Bill Moeller Commentary: A Sunday Morning Education

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When the years start piling up, a person is apt to fall into a specific routine. You might call it a “rut” but I prefer a gentler term. My long-standing Sunday morning procedure begins by first starting the coffee machine and then heading out to pick up the Sunday edition of the Seattle Times. Okay, I’ll admit my purpose is really to read the Sunday comic strips and, in particular, the usual biting cartoons by David Horsey.

The gist of his most recent zinger is that the cost of living in Seattle has sent many residents to live in Tacoma and who, if the trend continues, will soon be commuting to work from Chehalis. Now I know Horsey visited Centralia College decades ago, but who knew he even knew where Chehalis was? Sure, it’s just an overstated cartoon but most cartoons, especially Horsey’s, have a biting touch of truth.

Reflecting the cost of housing referred to in the cartoon is a full page advertisement in that same issue’s Pacific NW Magazine featuring a new Green Lake retirement facility. Limited to people 62 and older, it offers a one-bedroom apartment for more than twice my entire monthly income!  And that’s listed as “the starting price.” 

In that same edition there was an article by Kim Wyman, Washington state’s current Secretary of State, who has grave concerns about the security of electronic voting. We’ve seen in current news coverage how apparently easy it is for cyber security to be breached. Currently Washington State does allow cyber voting by military and civilian voters overseas and Wyman is working to abolish that option as being too open to vandalism. She is working with bipartisan legislators to abandon email and fax balloting.

Here the curmudgeon part of me cannot help but remind legislators and citizens that we used to have a system of voting that pretty much eliminated the problems she’s now working to solve.  It was voting in our own legislative districts, where individuals had to present identification before being handed a ballot or being allowed to enter a voting machine and pull the curtain closed behind.  Many — if not most — potential voters were already known by those local voting registrars anyway, so it was pretty difficult to cheat, outside of replacing all the votes on the way to the courthouse that night.

Sure, it was slower than the present system. I know from personal experience that many local elections weren’t settled until the wee and not so wee hours of the next morning. But there was no electronic tinkering going on. The people who took the time to vote were usually those whose vote was based on knowledge of the situation. It’s very possible for today’s voting to be done by those who feel obliged to fill in every blank space whether or not they had given much, if any, thought to the candidates or the issues. ‘Nuf said.



One other item caught my eye in that Sunday edition; a reader’s response to a previous article called “How Scandinavia Got Great.” We still like to think that we’re the best in the world in many respects, but the facts show we’re a good distance down the line in most areas such as health, education and just downright satisfaction in the way things are running. Scandinavians are considered about the most contented people on the planet, according to recent reports, while also paying the highest taxes. Oh, yes, and they also have some of the strictest gun laws.  Fancy that!

Drat!  Here we are at the end of my allotted space with none left to comment on the six-page feature in that same Pacific NW Magazine section about the disappearing portions of Washaway Beach, where a cabin I built once stood until it, too, disappeared.

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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.