clean Water RULE of 1972 expanded that mandate to include smaller streams, wetlands and seasonal riparian catchments; dry areas that become wetlands during r...
To The Eagle: The Wahkiakum Blooms are ready for a new planting season. Our goal is to improve the quality of life in Wahkiakum County by making the place we call home, a more beautiful place to live, and visit. Skamokawa Gardens is currently growing red and white plants for the large blue pots on Main Street and other businesses in Wahkiakum County. We will be adding hanging baskets as well this year to add to the beauty of our town. A huge thank you to the following businesses and citizens who sponsored a blue pot for the 2019 season:...
Human services addresses COVID-19 To The Eagle: Citizens of Wahkiakum County: Don’t Panic. Please practice prevention and preparedness. This weekend was an eventful one for public health. On Thursday of last week there was one confirmed case in Washington of COVID-19. As of Tuesday, this week, there are 18 confirmed cases and unfortunately, six fatalities in the State. COVID-19 is colloquially being referred to as Coronavirus or the Wuhan virus. There is a significant amount of misinformation and uninformed opinion making going on n...
Let’s keep the debate within these pages To The Eagle: After Dennis Gordon’s serial stentorian stipulations for a debate, let the contestation commence with the caveat that it be here in The Eagle, for more public participation, and also to keep us physically out of the public square, safe from the coronavirus, the latest pestilence unleashed by the dastardly Trump. Further allure to debate is the fact that so many of the assertions in his challenge are so eminently debatable if not downright dubious. We alleged deniers acknowledge that the...
This area needs jobs To The Eagle: A couple of weeks ago I wrote to The Eagle that Wahkiakum School District should bus our kids to Longview and eschew a new 28 million dollar high school. While my two sons, who went through WHS earlier in the 2000's, might have benefitted attending a more resourced school, I wouldn't have liked having to bus to Longview either. The proposal was defeated and I'm glad. Even though the civics and economics lesson given by one of the town councilmen was appreciated, the proposed levy was a shock. The majority of...
To The Eagle: There is something terribly wrong in Washington DC. Namely the Senate, Congress and the White House. Partisanship, I don’t think, has ever been this horrible; could I be wrong? The head of our country’s security comes to Congress to let them know what is going on, and then Trump’s snitch, Nunes, runs to the White House (again), and tells that a report not favorable to Russia and Putin was given. That in turn creates a Trump tantrum, and he immediately fires the head of intelligence, then installing a temporary (among many temps...
To The Eagle: There remain quiet heroes in our midst whom we must not overlook in the current era of loud-mouthed bluster and blather spewing across our country. I’m referring to two local women, both of whom, voluntarily and without calling attention to themselves, quarantined themselves for two weeks in their homes after a potential exposure to the Corona virus. Their actions, rather than the bombastic imbecility that has infected our land, reflect true patriotism and may make Americans rightly proud again! Thank you, ladies for quietly p...
To The Eagle: If you’re thinking that having the federal government guarantee coverage to all Americans is a big deal, it’s actually not. The government already pays for about two-thirds of health care costs. Among other things, it pays for Medicare, Medicaid, VA, TriCare and a wide range of state and local health care programs, along with private insurance for government employees and tax subsidies for private insurance. Whether you call it single-payer or Medicare for All, it isn’t some socialist pipe dream. It’s a sensible, efficie...
To The Eagle: In these pages a fortnight past, Dennis Gordon performed his annual gauntlet-flinging ritual, challenging several of us to a town hall style debate, to which we once again demur, but note in passing the invisible elephant in the room, which is that that debate has been going on for at least a couple of decades right here in The Eagle. And that parley has been au courant with the scientific illiteracy of the enviro movement and the malfeasance and ineptitude of our state government as it applies to more local issues such as forest...
To The Eagle: As superintendent of our school district, I am charged with ensuring our children get a quality education and that our district remains an accurate reflection of our wonderful community. I truly appreciate the dialog that has taken place over the past several weeks and I want to extend my gratitude to all who participated in the conversation, particularly those who took the time and came to the school to share insights and see for themselves the issues that face us as we move forward. My door remains open and I look forward to...
