Health hazard
Remember the Monolith in the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”? Stanley Kubrick uses it as a metaphor that tested the intellectual progress of the human race. Briefly, when discovered, those who placed it knew that humans were ready for their next evolutionary step.
In an ironic twist to this metaphor, a monolithic condition within the Sequim Middle School has been screaming to be discovered for more than 20 years.
After the passing of a “bricks and mortar” bond issue in 1998, the school was designed and built excluding student lockers. I’ve been told that this was done to remove hiding spots for drugs, alcohol and undefined contraband.
That decision forces students to carry large backpacks that are their burdens all day, every day, everywhere. Like dutiful dung beetles, they are condemned to bear the necessities of their education on their backs.
The rule of thumb on backpack weight is that the load should not exceed 10% of the bearer’s weight. Exceed that limit and you are risking lifelong orthopedic damage including stress fractures in the back, inflammation of growth cartilage, back and neck strain, and nerve damage in the neck and shoulders.
Since 1998, multiple school board directors, superintendents, principals, teachers, coaches, physicians, chiropractors and massage therapists — and let’s not forget passive parents — have chosen to ignore this issue. What does it take to comprehend that kids walking bent forward, shoulders rounded and heads raised is evidence of a health hazard?
Yet, the problem has never seen an offered solution within any proposed school bond since 1998.
Sequim Middle School enrolls approximately 660 kids. Let’s say that one locker would cost $1,000 to buy and install, probably an overestimate, but let’s be generous. Compared to the bottom lines in previous bond issues, $660,000 is chump change for an improvement that would directly affect kids’ current health as well as their future well being.
Greg Madsen
Sequim
Turning point
On July 4th, a day that celebrates our independence from a tyrannical king and the ongoing quest for democracy, our would-be king signed into law his big, brutal budget bill. Except for billionaires, no lives will be made better by this legislation; it was simply a bucket to hold all of Trump’s vicious policies. Among the 273 GOP members of Congress, only five had the guts to vote against it. Every single Democrat voted “no.”
Billionaire tax breaks will be enacted immediately because, apparently, they can’t wait. But in a clever calculus to cover GOP backsides, the drastic cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and other programs won’t kick in until after the next congressional election; Republicans cynically hope voters won’t remember who is responsible.
For me, the most sinister part of the bill is the $170 billion for immigration and detention that will make Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the largest law enforcement agency in U.S. history (the FBI budget is $11 million). You need only to have seen the frightening videos of immigrants with no criminal history grabbed off the street to understand that these masked goons will evolve into Trump’s private army. Eventually, we will all be potential detainees.
History shows that the only force that can vanquish authoritarianism is a nonviolent uprising of the people. If you have been waiting for your moment to get engaged, join protests, support vulnerable communities, and work to salvage our democracy, let this awful legislation be your turning point.
Janine Blaeloch
Sequim
Heartfelt thank you
The Sequim Free Clinic is proud to announce the overwhelming success of its First Annual Community Shredding Event, held on Saturday, June 21, at Trinity United Methodist Church. Thanks to the incredible support from the community, the event raised an impressive $9,603 in donations to support the Clinic’s mission of providing free, quality healthcare to uninsured and under-served individuals.
In total, 3.23 tons of confidential documents were securely shredded on site, with approximately 200 vehicles coming through the drive-up event.
We are truly grateful to our community for showing up so generously. Every dollar raised helps us provide critical health services to those who need it most.
A heartfelt thank you goes out to the 20-plus dedicated volunteers who helped with traffic control, unloading vehicles, and making the event run smoothly from start to finish. Their energy and commitment were essential to the day’s success.
Sara Nicholls
Sequim Free Clinic
Red light, green light
How many of you remember the schoolyard game of Red Light, Green Light? There was a leader, players behind the leader, and leader would call, “Green light!”. The players would move as far as they could toward the leader until the leader called, “Red light!”
The objective was to reach the leader before they called “red light” and if a player is able to touch them during green light session, the leader is replaced by the player.
Someone mentioned to me that this was what the White House resident is doing, and I think it’s true. Donald Trump says he is going to do this by executive order (green light), the court system stops it (red light), Trump commands something on his social media (green light), and a few days later he changes his mind (red light).
Is our country being run by a children’s game? I thought we had a Constitution, I thought we had a court system, I thought we had separations of branches of the government to be fair and impartial. We do! From the Constitution: “In order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Someone needs to tag and remove the leader of this game and get us back to the law of the land. The Constitution is the guide to democracy for all Americans, no games!
Eileen Cummings
Sequim
Moral rot
Do you remember how every time tragedy struck a blue state, a liberal city, or the LGBTQ+ community, the so-called “Christian” Republicans, especially the MAGA zealots, gleefully declared it a “sign from God”? They practically danced on the graves of the suffering, smug in their delusion that divine wrath only targets the people they despise.
They scoff at climate science, calling it a “liberal hoax,” even as the world burns, blows away, and floods around them. And through it all, they worship a man who cheats, lies, bullies, and wallows in hate — a man who embodies everything Christ warned against.
They cheer as he explodes the national debt to shovel billions into the pockets of the ultra-rich, while gutting programs for the middle class and poor. They cheer when migrants are rounded up and dumped into Florida’s “alligator concentration camp.” Suffering is a spectacle to them — as long as it doesn’t happen to their own.
But when a biblical flood wipes out a Christian summer camp in Red State Texas, killing innocent young girls, suddenly it’s just “a tragedy,” not divine judgment. Where are their smug sermons now? Where’s their God-is-punishing-you talk?
Maybe — just maybe — this is the real sign: that the God they’ve hijacked for hate is telling them to turn back, to repent, and to stop worshiping a cruel, vindictive man who leads them not toward salvation, but straight into moral rot.
Lewis Bennett
Port Angeles
