The Tower

Even as the old â€œleaky creakyâ€, as Ron Judd of the Seattle Times once called the ferry system, approached the landing dock the blinking sign stood out. WELCOME TO THE FRIENDLIEST ISLAND OF ALL.

FRIENDLIEST jumped out at you from all directions as I turned to head uptown on Friendliest Boulevard. Goodness the friendliness was everywhere. Friendly Grocers stood out. Friendly Real Estate, advertising the ability to quickly negotiate any property purchasing hurdles. Your Friendly Clothing Store, advertising itself as the choice of island Friendly people. And then there was the Island Friendly Theater, advertising itself as showing the most Friendly movies. And most certainly evident was Your Friendly Drug Store advertising Friendly Drug Prices, whatever your needs.

Goodness, it was almost a Disneyesque scene in every direction. Nonetheless, what towered above all else was the fourteen story Tower. To say it was dominating would be an understatement. The view from the top commanded a 360 degree view ranging from Canada to the US mainland. At fourteen stories some thought perhaps it was a little intimidating.

The Tower was built upon a small tower originally constructed by a notable gent about town named Gordy. Rumor had it that many years ago in some exasperation he got in his sail boat and headed west, never to be seen again.

But there was some kind of air of excitement amongst the gathering crowd this morning. Gossip had it that the Friendliest Board was meeting today. Everyone was gathering to get photos of the Board as they entered the Tower. Gaining entrance to the Tower had become a statement of, well, you have arrived on the island.

Part of the well circulated â€œTower experienceâ€ was that you got to ride the elevator. The Exalted Director was the only person entitled to ride the elevator, so being part of the Board gave you very special privilege.

The meeting this morning was called to deal with some serious violations of the Friendliest Code. A west side resident had taken it upon herself to cut down a broken tree limb thus partially exposing her home to passing canoeists and others. Also on the west side a resident had blatantly lowered his hedge, exposing his entire house to viewing from the water. On the east side one resident was found to have used his facilities for 5 extra flushes in the past month. On the south side one woman had nine more thistle than she was entitled to.

Anger at these egregious violations would not describe it. Everyone quickly agreed that they should be made examples and $500. per incident was approved. The Board left, leaving the Exalted Director to dispatch the personal attorney to inform the Council, always convening downstairs when the Board is in session, that they were to act immediately on these directives.

But something was in the air that day. Inside, the Council in a rare act of independence, mulled it, and decided to hire a consultant.

Outside something else was in the air. An Evangelical had expressed out loud that the Tower most certainly had to have characteristics of the Tower of Babel. Well, you know how rumor and gossip go. Before long it was circulating that the Tower was built from original material of the Tower of Babel. Any which way, hoards of tourists were arriving daily to chip off a real piece of the Tower of Babel. Some were saddened, others thought the Tower of Babel fit. As more chips flew, considerable angst became evident from the top of the Tower. The Council was mandated to issue a stop order. The Council mulled it at length and decided to hire a consultant.

Well, chip away and pretty soon you have a lovely pile of rubble. Soon all the Friendly signs started coming down and life and advertising returned to normal. Local lore has it that the laughter riding in on a gentle spring breeze one evening was that of Gordy. Such are island myths.

(Ron Keeshan: an English major who always wanted to write satire.)

Hymn To (Real) Books

One of the things common to our move is simplifying and reducing. The last move, we moved probably 1500 books out. Truthfully some are painful to let go. Well that or end up sleeping on them. When we unpacked this time I was struck by one that I had not looked at in sometime, The Family of Man. For me it is one of the greatest books ever published. The bookâ€™s objective was to show the connections of the human family. Created by the American photographer Edward Steichen two million photos were sent in from all over the world. Published in 1955 the two million were painfully reduced to 503.

Our copy has an interesting trail. When Liz got a divorce and married me she was exiled by her family. To make a long story short, Liz went back to school, got her CPA and eventually became President of her familyâ€™s oil company.

A woman who was a UCLA dance instructor gave the book to Lizâ€™s father sometime after they had met in Los Angeles. They frequented the same restaurant for breakfast. Her inscription to him was lovely. Then his inscription to Liz was, â€œTo my darling daughter and her wonderful husband.â€ My how times change.

Then along the trail came a Friday Harbor connection. Francie Hansenâ€™s mother had been a dancer in the UCLA dance production of The Family of Man which was created and directed by the woman who gave the book to lizâ€™s father. It is a small world.

The next stop on the trail will at some juncture, see it given to Lizâ€™s granddaughter Naomi, a dancer.