To The Eagle: I found it incredibly ironic of the author in last week’s Letter to the Editor in The Eagle to advocate busing our students to Longview rather than spend new tax dollars for a school modernization. I know we’re all struggling financially but: - Has he considered we’re at least getting something of great direct and indirect value for our invested dollars? - Has he considered that under the new tax code the Trump administration initiated that we’ve added trillions (T) to our national debt? I doubt he’s done the math what 24 trilli...
To The Eagle: Is it not safe to assume that politicians of all stripes are self-serving to some degree? The question voters must answer is “whose self-serving activities are injurious to my country?” The difference between Biden and Trump is clear. Biden’s stance vis-à-vis his son’s activities in Ukraine and his past nebulous connections with corporate and financial powers are unacceptable and render him untrustworthy with respect to protecting the interest of the average American. Although Biden, unlike Trump, did not compromise our 2016 pre...
To The Eagle: WSJ, 01/28/2020; “US Natl. Debt Will Rise to 90% of GDP, by 2030, CBO Projects.” Due to tax cuts, which mainly benefit wealthy Americans, and excess federal spending. But Republicans claim to be the party of financial restraint. The US is on a chaotic course of fulfilling the Trump’s whims. But give Trump credit, he is working to divide the country, promote white nationalism, and deface (humiliate) democracy. He does work to promote discrimination at all levels of society (culture wars). He and his team deny women their repro...
To The Eagle: So, back to the disputation about fact vs opinion, the latest round of which centered on Venice becoming the new Atlantis due to Trumpogenic climate change. Editor Rick’s contribution to the contretemps appeared in the editorial column under the rubric “Facts aren’t hard to find” and went on to list links to several fact-checking outfits he considers “trusted outside sources.” Ironically, he first cites the Associated Press, the provider of the yellow-journalistic anti-Trump articles in The Eagle that Mike Swift and I, among ot...
To The Eagle: I had the privilege to walk through the front doors of Wahkiakum High School in 1966 and leave through those same doors as a graduate 50 years ago this coming June. The school has undergone very little change since those days. The Mule Cafe (lunchroom) was a side entry and the CTE building did not exist. The main building, aside from a few bandaids, has had no remodeling or major upgrades in nearly 60 years. Well beyond its expected life. My sons both graduated from Wa-Ki-Hi, I worked as a substitute teacher for 15 years and the...
To The Eagle: Well, I have reviewed the bond facts. I am going to vote for the renovations. My one question is: Why is nothing mentioned about taking care of the flat roof on the high school? That was a mistake back when they built the school and we are still struggling with it. Stop using a band-aid fix. Do it right. Our kids need a good education. Carol McClain Skamokawa...
To The Eagle: Wahkiakum School District is one of the great institutions in Wahkiakum County. Over the years it has dealt with most of Wahkiakum County’s greatest asset - its people. In the 50’s and 60’s the current buildings were constructed, the exceptions being the middle school and some additions on both sites. My Dad and other like-minded individuals on the school board planned for and supported the bond issue for constructing the “new” high school. Issues of cost and needs and values were pretty much the same then as now. When the struc...
To The Eagle: First let me say that I am in favor of providing the best education possible in the best facility possible in our community. I think school facility maintenance and repair is an ongoing responsibility of school administration, not a once in a generation undertaking. My issue with what has been proposed for our school is the overall cost. I once served on a school board in a small Washington community and we needed to build a new school for K through 12 grades. That school was 33,000 square feet, the year was 1990 and the cost to...
To The Eagle: Well this past week has revealed that both common sense and taste have fallen into desuetude. I seem to recall a time when trials had real witnesses and entertainment involved more than scantily dressed women pelvic thrusting themselves around a stage for the entertainment of 100 million TV viewers and tens of thousands in attendance at our recent Super Bowl. Becoming an old man has made it seem likely that our days of wine and roses are only of historical note and available only in films from yesteryear. It also seems that half...
To The Eagle: About 15 years ago, I met a fellow who was a retired school superintendent from Montana, visiting a mutual friend. During our conversation I asked him how tough it was to be a school superintendent. He said it was really pretty simple. He explained there is a huge database of information on schools nationwide. The data indicates that a school budget should be 80 percent for personnel and 20 percent for facilities or plant, as he described it. And, he said, if you deviate from this ratio very much for very long, it will lead to...
