Homelessness

An observation

Things that make you go “hmmmm.” The Interfaith council for the Homeless struggles financially to stay afloat, lacking adequate donations. The Fur Ball nets $60,000 from auction. Vashon cats live in a lovely home on Old Mill Road. Vashon people live in tents, cars, the woods, etc.

— Beverly Skeffington

Dual currency

Vashon needs one

The Beachcomber’s report on cooperation among five Island human services organizations speaks well of many people.

It also is a harbinger of Vashon sharing Calif-ornia’s current economic fate. That disaster and dozens of lesser ones around the country are a painful re-learning of the downside of having a central bank: A downward pressure from bad loans in one sector can spread through the network of national and private banks to the country like a hypodermic shot in an artery. But Vashon could defy the harbinger if it put in place an alternate dual currency of the proper sort.

The details of such a currency are for the most part available, but it has not caught hold with more than a handful of very worried Islanders. The reason is that using a non-central dollar currency is like rearranging life from the comfortable norm to one so new as to be deeply disturbing. There are some knots to untie in creating the dual alternate but none nearly as tough as the change in style of living. Still, if you are up on what is happening to California, the feeling of being deeply disturbed will seem almost pleasant.

— Tom Herring