Just before we left Friday Harbor our dear friend, Susan Vernon, came by and in a very emotional exchange for all of us, gave us her treasured copy of Union Bay: The Life of a City Marsh. Union Slough had been a major birding area for Susan the years she lived here. That place and the book would for us become extra special treasures.

My good friend Brian Radar and I had many conversations about taking a place in really bad shape and shaping it up. We especially talked about what an important role very small things play in the Web of Life. He also knew I canâ€™t stand mushrooms. So the day before we left he arrived with his copy of Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World. Brian said, â€œI know you donâ€™t like mushrooms but this is important.â€ Indeed. I found it a page turner, especially the chapter on mushrooms as a mycopesticide.

For some years while in Friday Harbor I had tried to find a young African American who would treasure my forty year old collection of fine, substantive African American literature. I consider it to be the finest literature America has produced.

As soon as we arrived I contacted the American Ethnic Studies Department at UW. They put two Honor Students in contact with me and soon thereafter away they excitedly took ten boxes of books. I canâ€™t tell you I donâ€™t miss Sarah Laurence Lightfootâ€™s small book Respect. I do. But I also know that this small library of mine will feed the minds and imaginations of two exciting students.

I will not tell you that I dismiss electronic books. Liz voraciously reads mysteries on them. Yet I feel that there is something forever lost when we have given ourselves over to yet another electronic thing. Electronics, however useful, can never give us the sense of humanity without which we cannot live, that holding a book with a â€œtrailâ€ of its own can do. It has a history. It carries meaning. Never forget that is why dictators burn them. Long live the book -the real book.

(Ron Keeshan was an English major who is still hopelessly addicted to books.)

Accountability

I have been contemplating accountability for some time now. I think accountability is what a nation teaches its children.

It seems to me that the lack of accountability on every level is so profound I never knew where to start writing about it. I reckon one phase of it came into focus over the holidays when a high school classmate of mine send a Christmas letter saying that Bayles, who is on trial for murdering many Afghanistan civilians, is from my home town of Norwood, Ohio. I was appalled when the Army was asking for the death penalty.

From the beginning I have been dismayed at the total lack of accountability in our mid-east fiasco. Those with any sense of history knew well the axiom history has applied to Afghanistan: Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires.

Of course, history like other liberal arts has been out in our schools. Then there was the putting the cost of war â€œoff the booksâ€. That is a euphemistic way of saying, let our children and grandchildren pay for it. Some accountability. Part of what I remember best from that time was â€œFreedom Friesâ€ and â€œFreedom Breadâ€. Have a sour ring now donâ€™t they? But I say never, never forget them. They can be instructive in looking at the next war, which never seems far off.

Anyway there are so many examples of lack of unaccountability that hang over the Bayles trial it is hard to find space to enumerate them. I have been aghast at the number of redeployments these troops have endured. When do you lose it being recycled in and out of war where the mission keeps being changed?

Whatâ€™s the difference between some soldier that loses it and a drone that indiscriminately kills civilians (collateral damage)? How do you send soldiers into an area where they cannot tell the difference between friends and enemies? Did it ever, ever cross anyoneâ€™s mind that you can kill a person but you cannot kill an idea?

What will it take to rebuild what was not long ago the finest military in the world? When will we remember a military is trained to fight nation against nation and should not be caught in civil wars?

UNACCOUNTABILITY IS SYSTEMIC, ESPECIALLY EVIDENT IN THIS CASE. IT STARTS AT THE TOP AND WORKS ITâ€™S WAY TO THE BOTTOM. TO HOLD ONLY THE BOTTOM ACCOUNTABLE IS FRAUDULENT.

Well, I could go on and on about the loss of accountability. There are so many critical issues. Sending the troops off without proper equipment, a world-wide torture program, (which only touched a few lower ranks), recruiting with far lower standards, destruction of two of the greatest American documentsâ€"the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Convention. These will come home to haunt us.

I donâ€™t want to continue to go too far astray, just enough to put the Bayles trial in a larger perspective, which it certainly deserves. My years as a counselor come back to me in all this. So often I found that folks did not want to even look at, much less act upon, the trash that was affecting their lives. Ignore it and it will go away. Not so. The infection grows deeper. The same applies to a nation. Now we are talking about figuratively and literally burying a problem. Bury the person or the issue, throw a few shovels of soil on it literally or figuratively, and so much for the issues. For me this is a terrible injustice.

