Who Are These Zealots?

Who are these zealots who sit around thinking up this stuff? (Zealot: fanatically passionate about a cause, such as restricting government’s roles to defending its citizens against foreign threats and invasion and protecting free use of private property, leaving social services and education to charities, willing communities, and private citizens.)

Who are these ideologues who believe scholarships for dreamer kids threaten the rights of native-born students? (Ideologue: a person who strongly advocates for and is deeply committed to a particular system of ideas.) 

Who are these jingoists who believe the role of schools and monuments is to foster uncritical thinking about America’s unblemished behavior and beauty, banishing historic truths about slavery, Japanese internment, treatment of Indigenous tribes. and observance of treaties? (Jingoist: someone who expresses extreme patriotism and believes that one's country is inherently superior and has a right to assert itself forcefully on others.)

Who are these libertarians who believe progressive taxation imposes on individual liberty, penalizes productivity and initiative, and fosters class discord. (Libertarian: a person who believes personal freedom of action, association, and belief comes before all else, including community and commonwealth; who believes government has no right to infringe on utilization of owned property or behavior that does no harm to others.)

Who are these Populists who elevate the wisdom of common folk and disdain or dismiss expertise and elite qualifications. (Popullist: one who caters to the mass population and postures as anti-establishment and anti-elitist (no matter how wealthy they become while doing so.) 

Certainly, Trump does not lay awake at night thinking up these radical ways of tearing down institutions that have well served we Americans for 150 years or more. Who are these zealots, anyway? Well, there’s Russell Vought, head of Office of Management and Budget and chief author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. He has said that only Christians should hold government positions and has condemned Muslims as anti-Christian. He favors making it easier to fire civil servants, despite The Civil Service Act’s protections against politicization.

There’s Stephen Miller, former Communications Director for segregationist Sen./A.G.Jeff Sessions, and now Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and the United States Homeland Security Adviser. Miller is chief architect of the Muslim Ban and Immigrations' family separation tactic. There’s Doug Burgum, Secretary of Interior, who wants to slash environmental regulations and encourages oil drilling on public lands. There’s Lee Zeldin, a global warming skeptic who wants to roll back climate protection regulations while serving as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency! There’s Paul Dans, Project Director of Project 2025, who believes in loyalty tests for government positions and has amassed a personnel list of “deep state” suspects. There’s Chris Wright (no, not our musical friend Chris Wright, but Sect. of Energy Chris Wright) who believes in energy exports, helped freeze Inflation Reduction Act funds for infrastructure, and opposes subsidies for renewable energy projects. There's RFK, Jr. who believes in scientist conspiracies and folk remedies, and disbelieves data-based evidence on wellness and illness.

And so it goes. Trump has surrounded himself with zealots, radicals who seek to tear down, displace, destroy institutions and legal structures and precedents that have served us well for five generations. These aren’t small-d democrats, neither are they the kind of progressive conservatives I wish we had more of. These are malevolent voices to which Trump gives ear. God deliver us from ideologies, from jingoism, libertarianism, populism, and all the other isms (Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Fundamentalism, Sexism, Authoritarianism, Nationalism, etc., etc.) that seek to cloud the minds of rational humanists.(Yes, I know; rationalism. It takes an exception to make the rule. No one can charge me with perfectionism.)

Ya picks yer poison and ya takes yer chances . . .

The Primary race for King County Executive is a microcosm of what is bedeviling Democrate all across the country: is it time for young voices espousing rather bold changes in social systems and priorities, or should Democrats stay with trusted, familiar, moderate voices that might make Independents and moderate Republicans more comfortable? King County is a perfect model for what is happening in New York with mayoral candidates Cuomo vs Mamdani. On the national level, you’ve got AOC pushing both Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. In Arizona’s 7^th, it’s Foxx, 25, vs Grijalva, 54. In California’s 11^th and 22^nd the same pattern is emerging. And here in our own King County (the nation’s 14^th largest, BTW) we have Girmay Zahilay, 38, battling it out with Claudia Balducci, 57.

To some of my friends, Girmay is a vibrant, articulate leader with sound values, bold vision for the future, and empathy for those in need. He has raised money and garnered impressive endorsements. To others of my friends, he is a show horse up against the work horse Balducci: former mayor of Washington’s 5^th largest city, former state corrections chief, King County Council member, with a track record of delivering results.  

