Accommodations
New inns aren’t needed
Do we really need newly developed hotels on this Island? If you missed last Tuesday’s Chamber of Commerce Lodging Tour — a showcase of 17 of the more than 40 lodging accommodations offered on our lovely Islands — you may not know the wealth of existing “hotel-like” options here on Vashon. From vacation rentals and guest houses to inns and B&Bs (bed & breakfast, bed & barn or bed & beach), some are entire houses to rent, parts of a house or rooms in a house. Some offer only one bed and sleep up to two persons. One large house sleeps up to 14. Most serve a number in between.
So do we really need more — and newly constructed — hotels and inns? (“Developer says District 19 treated him unfairly,” Oct. 1, and “K2 hopes to include in the project a 15-room inn,” Sept. 10.)
If tourists, your out-of-town guests, off-Island workers or businesspeople need one- or two-night stays, there are already many, many options from which to choose, including two of Vashon’s existing inns. Casa Vista B&B on Maury, a “unique boutique hotel,” has three private suites (bed with full bathroom) that come with a generous “make-it-yourself” breakfast. And Burton’s landmark Back Bay Inn has four luxurious rooms and baths. A full hot breakfast in the dining room is included. Just like high-end hotels off Island.
Collectively, all 40 of us aren’t booked 365 days of the year as it is. So why build more inns and hotels? Let’s support sustainability — not only of our Island’s water and finite resources, but of our existing small enterprises.
— Karen du Four des Champs
Politics
Conservatives trash signs, too
OK, everyone, hold up on the “progressives-as-intolerants” grandstanding.
Four years ago, I had my John Kerry for President signs stolen or trashed numerous times. I doubt it was progressives who did that.
Furthermore, for several years, while I still lived on Vashon Highway, my loftily hung sign denoting the current American death toll in Iraq was stolen, knocked down or ripped to shreds repeatedly. “Progressives” vandalism? I doubt it.
All such disrespectful vandalism is unacceptable, whether by “progressives” or by Island “neocons.”
Remember what Republican Abraham Lincoln said: “A nation divided against itself cannot long endure.” Let’s hope Abe was wrong. But I doubt it.
— Michael FitzPatrick
GOP should be nervous
It’s unconscionable that someone would key a car because of a political sticker. Or vandalize a sign. But maybe we should focus on how tough it is to be a Republican right now. And I bet it is. The conservatives got the president they wanted and the power to push their agenda. How did that turn out?
Let’s take stock: We have a bloody, expensive, shameful war in Iraq while the real culprit for 9/11 gets away. We all will be oppressed by crippling national debt that will haunt us for generations. Now, we have a meltdown of the national and global financial markets directly resulting from both greed and less regulation. Our personal liberties have been curtailed. There’s been no investment in education, infrastructure or clean energy. Need I go on?
What is conservative about any of this? Progressives and liberals have very good reason to be fired up. And there are quite a few good old-fashioned conservatives who are fired up with us and voting Democratic this year. It has been a long, depressing seven-plus years, and we want our country back.
I never condone vandalism — ever. But if someone is openly horrified that you are voting Republican this election then maybe it’s time to toughen up. We know you are good people. We realize that you must be assuming that McCain won’t be like Bush. Maybe you are praying that somehow this rash, angry, stubborn man would be a good president at this delicate juncture in history. And somehow, with a heckuva lot of squinting, you think Sarah Palin is sorta-kinda prepared to be a heartbeat away from the most important job in the world.
One of the wonderful things about Vashon is the community spirit and the willingness to help each other out. You know — liberal values. After all, Jesus was a liberal community organizer. I am proudly and loudly supporting Obama/Biden. Won’t you join me?
— Shelley Dillon
Glacier
Dickinson is still relevant
Poet Emily Dickinson read me one of her poems just the other day. No one need even suggest that she is dead. The sweet bard of Amherst talks to me all the time. Emily and I have an ongoing affair.
What we were talking about most recently was the Glacier mess here on our beautiful little green Island. Emily read me one of her poems:
“A little madness in the Spring / Is wholesome even for the King / But God be the Clown — / Who ponders this tremendous scene — / This whole experiment of Green — / As if it were his own.”
Yes, I know it’s not spring. That’s one of the beauties of dear Emily’s poems. They’re good all year long.
— Gordon Fisk