OK what do you do with someone like Bayles? I donâ€™t say this easily or glibly. You try to work with him in a way that he can be useful in talking to new troops about his experiences. This would take leadership which I do not now see, but failure to do so will just exacerbate the unaccountability.

(Ron Keeshan USN 1951-1955)

Health And Dogma

Liz and I go back a long way on issues with Catholicism and the American Constitutionâ€™s requirement of separation of Church and State. This issue has erupted on the island following the Peace Health agreement to merge with a larger medical group which supports the American Bishopâ€™s limits on womenâ€™s health care.

I can vividly remember back about four decades going into a surgeonâ€™s office and announcing -at least for me- that I was bringing an end to my contribution to the population explosion by joining the â€œV Clubâ€ (vasectomy).

He said something like, â€œFine, see you a week from Tuesday here in my office.â€ Seeing the puzzled expression on my face he glibly said, â€œCanâ€™t do it in the hospital. Catholic rules you know.â€ Grumbling loudly I said OK â€¦well, you know me, something more than that.

Liz was in a dark room late one night in that hospital for a â€œmedically necessaryâ€ tubal ligation when a dark figure, like something out of a Boris Karloff movie, quietly came into the room and asked her: â€œDo you want to talk about your decision? â€œNOâ€, was Lizâ€™s vehement reply. Lizâ€™s surgeon, a devout Roman Catholic with 11 children, was even angrier when Liz told him of her visitor.

Years later, Liz was Chairman of the Board of the LaSallian Brothers College of Santa Fe. The College mission was to help the poor kids of northern New Mexico get a college education. With difficulty she had personally held off the newly arrived wealthy residents from California and New York who tried to change the College into an exclusive â€œartsâ€ college.

Now comes the new Archbishop who was going to go to various classes to see how the recent Vatican Bull/letter/edict on the necessity of Catholic Colleges conforming to dogma was being implanted. (You will note I uncharacteristically made no editorial comments about the Bull.) Well, by golly the Board Chair would accompany him. A loud exhale from the classrooms was heard clear across town. Anyway, there were no repercussions from the visit. It was seen as a nice social visit. Gee whiz, power meets power when the Chairman of the Board, the President of a local oil and gas firm, walks in with the Archbishop.

When she retired from the Board, the Christian Brothers made her an Honorary Christian Brother. The only other woman who had been so honored at the time was Greer Garson who gave a theater to the College. Liz still has in her office the kind and lovely objects different Brothers gave her for her strong and loyal support.

Those of you who have followed my column may remember that I wrote a column strongly opposing the wannabe hospital on financial grounds. That still stands for me.

Later when the Catholic issue emerged I tried recruiting an opposition group. I got a lot of response that people were burned out with the annual bloody fight at the clinic and were bowing out. Then I learned that Swedish Medical Group joined with the Catholic medical group Providence Health and moved abortion services next door to Planned Parenthood. I blew a rod and Iâ€™ll bet my turbulent blood pressure showed it when I took a lengthy statement articulating my outrage at the assault on womenâ€™s rights and my own right to die rights to all MDs I dealt with. All assured me they would be my advocates, but my familiarity with Catholicism was not reassuring. This still remains to be seen.

I go back some sixty years when I wrote my senior high school thesis on the abuse of Catholic power. I used material from Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Their major battle then was nuns and brothers teaching in garb in northern New Mexico schools.

Their new organization is now called Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. They have an outstanding Executive Director, Barry W. Lynn. I urge the group questioning Catholic control of the medical center to contact them at:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
1301 K Street, N.W. Suite 850, East Tower, Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: 202-466-3244
E-Mail: americansunited@au.org .
Web site Address: www.au.org

A contract has already been signed between the islandâ€™s hospital board and Peace Health. Promises, written or otherwise are only enforceable when enclosed in a contract. A challenge might be the use of tax money for religious purposes. Now, make no mistake, the Catholics are prepared to subtly implement their agenda.

Mergers among hospitals have resulted in Catholic control of many former non-sectarian hospitals. This is an insidious, well orchestrated national power grab. For an excellent national overview of what has been happening see www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/08/1072479/-Expanding-Catholic-Hospitals-Put-R

So we are going back over a half century to fight cultural wars all over again. So be it. Personally I was deeply offended by George Foster calling those who wrote a substantive, articulate letter raising serious questions to the hospital board, â€œNuts.â€ His response represents a woeful lack of history of church-state relations, and it adds to the polarization on the island. More polarization is something we definitely did not need to increase on the island.

Our precious Constitution mandates the separation of church and state.