Ours is a top-two system; it’s quite likely that these two Democrats of two different generations will be on the General Election ballot in November. So, the core question may be which one has the best chance of winning it all in the fall.

Ann and I have voted already because we are off Thursday for summer school at Cambridge University. It turns out we have cancelled each other’s vote. So, there it is . . .

. . . ya picks yer poison and takes yer chances.   

Remove Barrietrs to the American Dream

During our trip in Germany (see tomorrow), I saw a bit of Trump through European eyes and thought about how to beat these guys in '26 and '28. Removing Barriers is still sound but let's reinforce it with an added plank: Removing Barriers To The American Dream, barriers which Trumpenomics is imposing on middle class households: 

• increased costs of imported necessities (e.g., vegetables, diapers, underwear, school clothes, batteries);
• increased cost of student loans;
• closure of technical and community colleges;
• increased costs of autos;
• increased costs of lumber for building homes;
• increased costs for solar and wind power;
• loss of medicare and medicaid coverage;
• increased cost of imported pharmaceuticals;
• closure of small town hospitals;
• closure of public TV-affiliated local stations and their news, weather, and Sesame Street; 

--- and many more obstacles that Trumpenomics is imposing right now on Middle Class America.  

Removing Barriers to the American Dream 

That should be our banner. And note: no talk about elite colleges and university grants, infectious disease research, foreign aid, USAID, tax cuts for the wealthy, income disparity, cult of personality, privacy, freedom of speech, interest rates, deficits, and all that admittedly very important stuff we care about: talk to the middle class about their daily lives. Talk up the backbone of America,

Removing Barriers

CNN: “Democratic Party’s favorability drops to a record low”

The papers and newcasts are filled with Democrats’ angst. A CNN poll finds that “less than two‑thirds of Democrats have a positive view of the Democratic Party” right now. There is no acknowledged party leader. Some columnists call for a swing to liberal (read extreme) solutions to persistent problems and  inequities. Others call for aggressive attacks on Trumpism. Still others call for humility and more empathetic listening. Some say we need to erase symbols of elitism and expertise. Some say it’s message that needs attending to; others, policies and programs: saying vs. doing.

Back in the 2016 election, I suggested a positioning of the Democratic Party that encompasses both saying and doing. Neither Clinton nor Adam Smith nor the DNC nor Nancy Pelosi responded to my suggestion but I am undeterred, like a child Herald to the Dark Tower keeps coming. I made a successful career “positioning” products, services, and not-for-profit enterprises, i.e., articulating mission, developing product, creating awareness, and seeding beliefs. I mean by positioning the place you hold in the brain of your prospective customer, donor, or voter relative to that they hold about your competitor: in political terms, what the voting public believes “Democrat” means relative to Conservative, Libertarian, Republican, or whomever.

I want our party to narrow its focus to removing barriers both in what we talk about and in the proposals we espouse. What barriers? Barriers to education. Barriers to housing. To health care. To voting.

Nothing more; forget railing against Musk and Trump, against billionaires, against opponents of same-sex marriage and proponents of abortion bans, against corporations and Citizens United. Debate taxation and immigration, EU/Nato and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, deficits and national debt only in response to challenge. Initiate and steer conversation to what matters to American families, to what impedes their attainment of better lives for themselves, their children, and grandchildren: access to affordable education, access to affordable housing, affordable and accessible healthcare, and easy voting registration and participation.

We should become the Party of Removing Barriers: barriers to Education, to Housing, to Healthcare, to Voting. Simple, persistent, policy priorities and a simple message to grasp and relate to.

We Create an Idyll to Greet Spring and Open Summer

Summer for Ann and me is shaping up crazy-busy: Dresden, Leipzig, and Berlin this month; the Seattle Chamber Music Summer Festival next; then in August, summer school at Cambridge University and a brief post-school stay in London. You’d think we’d welcome spring here at home enjoying the azaleas and rhodies.

But no, we decided to trade city life for five days on our favorite other island, San Juan, keystone of the San Juan Islands of the Salish Sea. There on Haro Straight so close to the border that your cell phone signal comes from Canadian cells and Comcast bills you for international roaming and one has to protest to get it rectified and you know how cable companies are. . . whatever.

