Local News

Photo by Sergiu Nista.

WASHINGTON STATE – The “citizen informer”. It’s very common under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. After all, there often aren’t enough secret police to watch everyone, all the time. But if everyone in such a dystopian society is watching everyone else, and reporting the arbitrary crimes “to the authorities” in return for extra privileges and approval, plus warm feelings of virtuousness and overall "better-than-thou-ness", well, it’s so much easier for those in control at the top. Never mind all those at the bottom living in constant terror for the pounding at their door.

Grocery Bag. Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas.

Washington’s new state-wide “single-use” plastic bag ban was supposed to be effective on January 1 of this year. In a normal year, such a ban would have no impact on the claimed environmental problems it was supposed to solve, while still being a wasteful, Soviet-style attempt at micro-managing the lives of people in the state. But in an ongoing pandemic state of emergency, it looks particularly out of touch, and becomes an enormously counter-productive piece of legislation. That’s why the Governor, and the legislature itself, are frantically trying to paper over the situation they both created, by repeatedly delaying the ban from coming into effect.

In the middle of the third, rebranded shutdown, some have had enough. Reopen everything Feb 26th.

OKANOGAN COUNTY – If only Washington State used more accurate data, there would be a total of four regions in the state under Governor Jay Inslee’s arbitrary “Roadmap to Recovery” that would have moved forward to Phase 2 in what is now the Governor’s third, rebranded shutdown. This is the disturbing finding of a new report from the Washington Policy Center.

WA Phased Regions Map - Roadmap to Recovery plan

OKANOGAN COUNTY – Governor Jay Inslee’s “Roadmap to Recovery” phased opening plan, which is somewhat simplified from his previous 2020 phased opening plan, is only a few weeks old, but is already awash in significant problems and is being heavily criticized by both sides of the political aisle.

Spy watching

OKANOGAN COUNTY – The “citizen informer”. It’s very common under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. After all, there often aren’t enough secret police to watch everyone, all the time. But if everyone in such a dystopian society is watching everyone else, and reporting the arbitrary crimes “to the authorities” in return for an “atta-boy” pat on the head, and feelings of virtuousness and overall betterness, well, it’s so much easier for those in control at the top. Never mind all those at the bottom living in constant terror for the pounding at their door.