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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
April 16, 2020     Shelton Mason County Journal
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April 16, 2020
 
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. Installed iron bars on the Page A-4 Shelton-Mason County Journal — Thursday, April 16, 2020 (M TIMES Thinking in thefuture tense thought has been ping- ' pongingin my brain since the beginning of the Great Isolation (name patent pend- ing): If we could be transported six months into the future, what will we have wished we had done today to prepare for the world to come? Six months from now, will we have wished we had bought 25 pounds of lentils six months earlier? Fled to British Columbia? windows? Started read- ing the collected works plans to ease or eliminate the ef- fects of those problems. I don’t mind paying taxes. What I’m doing with my taxes is, besides paying for admission to the movie, is paying the govern- ment to plan, which I'do not what to do. I want government to take money out of my paycheck and give it back to me when I’m retired so I can plan less; I want government to plan how to preserve natural re- sources; and I want the government to plan how to lessen the effects of any of William Shakespeare? By KIRK highly contagious and Ensured that the old ERICSON lethal viruses that infest couple across the street our people. had enough food? Climbed Mount Ellinor? How about food, ammo and toi- let paper? ' I have no clue. Preparing for the future is hard, kind of like imagining meeting your daugh- ter’s first boyfriend. Talk about your uncertain times While the future can be misty, an effective way to approach the unknowingness of the future is to imagine multiple possibilities and then prepare for each one. For instance, in last week’s Shelton- Mason County Journal, county Auditor Paddy McGuire wrote a column about what his office has done to prepare for the April 28 special election — the county’s first since the coronavirus shut us down. ' “Election ofiicials prepare and plan for things to go wrong,” McGuire wrote. “We think about the weather, things like bliziards and flooding. We think natural disasters, earthquakes, and since we’re in Washington, volcanoes. ' We think about Backhoe Bob and what happens if we lose power a or internet connectivity. And we make plans to deal with those is- sues so that we count your ballots accurately no matter what.” The county auditor’s office didn’t plan for the coronavirus, he wrote, but “... our planning is very useful in that we know what resources are available and know how to adapt to changing circum- stances.” ' What McGuire did is precisely what we need government work- ers to do. We want government employees to be smart enough and insightful enough to imagine future problems and then have Journal USPS 492-800 POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Shelton-Mason County Journal, PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Published weekly by the Shelton—Mason County Journal at 227 W. Cota St, Shelton, Washington. Mailing address: PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584 Telephone: 360-426-4412 Many of our federal politicians and state governments clearly didn’t plan for that last one. Being No. 1 in the world for COVID-19 deaths is all the evi- dence we need for a conviction, and the loud, proud and viral . ignorance of some of those politi- cians elevates their negligence to a crime in the first degree. Kings, queens, pharaohs, presidents and prime ministers have lost thrones and heads for less. What we needed — and still could use — is someone who had the authority, foresight and com- passion to overprepare us for this virus, not someone who would tell us the problem would disappear like magic. Even if the virus magi- cally did peter out, which it magi- cally did not, overpreparing still was the right move. For instance, much time and money was spent building that field hospitalin that Seattle sta- dium, the one where they used to play professional football, to handle any overflow of COVID-19 cases. The overflow cases didn’t materialize and the hospital was dismantled, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong to build that field hospital. It’s better to have a field hospi- tal and not need it than to need a field hospital and not have it. Back in the 1970s, being a “futurist” was kind of a hip thing to be. Futurists were people who contemplated what humans . needed to thrive in the future. One such futurist was Edward Lindaman, who was the president of Whitworth College in my home- town of Spokane from 1970 to see TIMES, page A-5 nal is a member of the Wash- ington Newspaper Publishers Association. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $52 per year ($43 for six months) for Mason County addresses and $75 per year ($55 for six months) outside of Mason County. ' v Owned and published by The Shelton-Mason County Jour— Adam Rudnick, editor in chief ' ing about COVID—19, here’s a palate cleanser — the osprey have returned to nest. As they have since2017 the first year Mason PUD 3 discovered an osprey nest on top of one of the utility’s power poles — osprey are nesting, cackling and taking in the views. But the osprey do not fear electro- cution from the nearby power lines anymore because PUD crews installed a 90-foot pole and a 4-foot-by-4-foot nest- ing platform nearby so the large birds have their own space 30 feet higher than their previous nest. Staff hoped it would keep the birds off PUD structures, and so far it’s worked. It’s worked so well, that PUD 3 in- , stalled two webcams for the public to watch the osprey, which the US. Fish and Wildlife Service lists as a protected spe- cies under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Osprey are fish-eating raptors that are found along shorelines .and open marshes in coastal regions, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. They usu— ally nest on navigational structures, but now use cell towers, transmission lines, cranes and other manmade structures. Osprey are perhaps best known as be- ing the unofficial mascot of your favorite local team, the Seattle Seahawks. Since 2018, PUD 3 has tracked os- In case you’re getting tired of read- prey in the nest. It’s posted when the. male and female arrive each year, when they mate and nest, and when they Turnyoureyes to theskies leave the nest each year. At a.m. April 5, the male os- prey, named Griffin, made his first appearance of A week later, the female, Penny, arrived just in time for Easter Sunday. Typically adults arrive at their nests from their wintering seasons during March, according to Fish and Wildlife Services. Egg laying and incubation takes place in April, and rearing of young happens from Maythrough June. Fledging — or birds developing wing feathers and learning to fly —— takes place in July and August, with birds migrating to Central and South America by September. . . That schedule suits the local osprey as ,well, according to PUD 3. The utility tracks those details, and offers resi- dents alive glimpse at the birds via two webcams on its website www.pud3,org/ osprey. ‘ ' On Tuesday, the two birds, cackling back and forth, sat in the nest as the wind ruffled their feathers in the mom- ing sun. It’s tough to experience nature right now, with so many local, state and fed— eral lands closed due to the coronavirus.- But nature is still out there —— since it’s a little harder to see these days, we recommend turning up the volume and watching the birds for a few minutes. It’s a reminder that life —— as well as the natural world around us will go on after COVID-19. Mason PUD 3 designed this special platform attached to a 90-foot pole to be used as an osprey nest after an osprey nest was found on a power pole. Crews erected a 90-foot pole and built the platform, and osprey moved their nest to the nearby platform. Screen shot from Mason PUD webcam Journal Letter Policy The Journal encourages original letters to the editor of local interest. Diverse and varied opinions are welcomed. We will not publish letters that are deemed libelous or scurrilous in nature. All letters must be signed and include the writer’s name, address and phone number, which will beused for verification purposes only. All letters are subject to editing for length, grammar and clarity. To submit a letter, email adam@mascncounty.com or mail it to PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Until further notice, please do not drop off letters at the Journal office. Publisher: Tom Mullen Front office: Dave Pierik, circulation and Advertising: classifieds manager John Lester, general manager Theresa Murray, ad representative Delivery: Jon Garza Newsroom: David Olson Niel Challstrom Gordon Weeks, reporter Justin Johnson, sports/outdoors editor Kirk Ericson, columnist/ proofreader Lloyd Mullen, photo editor technical support All regular editorial, advertising and legal deadlines are 5 pm. the . Monday prior to publication. To submit a letter to the editor, email adam@masoncounty.com. Composing room: William Adams, advertising and Website: www.masoncounty.com Shelton-Mason County Journal, lnc. Periodicals postage paid in Shelton, Washington.