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

Opinion / These Times

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 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    June 1, 2023 

THESE TIMES

This is what I saw and what I heard. Two young men, who appeared to be in their mid-20s, were exceedingly drunk, judging from their muttering and their full use of the sidewalk's width to accommodate...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    May 25, 2023

An Olympic task: Identifying our home mountains

On a sunny afternoon in early May, I was at the Olympic Gateway Center up the hill from downtown Shelton. From the parking lot, you could see an immense, snow-covered, hulking presence to the north. I...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    May 18, 2023

Some facts, reactions to thunder, lightning

You might not know this about thunder: “Thunder is created when lightning passes through the air,” according to the National Weather Service. “The lightning discharge heats the air rapidly and...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    May 11, 2023

I know the right way to do the dishes

I remember this. I was around 5 years old the first time I did the dishes. It happened at the kitchen sink in my family’s house, a home that was built on the then-expanding edge of the city limits o...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    May 4, 2023

Random thoughts for a day in May

What do golf and life have in common? The fewer the strokes, the better. I don’t worry about computers acting like humans. The bigger threat to humanity is humans acting like robots. The best part...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    April 27, 2023

Find, fix, kill: How we acquire what we own

Let’s you and I agree — for purposes of the point I hope to make here — that the U.S. economy has two groups: One is the group that buys new items, items like clothes, Post-it notes, push pins,...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    April 20, 2023

Happy meetings on the Huff 'n' Puff Trail

I ran into Journal reporter Gordon Weeks last Saturday on one of the segments of the Huff 'n' Puff Trail, that 1.8-mile-long collection of loops that meander through a stand of slender firs on...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    April 13, 2023

Q&A: Frederick Douglass and Donald Trump

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” (1855) — Frederick Douglass, former U.S. slave “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    March 30, 2023

Pick a column, any column

Dear readers, I have ideas for columns that haven’t become columns yet, and maybe never will. Those ideas, some of them now nearly 6 years old, nag at me like a pile of gunk in the closet. So,...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    March 23, 2023

Two teenagers meet 'Blazing Saddles'

“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...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    March 16, 2023

You can help our Washington bees be

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...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    March 9, 2023

Ruminations after skipping daily nutrition

“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...

 
 By Kirk Ericson    Opinion    March 2, 2023

Random thoughts for a day in March

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...

 

Keeping an eye on skater girl and child

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 many manifestations of water

“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...

 

I'm sorry mistakes were made (and I got caught)

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...

 

Random thoughts for a February day

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...

 

Holy smokes! Look what we can do!

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...

 

Johny Baltimore, the Hawks and Nirvana

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...

 

Democracy in the House, east and west

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...

 

Women and men and all of us

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...

 

Random thoughts for a rainy winter day

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 ins and outs of navel-gazing

“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...

 

Jobs that require a working nose

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....

 

A question in a long marriage

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...

 

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