(Ron Keeshan believes that this nation was partially at least founded on the right to keep your religion free to function within the confines of your church and its community. To take it outside of that is to threaten the very democratic foundations upon which this nation was founded.)

Echo Chambers And Engines

When we came to the San Juan Island years ago we gave a very great deal of money to the Friends of the San Juans. Eventually our support lessened as we became disenchanted with the direction the organization was taking. During that time I would on a whim drop by and make suggestions to the Director on things I would like to see happen.

This happened on several occasions, but one I felt strongly about was getting the Friends staff out into the broad community, thus getting them out of talking to each other and hearing what was important in the community.

As usual the Director vociferously agreed and I left satisfied. Well, I followed the development of this and became seriously disconcerted with what I saw. So I marched in again and said. â€œHey, I thought you were going out into the community.â€ The rejoinder was a merry statement that they were happy now to be out with such organizations as the Marine Resources Committee. Uh, that was not what I had in mind.

They looked for an echo chamber to share mutual beliefs. I had in mind sitting down and listening to the people in what is still called by many the â€œDonut Shopâ€. This is where the working stiffs met each morning before heading out -the carpenters, electricians, plumbers and painters, --those fellows who need to draw a paycheck every week that supports a family.

This is the engine of the community. It is also many other things including the backbone of the middle class and American democracy. I guess it goes back to my roots as my parents were both factory workers. All my years of education never changed my mind on this. I wanted the Friends to listen to other peoples concerns; they chose an echo chamber.

Shift to the present and the proposed amendments to the CAO.

One of the local â€œmediaâ€ quoted Councilor Pratt that because they were â€œbeing attacked from both sides maybe means weâ€™re doing our jobs.â€

Reckon things never change. This is as shallow a piece of non-sense as I have run into in this whole debate. I immediately became vitally interested in this issue as soon as it began to surface. I also began to talk quietly to people on a one to one basis. Skip the organizations. I talked with â€œliberalsâ€, â€œlibertariansâ€, â€œconservativesâ€, â€œindependentsâ€ and those who admit no affiliation. There is no right and left. Sure the conservatives have lined up against it but they are joined by a lot of liberals.

I would suggest that the council members would have been doing their jobs if they had clearly identified the problems they planned to remedy with the update of the CAO and worked with all the stakeholders to find solutions that resolved those problems. In my life having everyone working together is a heck of a lot better than having everyone angry.

(Ron Keeshan learned many years ago that when locked in really nasty issues, it was invaluable to go out and sit one on one with the nastiest of the opposition. The first thing you find out is that neither side has a set of horns.)

Dialogue And Monologue

Polarization. Like it or not this is what the islands have unnecessarily locked themselves into for the foreseeable future. I think no one really wanted this but now it sits like an elephant in the living room. It is not going to go away even if the present group pushing the CAO down our throats thinks the opposition will soon tire of the struggle. That makes about as much sense as the proposed CAO itself. It has awakened thoughtful and substantive folks to real and totally unnecessary threats. The opposition is here to stay.

What I propose here is one way for folks to begin earnestly to talk with each other.

When I might have spent time working on grades and other (to me) unimportant things, I spent my time studying dialogue. I especially delved deeply into the work of a brilliant Jewish philosopher/theologian, Martin Buber. His seminal work, I and Thou, remains a world-wide classic. He did not just walk the walk. He built a home geographically on both Palestinian and Israel land.

The â€œThouâ€ refers to the other in a dialogue. To be a Thou one must be open, transparent, and vulnerable. In my part of the dialogue it means resisting arming my defenses, thus relaxing enough to genuinely hear what the other is telling me. Instead of concentration on how I am going to reply (and thus not hearing what is being said to me) I am secure enough to genuinely hear the other. If I cannot do that, I am treating the other as an â€œItâ€, discounting them as not worth listening to-something disposable.

All that is a plateful I know but it gets me to where I want to go here. Part of the depth of resentment I have of the Friends, County and State departments is the ever continuing feeling that I am an â€œItâ€ for them. I donâ€™t have the degrees, the experience, or the knowledge. As a matter of fact all of us out here are â€œItsâ€. So, I have to conclude that the Friends, County and State have been involved in a monologue.

The real test for practicing of dialogue is when you are challenged. This is the danger zone. Can I remain open or develop openness in spite of the differences. This is when it becomes difficult and I do not underestimate it. But it is the continuing journey to becoming human and each time one confronts the other, it gets a little easier to become part of I and Thou instead of remaining in the cocoon of I and It.