The island was its peaceful, bucolic self, almost empty in this week after the Memorial Day rush and with schools still in session. We had the hills and beaches to ourselves and restaurants were sparsely booked.

We stayed again at Lakedale, in a second-floor lodge room with jacuzzi, fireplace, and balcony looking out over the lake. The water’s edge all around was aflame with Flag iris. 

Lakedale 

Lakedale is ten minutes from Friday Harbor, the largest of the islands’ towns, and six minutes from Roche Harbor with its posh marina, restaurants, the venerable Hotel Haro, historic Roche Lime and Cement works, a marvelous sculpture park, and kayak and camping outfitters. Just down the road lies English Camp, with its trails and blockhouse and officer’s graveyard. (Where are the Tommies buried?)

After breakfast, Ann volunteered to row while I fly cast for bass. But nothing. Not even a rise from the lilypads, vivid with yellow lilies opening up, where a lunker had gulped in my favorite deer hair frog a couple of years ago, and then lodged herself in the iris so firmly that I had to break off, losing both it and her. But nothing, I switched to casting wet flies for trout and got only three soft takes from very small guys. But, great to be on the water in the breeze-less sun.

Merlin, the cell phone bird song identifier from Cornell’s ornithology labs detected all sorts of residents. Don’t have it? If you care about birds, get it (App store, it’s free.) It’s frustrating fun because it tells you what bird is there though for the life of you, you can’t see it. Merlin and we heard the usual suspects but he also picked up unusual ones – for us – as western flycatchers; warblers, including the yellow, the yellow-rumped, and the orange-crowned; red-breasted sapsuckers; and red crossbills. No barred owls, though, as we have here at home. (Mustn’t tell Trump that Cornell is for the birds.)

We dined well (and drank well, too.) After cocktails and backgammon on our deck or down on the water’s edge deck, we’d head out: Vinny’s, for Italian, the Downrigger for clams, mussels, chowders, and bisques; McMillins for fancy dining with great service and audacious prices; Westcott Bay for a briny oyster lunch;  The Bluewater for lunch of black bean soup and calamari; and – best of all – Roach Harbor’s Madrona Bar and Grill with its imaginative Asian-fusion touches to most entrees.

We celebrated Ann’s birthday at McMillins, with great service and care from Lauren and Grace, Alabama sisters by way of Booth Bay Harbor (go figure) and a grand nine-year-old Heitz cab courtesy of George and Annie L. The meal itself wasn’t that special, but the evening was despite two hinkies. First, my gift was too close to jewelry Ann already has. I had inventoried her jewelry cabinet while she was out at a WUC meeting, but it turned out she was wearing the pieces so I didn’t catch the match.

The second comes with Roche Harbor, like it or not – and I don’t. I object to being pandered to with their daily, faux-patriotic, evening retreat ceremony: dock-hands marching out four-abreast to lower flags – Canadian and US – to scratchy recorded tracks of Oh Canada, Retreat, and Sousa’s Washington Post March which has nothing whatever to do with military ends-of-day. Ann isn’t offended by all this condescending kitsch, but then she wasn’t in the military and also doesn’t attend, busy with timing the sun's disc from touching on to disappearing below the horizon and wondering why it appears slower here than in Costa Rica. Who knew?

Saturday showers: we walked Friday Harbor’s thin farmers’ market; it needs Steve E’s help. Then we took refuge in the San Juan Museum of Art, a lovely pocket-size museum with three shows. We were blown away by Andy Eccleshall’s studies of light on Northwest lands. Stunning oils at reasonable prices. His studio is in Edmunds. Despite Ann’s “NO MORE ART!” resounding through my skull, I intend to visit him.

We walked South Beach, below American Camp. Ann vigorously climbed the hill above Cattle Point for her three-mile hike while I took my three-quarter trudge along the shore. Afterward, a picnic behind the ramparts of driftwood wrack. A picnic with a very good First Sight sauvignon blanc from Brandon A’s and his Dad's collection of wineries.

