This blog is designed to give readers a glimpse of our editorial-page operation and how we make our decisions. We’ll let you know who we’re meeting with, what they’re telling us, what events and issues we’re looking at. We’ll also pass on information and observations that may not make our print editions. In addition to the editorial board members who post on this blog, the board includes Publisher David Zeeck, Executive Editor Karen Peterson and Managing Editor Dale Phelps.
Editorial board bloggers
Editorial page editor Patrick O’Callahan oversees the online and printed opinion sections of The News Tribune. He came to The News Tribune in 1987 and has worked at Washington newspapers since 1979. E-mail him at patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com
Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker, in addition to writing commentary, manages the daily production of the editorial and op-ed pages and edits letters to the editor. She began her journalism career in 1974 at a Virginia newspaper and came to The News Tribune in 1978. E-mail her at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.
Editorial writer Kim Bradford manages the online opinion section of The News Tribune and writes commentary. She joined The News Tribune in 2005 after working 11 years at newspapers in Washington and Maryland. E-mail her at kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com.
Guest bloggers
Editor emeritus David Seago retired from The News Tribune in 2008 after 41 years at The News Tribune. E-mail him at sds99@harbornet.com.
Richard Davis’ column on state politics frequently runs in the print edition of The News Tribune. He was president of the Washington Research Council, a statewide think tank, from 1986 through 2006. Currently, as a principal with The Simeon Partnership, Inc. he coordinates the activities of the Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy, a business coalition founded by the Research Council, the Association of Washington Business and the Washington Roundtable.
Karen Irwin of University Place, a mother of four, has been a frequent contributor to The News Tribune's print editions. She has also written for Seattle's Child, Puget Sound Parent, the Tacoma Weekly, the Fayetteville Observer Times and the political blog Right Meets Left. She graduated from California Lutheran University with a degree in English literature and is currently working toward a history degree.
Michael Allen, professor of history at the University of Washington Tacoma, was born and raised in Ellensburg. He served with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam from 1969-70. He has written five books, including the prize-winning "Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus' Great Discovery to the War on Terror," "Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination" and "Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse." Allen lives in Tacoma and Ellensburg and has three children.
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Another confession to make: Near the back door at home I counted five of those reusable shopping bags that we're supposed to be using instead of disposable plastic bags.
That doesn't count the four in our cars and several cloth shopping bags we've got around the house somewhere. Are we using them like we're supposed to? Not hardly.
There's a problem here: In our household, we're collecting giveaway reusable shopping bags faster than we're using them. We can't seem to just say no. I picked up two more last week when they were handed out as giveaways along with coffee mugs and pens.
Tacoma Public Utilities, for instance, is giving away green bags branded as "green" bags. They carry the slogan, "Conservation: A step towards green."
A Wall Street Journal article on Friday confirmed my suspicions: These bags are a fad, and like a lot of other supposedly eco-friendly initiatives, closer inspection reveals that they aren't as green as they may seem.
Odds are that any free or cheap reusuable bag you get is made in China from non-woven polypropylene, a form of plastic, the Journal reports, "requires about 28 times as much energy to produce as the plastic used in standard disposable bags and eight times as much as a paper sack."
Plus, this type of bag takes far longer to degrade in a landfill than the ubiquitous two-handled plastic bag. And only a very small minority of shoppers faithfully bring reusable bags with them to the store.
Give yourself "greenie points" if you're actually using reusable shopping bags on a consistent basis. But human nature being what it is, flooding the landscape with reusuable shopping bags isn't going to do much good.
Unless, or course, government applies its heavy hand. San Francisco has banned plastic bags from supermarkets and chain drug stores. Seattle this year imposed a 20-cents-a-bag tax on plastic bags, but opponents have forced a public vote some time next year.
To quote a noted philosopher, Kermit the Frog, "It isn't easy being green."
I recently had a chance to catch up with Tacoma's poet laureate, University of Puget Sound prof Bill Kupinse (who graced one of our last Insight section covers).
He mentioned that NPR affiliate KXOT asked him a while back to record poems about Tacoma. Three of them were recorded on location at Point Defiance, the Cushman substation and the Ruston Way waterfront.
The links above will take you to the MP3 files. Below is a snippet of "Point Defiance." Listen to the audio to get the full effect.
When I visit her, I find
a sea widow scanning the bay,
hair of braided epiphytes
askew, the blast of wind
across the bay
her keening.
Footpaths cross her heart:
ligatures suture
rags of tissue, strain
against arrhythmia.
In her secret embrasure
anomalous snow convenes,
fistfuls of confetti, forgotten
or illswept. Here
breathing calms.
