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Page A-4 Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020
COVID isn’t done with him
columns in October 2017,
and not once — not once
in 156 straight weeks —
have I written the words
“Donald Trump.”
I usually don’t leap on
dogpiles.
Instead, I’ve written
about boy baristas, Darn
Tough Socks, gluten-free
bacon, a female taxider—
mist, Hello Kitty tattoos,
trilliums, Howard Hughes, taxes in
Sweden, poets, trampolines, Olympic
Mountain Ice Cream, skiing in North
Korea, blueberry fields, mountain
goats, Irene Bowling, paprika, Harry
Truman in Mason County, Shelton
quilters, inking eyes, plastic straws,
McMicken Island, chanterelles, un-
employment fraud, local farmers,
law-flaunting sheriffs, a Mongolian
high school reunion, PUD 1 founder
Morrison F. Pixley, spontaneous sex
reversal, the Bayshore Preserve,
tongues, a gun show, Attila the Hun,
“Jaws,” freedom masks, the coro-
navirus, H. Parry Jones, migrating
chum, and a city planner in North
Carolina named Kirk Ericson.
I’ve chosen not to let Trump bur—
row too far under my skin, and I’ve
chosen to provide mostly Trumpless
reading for readers.
He slinked into a few columns as
a bit player. He’s appeared as “the
current occupant of the Oval Office,”
“this guy” and “President T_ _ _ ,”
and once I called him “Captain Cha-
os,” but I’ve been restrained, mostly
because words and facts apparently
have limited value in moving people
off their adoration of this preening
beauty king who has the stability of
a dull chainsaw.
But now ballots have been mailed
to Mason County’s registered vot-
ers and the name Donald Trump
waits next to a little square box to be
judged. So let’s judge Donald Trump.
And let’s judge him on this virus
that has yet to “magically disap-
pear,” as he predicted nearly eight
months ago. ‘
I always thought magic worked
faster.
He claims that if he wasn’t presi-
dent U.S. deaths would be more than
million, if we can believe that he
believes what he said he believes in
the first presidential debate: “If you
were here,” he told Joe Biden, “it
wouldn’t be 200,000 people, it would
be million people.”
First, he confirms that 200,000
people have died from COVID-19,
which must be news to some fellow
Istarted writing these
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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Shelton—Mason
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Published weekly by the Shelton-Mason County Journal
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Telephone: 360-426—441 2
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By KIRK
ERICSON
conspiratorialists. Second,
the death toll in the US,
with 4% of the world’s popu-
lation, would be TWICE as
much as what it currently is
for 100% of the planet?
As Joe Biden would say,
“C’mon, man! So, here’s the
deal ”
If Trump was a pitcher
who was yanked in the first
inning after surrendering
215,000 runs, he’d blame his
loser infielders, insult his fat slob
of a coach, call the umpire a major—
league deadbeat, point to a guy
wearing a chef’s hat in the stands,
and then insist the fake media can’t
admit that any other pitcher would
have given up million runs in the
first inning. We’ve seen this shtick
repeatedly in the past four years.
One thing he wouldn’t do is work
harder to become a better pitcher.
We know ardent Trump sup-
porters don’t hold him accountable
for what he says or writes or does
or thinks, but let’s press on. Let’s
go back a few years to the Ebola
outbreak of 2014, when fear of that
virus spreading in the US. sent
Trump scurrying to his Twitter ma-
chine.
Looking back at his tweets, we
’ learn that a virus that erupts when
he isn’t president is an extremely
serious matter. Here are the Trump
tweets from October of 2014:
“Ebola has been confirmed in
N.Y.C., with officials frantically
trying to find all of the people and
things he had contact with. Obama’s
fault.”
Shortly afterward, Trump tweet-
ed, “I have been saying for weeks for
President Obama to stop the flights
from West Africa. So simple, but he
refused. A TOTAL incompetent!”
A few days later, Trump tweeted,
“All the governors are already back-
ing off the Ebola quarantines. Bad
decision that will lead to more may-
hem.”