From atop the hill we spotted a whale holding position and spouting regularly; probably a grey but too far out in the Straight to be sure. S/he broached for us, first time I’ve ever seen a real broaching, albeit through binoculars. We kept tags on it while spotting seals closer in. At Lime Kiln Point State Park harbor dolphins cruised offshore. On the drive back to Lakedale, a fox crossed ahead of us and signs cautioned kits were about. Curiously, we saw only a single deer in five days on the island; we’ve got more than that here on our island.

Never turned on the TV. We read the papers over breakfast, talked, read books, and happily bickered (our favorite sport) while luxuriating in affectionate companionship. It was an idyllic way to welcome spring and summer. Northern lights were predicted but past our bedtime. Snuggling into the king-size bed was akin to the luxury of having the playground all to yourself but then, getting lonely for a playmate. We wriggled across the empty space to cuddle together in warm duality.  

One disturbing observation: the prevalence of the obese, whether locals or tourists. They’re everywhere! I’m not body-shaming; this is a health crisis. We no longer have restaurants, airplanes and office buildings filled with smokers. Over two generations, through public education, regulation, and promotion, the US has driven our smokers to under ¼ of the adult population. More still to go: Sweden is 10% points lower. So, why can't we do the same for obesity? Fat is no less a health issue than tarry smoke, both for the fat ones and for the rest of us we who pay for Medicare and insurance. Query: are political positions correlated with body mass index just as they are with educational attainment?

Monday: quiche at the Bakery, a wait for the ferry which smoothly crossed and didn’t falter. We took the long way home, stopping in Le Connor for lunch in the Pub, with the locals. The crabbing fleets, both Swinomish and Anglo, were gearing up for their 36-hour season of commercial crabbing. Thirty-six hours: that’s it. Then individual citizen have a few days at them. Short season? Dungeness are scarce this year. Are we over-heating the oceans?

Nevertheless, spring has sprung, the grass has riz and we know where the birdies is -- right here in our precious Northwest.

A gallery: you have to read the text to make sense of it. Click one to enlarge the group.

Andy Eccleshall: light on Northwest lands

Cattle Point

L-5: fireplace, jacuzzi, balcony, fridge

Flag lilies

A room with a view

Jakle's lagoon, San Juan Channel, & Mt. Baker 

L-5's balcony, facing west  

Lakedale's living room

The Birthday Girl, McMillans, & Heitz

On the Madrona Bar & Grill deck

A room with another view

South Beach 

Haro Straight, CA poppies, & Hurricane Ridge

Wescott Bay Oyster Farm at low tide

This morning, I was awakened at 3:15, 4:30, and 6:00 to have blood drawn, vitals taken, and at six a catheter removed by those diligently watching over me at Overlake Hospital, in Bellevue, WA. While awaiting release and for Ann to come and retrieve me, I drafted this letter which will be posted tomorrow to Jon Duarte, CEO of Overlake Medical Center and Michele Curry, Chief of Nursing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Ms. Curry and Mr. Duarte:

Lying in a bed with a catheter up one’s pecker is hardly pleasant, but I commend your staff who work their butts off to make it so. I came into your emergency room on Thursday night, May 9^th, having begun to pass blood in my urine. The receptionist checked me in proficiently and cordially and an ER nurse quickly took me in hand. I was chagrined to have an accident in the men’s room, soiling its floor and myself, but she without missing a beat reassured me and got me into an ER room. (I wish I could recall her name, but I was a wee bit distracted, as you can imagine.)

I was in professional, caring hands. Dr Alex Lambert was the attending ER Physician; he calmed my wife and me with his demeanor and assurance that mine was a frequently seen situation with older men blessed with an enlarged, angry prostate. I spent the night in ER and next day was admitted to the hospital’s West building, 3^rd floor short-stay ward. During my not-so-short, three-day stay, I interacted with nurses, aides, PAs, imaging techs, and others; all (with one exception who appeared to be having a bad day) were pleasant, professional, proficient, and caring.

A word about my interest in the management and delivery of services: half my career was in consumer marketing of products; the second half, in marketing, teaching, and consulting on development and delivery of consumer services in hospitality industries. So, I was watching through both a patient’s eye and a professional’s eye.

