Shelton-Mason County Journal - Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886

“Ya know, Nietzsche says, ‘Out of chaos comes order.’ ” — Howard Johnson “Oh, blow it out your alpaca, Howard.” —Olson Johnson This is a newspaper. It should remain free of profanity...

Here’s how your existence will unfold if you’re born a female mason bee in the state of Washington: You’ll grow from an egg into a larva, sealed inside a tubular chamber between two thin plugs o...

“I was a willow last night in a dream I bent down over a clear running stream.” — “Crazy on You,” Heart The first time I climbed Mount Ellinor was around the turn of the millennium, and it...

What if it turns out, despite all evidence to the contrary, that life is fair? If the president of the United States and the pope were figures in the board game Stratego, which one would have the...

It’s hard to watch humans without judging, but it can be a liberating activity. Be the observer. Drop your ego, shut up, turn off the sensors that require you to criticize. Let a scene play out in...

“The sea refuses no river And the river is where I am.” — Pete Townshend, “All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes” When water molecules gather, their identities are surrendered to the...

The scene: A member of Congress caught in a scandal appears on a television outlet that he hopes will treat him with sympathy. Congressman: I’d like to take this opportunity at this time to express...

A good message for a reader board in front of an Episcopalian church: Jesus is woke. Our given name is the second gift we receive in this world, after being given the gift of life … or maybe our...

Some of you former school kids might remember when the most reliable place to find the information required to write a book report was the World Book Encyclopedia. Those volumes, whose spines in the...

I watched Saturday’s Seahawks’ playoff game with a friend, Johny Baltimore. “Baltimore” isn’t his birth surname, but it’s what people call him, mostly because he rarely appears without a...

This is a tale of two Houses: One in Washington, D.C., the other in Olympia. Let’s start with the frat House. On the evening of Jan. 6, I sat with Mary Young, my 95-year-old mother-in-law, watching...

Sixty-three years of age — my age — is a careless time to make proclamations about human behavior: One has enough wisdom to recognize patterns and enough foolishness to believe one can make...

Chickens could make a compelling argument that the War on Chickens is real. Last week’s ice storm made it clear that for civilization to function, traction is essential. The carrot-and-stick style o...

“The man without a navel still lives in me.” — Thomas Browne, English author From the Cambridge Dictionary: Navel-gazing — the activity of spending too much time considering your own...

Have you ever thought about which senses are necessary to do your job? Sound? Sight? Smell? Touch? Taste? Those are the Big Five, the big receptors. They are our connections to the material world....

I recently learned a newspaperman, who I knew while he worked for The Associated Press in Olympia, died several years ago. He was 38, had a wife and two kids, ages 3 and 6, so Jonathan Kaminsky’s...

Here’s how we get people to stop using guns to kill people: We work on making people not want to kill people. An example of lazy object naming: The orange. People should use their baby photos in...

I opened the entrance door to a restaurant for a woman the other day, which sparked a frayed memory of a time that’s no more. From the early 1970s, when the women’s liberation movement took root,...

Seems we’ll have at least one more season of holiday gatherings where talk of politics and social behavior will be discouraged, so here are some jokes from three publications — Good Housekeeping,...

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — It is good to know there are more of us than there are of them, but enough with this election. Other matters are worth considering in this muddled-up world, including godwits,...

Isn’t it odd to tell people who feel achy after getting a COVID vaccination that it shows that the vaccine is working? If that’s true, wouldn’t the contrary be true — if you don’t feel achy...

Here's how you do it: Get up at 5:45 a.m., preferably on a Sunday because traffic is lighter, and start 1 mile south of the state Capitol with your friend, who in my case is John. The two of you...

Let’s take a moment for me. This column started on the Journal’s Opinion Page on Oct. 19, 2017 — the column you’re reading is episode No. 261. I’ve gone five years and one week without...

Perhaps you’re like me. Stories about well-intentioned people striving to create permanent places for people without adequate shelter have become background noise. These stories of good intentions a...

I often feel guilty when I stroll past someone who’s in a wheelchair, maybe because it seems like bragging. Here’s a new, less judgmental phrase for suicide: Self-checkout. The gut gets too much...