One person in the United States
died of Ebola in 2014. Let’s pin that
death on Obama, but 215,000 dying
on Trump’s watch from a virus is a
success? What multiplier can you
add to the phrase “TOTAL incompe-
tent” in 2014 before you get an accu-
rate measure of Trump’s competency
in 2020?
How about this equation: “TOTAL
incompetent” multiplied by 215,000.
We’ve seen Charlatans like Trump
before. In my birth town of Spokane, ,
see TIME—S, page A-5
The Shelton-Mason County Jour-
nal is a member of the Wash-
Publisher: Tom Mullen
EDITOR’S CHAIR
An award-winning team
hen it comes to
bringing the news
to you, our faithful
Mason County readers, it’s
truthful to say that the whole
is greater than the sum of the
parts.
The Shelton—Mason Coun-
ty Journal has been fortunate
Shelton and for an emotional
image of family members re-
acting to a baptism.
Editorial page columnist
Kirk Ericson won awards
related to his “These Times”
column series.
Lastly — because I hate
writing about myself —— I was
to have had some pretty By JUSTIN fortunate to be chosen by the
good parts during its storied JOHNSON WNPA as Sports Writer of
134-year history, and Friday the Year.
night the Journal’s staff saw
its current efforts rewarded during the
Washington Newspaper Publisher’s
Associations annual Better Newspa-
per awards announcement. In total,
the Journal won 21 awards from the
WNPA, which boasts more than 100
members throughout the state. News-
paper staff from other states’ associa-
tions judges the contest each year. The
New York Press Association judged
this year’s WNPA entrants.
Journal reporter Gordon Weeks
received several awards. His investiga-
tive reporting on the City of Shelton’s
toxic C Street dump and an education
profile of Shelton School District
Superintendent Alex Apostle earned
first place in their respective cat-
egories. His coverage of the Shelton
district’s transformative construc-
tion projects prior to the start of the
2019-2020 school year and a personal-
it’y profile of Steph Fyfe —— owner of-
Steph’s Espresso in Shelton who
overcame drug addiction and related
problems to forge a new life of service
to others also earned awards ‘
Journal photographer Shawna
Whelan earned first place awards for
a breaking news photo of firefight-
ers battling a house fire in downtown
nwn',
Front office:
Dave Pierik, Office Administrator
Karen Hranac, Customer Service
ington Newspaper Publishers Advertising:
Association. John Lester, General Manager
Theresa Murray, Ad Representative Delivery:
SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Jon Garza
$62 per year ($43 for six months) Newsroom: David Olson
for Mason County addresses and
$75 per year ($55 for six months)
outside of Mason County.
Owned and published by
Shelton-Mason County Journal, lnc.
Justin Johnson, Editor
Gordon Weeks, Reporter
Kirk Ericson. Columnist/ Proofreader
Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter
Isabella Breda, Reporter
Niel Challstrom
Composing room:
Quoting the judges’ com-
ments: “Justin Johnson is a pure sto-
ryteller. He gives you the sights and
sounds to put you right in the middle
of the story. Justin gets your attention
right away and keeps you there appre-
ciating the subject until the end. Clear
winner in this category.”
Gee, who knew there were onions in
the newsroom?
My sports story on Shelton High
School’s bowling team during the
3A state championship in February
earned first place in sports news and
a related photo also earned an award.
Our sports page design surrounding
the annual Mason County Cup football
game between Shelton and North Ma-
son high schools also earned an award.
The WNPA’s awards program cov-
ers every facet of newspaper making.
Awards given for advertising, special
sections, writing, photography and
page design. .
. I’m definitely proud to be a part of
this award-winning team.
I Justin Johnson is the Editor of the
Shelton-Mason County Journal. He
can be reached by email at justin@
masoncounty.com.
Design:
Lloyd Mullen, Creative Director
All regular editorial, advertising
and legal deadlines are 5 pm. the
Monday prior to publication.
To submit a letter to the editor,
email editor@masoncounty.com.
William Adams, Advertising
Design and Technical Support
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