What impresses me is how hard and effectively your staff, especially the nursing crews, worked to make my stay, given the circumstances, as pleasant as possible. What strikes me is how much they enjoy and trust one another; I could overhear the chatter and laughter from the bull pen. Clearly, they like their teammates. In my experience, the coherence, mutual trust, and affinity within a service worker team reinforces their sense of responsibility and the quality of their delivery. That doesn’t just happen: it takes a commitment by senior management to lead, not merely manage; to encourage; to share information[1]; and to be accessible.

There are too many names to keep straight: Hannah, Josh, Anna, Nancy, Goodness, Tyler , Pam, “T” -- and too many more to remember. But one who stands out among all these competent and empathetic employees is RN Sarah, who appears ready to return to school, to leave real estate investment behind, and to earn her Nurse Practitioner quals. Sarah is a real keeper among the many. I also have great confidence in Urologist Dr. Elizabeth Miller.

Congratulations to you both. This was not my nor my wife’s first experience with Overlake: we each recovered from knee replacements there, rehab, shoulder surgeries, etc. You and your staff have created a fine, patient-focused institution. Whatever you’re doing, especially with nursing staff, you’re apparently doing it right.

Sincerely,

Fletch Waller

PS: The food is not up to the standards set by your care team – but I’m sure you know that. You’re not alone: in my work in and with hotels, resorts, and retirement homes, if we stubbed our toes, it was more often than not on food quality and F&B performance. How customers do love to natter about food, probably the #1 subject of hotel and resort complaints.

PPS: Subsequent to having drafted this letter while awaiting release, I was walked out by RN Miranda. She’s been with you a month. I asked her what surprised her the most. After reflecting for a moment, she said the reception by her team, who has embraced her as companion and teammate. She said it was so unique compared to other hospitals she worked in. I was delighted to have my observation about Overlake’s strong team culture confirmed.

[1] At Westin, we established weekly management and quarterly employee NETMA sessions – Nobody Ever Tells Me Anything – to shine light on facts and strangle rumors in their cribs.

Intangible Exchanges: One Small-Stepping in South King County

Judie had asked me to accompany her on one of her conversations ‘tween urban and not-so urban, her one-woman campaign to listen and lessen gulfs of misunderstanding separating Americans, one from another.

Judie and I headed southeast-ward but my navigation was woeful. I missed 169, the highway we planned to take from I-405, then missed the left exit to 167 south to Kent, finally blundered down I-5 to east-bound 516. By now, Judie was having second thoughts about having invited me. We also missed turns off 516, passing through new residential developments, some town-house and multi-family, relatively “affordable” housing aimed at service workers and lower middle income families being priced out of the Seattle metro area. Others were clusters of single-family houses, not exactly McMansions but roomy dwellings on roomy lots. Clearly this part of King County, Washington’s largest, home to 2.3 millions and core of greater Seattle’s metro area, was undergoing its own rapid change.

Finally, 516 dumped us out onto the western fringe of our target: Black Diamond, Washington, a town up 46% from one census to the last. Here and from Newcastle to its north had been dug out the coal that gave the two towns their names and had fueled the steam-driven mills Yessler and others had built on the shore of Elliot Bay, nuclei of a village named Seattle after Chief Sea-ahth, or siʔaɬ in his Lushootseed language, he Chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish peoples.

We found Black Diamond Bakery, 123 years-old now and just as Ann and I had left it on our last foray to Mt. Rainier (no, not quite that long ago.) We bought coffee and awesome sweet rolls and settled into the lunch room of the ramshackle building where were gathered clusters of locals whom we conspired to chat up. But, we were politely told, these tables were for lunch-eaters only. We decamped to the bakery side of the house, where one other patron nursed a coffee while guarding his purchased breads. We had encountered him at the coffee counter – a grizzled, seventies-something, cap-wearing rustic who had mumbled greetings as we ordered. One might reasonably judge him to be of limited means, limited education, limited experience, limited intelligence, limited imagination.

We settled into a table adjacent to this proto-MAGA type and Judi opened with a “you live 'round here?”

“Nope. Port Orchard.”

“You drove all the way over here this morning?” (That’d be nearly an hour drive.)

“Yup.”

“To the bakery.”

“Nope. To see how my wife was doing.”

 Sufficiently befuddled, I now played my “what do you do there?” card.

“Work on tugboats.” Nothing more offered.

“Has Port Orchard changed much?”