It does not feel good to be treated as an It. It is hard to continue to restrain myself from falling into the trap of vituperation in response to the utter callousness presented by the three aforementioned groups. I have to keep reminding myself that if I am not careful I can fall into the same trap. So long as I donâ€™t succumb to the worst I am able to see the shallowness that collectively pervades the three groups.

Over and over I have seen how any challenge to the established way things are to be done is seen as a personal assault and dismissed accordingly. I wonder anymore if anything can penetrate this bunker mentality.

I wonder if anyone is capable of stepping back and saying.â€ Gee, these people are upset because they see a genuine threat to everything they have spent their lives working for.â€ I have yet to see evidence that something like this could seep into the deepest realms inhabited by the monologue bunkers.

I want to go back a year or two. I had spent a lot of time studying the proposed plans for American Camp. Having spent ten years loving that area, I was livid at the proposals. Naively I had hoped others would join the fray. Such was not the case. Now comes, thanks to the Island Guardian, a posting from the Xerces Society this month lamenting that the spraying may have very well been the demise of the imperiled Marble butterfly.

The endorsement of the island â€œenvironmentalâ€ orgs of the National Park plans was when I really began to lose it with them. This was not what I understood environmentalism to be about.

A little later, a liberal acquaintance of mine came by to (condescendingly) assure me that the Park Director was a Viet Nam Vet and a good liberal. Huh? This is when I began to lose it with the old Democratic left that I think does not understand the brilliance of historic liberalism. This is not an ism set in concrete. It is a way of thinking openly as you travel down the road of history. This is what has been lost.

Well, back to the present. A perfect example is the Jim Slocomb (.doc 26\k file) letter. I donâ€™t know him and do not want to. Anyone who can call the mature, thoughtful folks addressing their concerns about the CAO as â€œstreet noiseâ€ has nothing, nothing to contribute to the dialogue.

On the other side of that is the material coming out of The Trojan Heron. Now I am not a scientist but if I study anything long enough I can grasp it. It is written substantively and talks to me like one adult to another. I hope the islands know what a treasure of wealth is flowing out of The Trojan Heron. Oh, if only I had access to it when I spent years trying to make sense of the irrelevant material flowing out of the Friends.

(Ron Keeshan states his "travels in the Navy, theology, the gem business and the environment opened him to a dialogue with lots of differing folks and made him a better person for it. It also helped leave behind a lot of baggage."

Unintended Consequences

Ten years ago Liz and I decided that it was necessary for us to transfer our medical care to Seattle. We had more energy a decade ago and coordinated medical care with season tickets to the ballet and theater groups. We also treated ourselves to Seattleâ€™s variety of food offerings.

Recently when each of us had two or three appointments in a day the trudge up Spring Street from down town Seattle was not as easy as it had been.

We noticed something else at the same time. More and more homeless were showing up, pushing their carts or lugging their back packs. The drug pushers and addicts began to become more evident.

More and more veterans showed up on the street. Also evident on our walk were the increasing numbers of mentally ill people. Each time we went up or down the street we paused to consider whether or not we should cross the street for a particular block. We quit walking through Freeway Park.

Mental illness in my family played a significant role in my life and in the life of my family. It impacted others worse than me but the scars remain deep for all of us. I slowly but surely adopted a philosophy of life the German philosophers call Weltsmertz. To me it means world sorrow. I somehow incorporated the pain in a way that gave me eternal siding with the hungry, the down- trodden, the sick, and especially the oppressed. Part of what I learned as a child was not to be afraid of the mentally ill.

Well, anyway back to Spring Street. As the changes made our walk more uncomfortable we started taking another route or driving. Where could people go who were hurting, hurting, hurting and no safety net. No solace except guns, gangs and narcotics. After all we have to invest in wars not people. We are engaged in throwing the sick, the elderly, the mentally ill and children over the cliff.

But the recent shooting on Spring Street following the Racer CafÃ© shootings is a warning call for us. Ending the social safety net has had, is having and will continue to have very unintended and deleterious consequences for our society and especially its hurting members. Think long and hard about this before casting a vote.

I know Reagan and the two Bushes relished junking the social safety net. That was their philosophy. So be it.

My contempt has always been for Clinton. He had the mind and the experience to know better. But what he did instead of working to strengthen the safety net was to adopt the political philosophies the â€œThird Wayâ€ and the â€œDemocratic Leadership Councilâ€ (better known as the Democratic Leisure Class), also known as Republican light.

