From the early days of online communication, we’ve known this: email exchanges are fraught with peril. They can be misread, misunderstood, misconstrued — and that can happen when you, the sender, believe you composed your message with absolute clarity. One reason is that email messages, like these words you are reading, just sit there on […]
No Bad Days
No Bad Days – It’s the accumulation
Life is full of perspective checks. Feeling beleaguered, put-upon, unfairly inconvenienced? Just read or listen to the news, if you can bear it. War in Ukraine. Earthquake in Turkey. Mass shootings nearly every day. Unimaginable national debt. Tech sector job losses. The undemocratization of Florida. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity caught telling the truth. George […]
No Bad Days – Do it again?
A longtime colleague, boss, mentor and friend — now in his 90s and still as mentally acute as ever — recently mused on his website about whether he would choose journalism as a profession again if he were a young person today. It’s a good question, one that occurs to me occasionally. My friend Dean […]
No Bad Days: A news alternative
It’s not easy to follow what’s happening when the state Legislature is in session, as it is now. The lawmaking process itself is complex. Many bills are introduced each session, most destined for the dustbin because they will never get so much as a committee hearing, but offered nevertheless to please constituents or make a […]
No Bad Days: Catalytic reaction
This is how you know someone has stolen the catalytic converter from your vehicle: When you turn the key, instead of the usual reassuring hum you are assaulted by a deafening growl. It doesn’t matter that you’ve never experienced it; you instinctively know what it means. Sure enough, when I switched off the car and […]
No Bad Days – Checking the hysterical record
Like many people who believe that lying on your resume ought to disqualify you for the job, I’ve been appalled at how serial prevaricator and newly elected Republican congressman George Santos hyped himself into office. Almost every day, another invention in Santos’ past is unearthed. Apparently you can make this stuff up, and Santos went […]
No Bad Days – Speaking up
I did something last week I’ve never done before: I testified at a state Senate committee meeting. My appearance was via Zoom from my Twisp office, as I couldn’t make it to Olympia, where the Legislature is now meeting “live” after a couple of online sessions under COVID restrictions. Still, it was an instructive experience. […]
No Bad Days – Do you recall?
Several people have told me that if I really want to delve into the history of massive snowfalls in the valley, I should research the winter of 1996-97. Fortunately, I have the means to do that just a few steps away from my desk, in the bound volumes of the Methow Valley News that go […]
No Bad Days – Our not-that-far-back pages
Looking back can be a useful guide to looking forward, and that’s definitely the case with our annual review of the previous year’s top news stories, as voted on by our readers. I scoured a year’s worth of newspapers, more than once, to come up with potential candidates for our annual ballot to determine the […]
No Bad Days – Rhyme and reason
Have you ever tried to remember the contents of a grocery list you scribbled minutes ago but neglected to bring to the store? The details of a document you just put down? The Christmas wish-list your spouse/child/favorite other rattled off? Your best friend’s address? Consider, then, what it takes to memorize a lengthy, complicated work […]