“Nope, not much.”

Somehow we wormed out of him that he had never worked in Black Diamond but had worked for a coal company in Newport, once worked farms in the area, was a diver, had served in the Marines, where he was taught to dive, was stationed near Yosemite along with a sister Seabee unit, that they looked out for each other like “you have to”, that his “tug” company, in fact, drove pilings for docks and piers, that another marine construction company was buying out his employer’s business but he didn’t know much about them or what might happen to his job, that this area was also historic for brick kilns and he once worked with the Irish brick-makers who helped establish the brick industry here in the 19thC. All mumbled and jumbled and in no rush.

Some subsequent, post-Bakery digging via Co-Pilot yields that coal and clay were found here together; that brick-works were a major east-side industry supplying bricks both for rebuilding Seattle after our fire of 1889 and San Francisco after its of 1906, and for making the pavers which are still to be found on some of Seattle’s steep hillside streets. The Denny-Renton Coal and Clay company was a major employer at the turn of the century.

Now began a reflective, rambling, common-sense monologue that blew our preconception of proto-MAGA to smithereens, paraphrased as best I can:

“Our boss at the brick factory was what a boss should be. He knew the work, how to do it. He shared with his employees how we and the business were doin’,what our problems were, and all. And, of course, the men knew their jobs, had learned it generations, back to Ireland. It’s important to keep people who know the job. Not like some of these bosses who hide-out in the boardroom and don’t share and let go men who really know what they’re doin’.

“That’s what our government is doin’: letting go people who know how to do their job, some with 50 years’ experience. And they don’t tell the truth about it. You can’t trust these guys. You can’t believe what you hear or read. It makes me furious.” And so on.

This guy didn’t know who or what we were, didn’t ask what we were doing in Black Diamond, but in the end he went out to find his wife knowing that he had been listened to. And we learned, again, that people are unpredictably complex: you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Not much more to be found in Black Diamond; let’s try Enumclaw. 

Bingo! Two elderly women stood on a street corner holding home-made signs painted on corrugated board: Tax the Billionaires.

Enumclaw was preparing for its First Friday of the Month Car Show and Cruise. Hot-rods and restored classics were staking out prime curb-side parking spaces, folding lawn chairs being set up ito hold sidewalk spots from which to watch the passing parade later that evening. Judie and I accosted Mark and Russ sitting in the shade watching over Mark’s meticulously restored ’38 Chevy Sedan and Russ’ gleaming, candy-apple red ’38 Chevy rumble seat roadster with a huge, chromed air scoop atop 4-barrel Hollys, with Edelbrock headers, four-link rear suspension, and all the stuff. “Don’t drive it much. Only get’s 8 ½ miles per gallon” Russ proudly complained.

“You’ve had a lot of change ‘round here” I ventured. Duh.

Mark sniffed us out for the townies we are and tested how much heat we could stand:

"Yeah, those liberal assholes from Seattle are flooding the place.” We didn’t blanche. I guess we passed his test. 

He went on to bitch about the eleven families which had moved into his cul de sac neighborhood. The gist of it: “they don’t know how to behave. Their dogs shit on my lawn, they park on my grass, they don’t know how this community works and don’t care to learn. One of ‘em called the cops on me for spraying a noxious, invasive weed the State wants to have eradicated. Assholes.” Red meat for Judie.

She acknowledged that we were liberals from Seattle, joked that her horns were tucked up under her ball cap; we're down here to learn and listen; that more listening was a requisite for newcomers moving into an established community, that somethings here needed fixing, -- And we talked and talked: horses, small towns, McMansions, cars, health (long-COVID and gout are real issues for Mark.) Mark encouraged us to come see the car show. Judie left him with possibles about maybe getting back for a First-Friday. (I was more circumspect; a Friday evening hot-rod show and cruise-by ain’t Ann’s thing.)

Mark the MAGA undoubtedly is not convertible, unlike some of the shiny rods tooling into town looking for likely spots for the night’s parade. But Mark had now met a couple of city liberals who listened, who were empathetic and interested, who were curious about what makes a small town enmeshed in gentrification tick.

Judie passionately believes these encounters, these exchanges of intangibles will ultimately make a difference: each one, one small step toward healing America. 

This one made a difference for me.