Thatâ€™s when I really began to lose it with the Democrats. I am part of the one-third of the people who when contacted by pollsters say I need a third choice.

But as tax-money priorities get tighter and tighter there are also serious ramifications on the national front. The Seattle Times carried an important article on what happens when you dive seriously into the business of cutting taxes.

Colorado has probably had its most serious wildfire year to date. It cost the federal government an estimated eleven million dollars to fight the fire in Colorado Springs. Many lost belongings when their damaged homes were burgled because there were no police, the force having been disastrously cut.

You know, I have followed this anti-tax thing literally all my life. Where I have come down is Americans hate the federal government until they need it and then the feds canâ€™t do enough. So, I truly believe the needs in our society are becoming now more abundantly clear. But which direction will we go?

So what choices stand in front of us? More distribution of guns? More laws? Perhaps the miniature drones will help. (Well, the FRIENDS might be a customer to lease them.) I think any or all of this will only continue to edge us closer and closer to the National Security State.

We have two choices. One was articulated by one of the great songsters of my lifetime, Paul Simon, some years back. â€œI am a rock, I am an island, I build walls, a fortress deep and mightyâ€¦â€ Hmmm. Loved the songwriter, loved the song but I think it a condemnation of no way to live.

The other is a piece of literature that has stayed with me since I stumbled on it over fifty years ago, John Donneâ€™s XV11 Meditation: â€œ No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the mainâ€¦â€

Donneâ€™s philosophy has always guided me and always will.

(Ron Keeshan has had many incarnations including the US Navy, the ministry, and gemology but always cheers fine literature.)

Millerization

I wrote this column in my mind about a year and a half ago. It was after I attended a meeting discussing the necessity of all the changes proposed to the Critical Areas Ordinance.

The â€œguest of honorâ€ was Patty Miller, invited to address the issues because of her involvement with the issues going back to the San Juan Initiative. What interested me in the discussion was that Miller always studied the surface of the table when queried.

Ah body language, the great communicator. After I delivered a blast at bureaucrats from Olympia to the County who thought they knew more about our property than I had learned living on it for years, the group leader asked her where she thought the CAO was going. Ms. Miller carefully focused on the table and without any personal contact said that when the update was completed a lot of people were going to be unhappy. After the meeting I told the leader, â€œoh oh.â€

I intended to put this column up in late July after the so-called Council passed (gasp) the CAO update, but since The Trojan Heron has put up a truly splendid column beautifully articulating that we already have in fact passed it, now all weâ€™ll have is the fake ceremonialism.

Well, I am angry at this clueless, thoughtless power grab by power hungry bureaucrats and others. We need to corral those feelings and find out if there are enough people willing to stand up and face the steamroller. When the inevitable happens and the CAO update is implemented, we need to stand up and use the judicial system to protect our property rights.

Miller is going through the County like a wrecking ball. I believe this is her first electoral step and she will seek a â€œhigherâ€ office. Weâ€™ve seen that before. It is a big play and then on to the next level of election.

At stake is how the County will function in the future. We have a Council and a Council lady who simply pitch aside any opposition. Miller knew what she wanted and the so-called public process was a fake, a sop to tradition that was/is meaningless. How does it feel to be faked out?

How many new employees will it take to implement the â€œnew, improvedâ€ CAO? How will the taxpayers fund it?

Power has shifted away from the voters. We have a Council rubber stamping a FRIENDS of the San Juans agenda. Think about that for a moment.

In fact, we have a shadow elitist, non-governmental group taking over the County power structure. You know, the one thing you can guarantee about power is that it is insatiably hungry to get more power. It is never satisfied.

Feel the ground moving under you? The whole bunch thinks this will just blow over and all the ugly feelings will evaporate and they can get on with the next power play.

Part of the way the FRIENDS and others made this work was to characterize the opposition as hard right wing property and political groups.

I talked to people in all political groups who questioned the necessity of all the changes to the CAO. Of course what worked is a fear of being considered part of the hard right wing. Look at what those fears brought about. Well, wherever I went most people accepted me for what I was, a political liberal who could think for himself.

In another day and better health I would have given the old college try at pulling together Democrats who saw the CAO as unnecessary.

(Ron Keeshan - one of the things the diamond business taught me was that there was no substitute for trust, given the technicalities of the business. Running good government is like running a business. Trust builds a future. Stampeding your customers/constituents may work in the short time but it most assuredly builds distrust and alienation for the future. There are some bad omens here. Letâ€™s stand together and not permit a small organization with FRIENDS in high places frighten us out of defending our property rights.)