Creating energy

Isn’t it true that sometimes the “old ways” still work better than the new? Our culture is now searching for miscellaneous “new ways” of creating more energy. But our sun (in the same “old way”) has created accessible energy through evaporation for eons — namely, rain.

And how do you catch that rain and use it to create more energy? Obviously, with dams … a dirty word I know in the lexicon of the environmentalist and American Indian tribes, but one of the cleanest forms of energy that also carries with it many advantages ignored by the ears of our technical society.

Anyway, let’s look at some of the advantages associated with dams through the eyes of “Google:”

1. Dams have a minimal environmental impact, except for migratory fish, and this can be solved with fish-ladders.

2. Man-made lakes provide a place for public recreation and fishing.

3. Dams control floods, erosion, and deforestation and store water for farming during dry years.

4. Dams could soon eliminate the need for polluting coal-fired power plants.

5. Rain is an “inexhaustible” fuel source that provides water to power dams during droughts.

6. The construction of dams and hydroelectric turbines can provide jobs during our present recession due to COVID-19.

Travis Williams

Sequim

Silence deafening on Sequim’s city council

Crickets. That’s all we have heard from the Sequim City Council on where they stand on QAnon after all this time and all the national attention it generated. And how did you respond on behalf of the Sequim community? You said and did: nothing.

You all thought the citizens of Sequim would forget this and go away? Move on?

It’s really easy. Just write an op-ed to the Sequim Gazette letting the Sequim community know where you stand on QAnon — each of you or together. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you do it.

Who do you serve? The citizens of Sequim or the QAnon-leaning leaders who put you there? Who do you serve? The citizens of Sequim or the Independent Advisory Association leaders who put some of you there?

If you don’t respond now then it finally tells us everything without you saying a word.

So while you continue to wait us out, do you at least have any advice for the Sequim parents and educators on how to begin to explain this to our young Sequim citizens?

Dennis Hamner

Sequim

Let’s don’t get carried away

My reaction to the letter titled “Race conversation sparks an opportunity” (Sequim Gazette, March 17, page A-14) is: Can this writer be serious? Consider that George Floyd was arrested on nine separate occasions between 1997 and 2007, mostly on drug and theft charges.

He was being apprehended for allegedly passing counterfeit money when his most unfortunate, truly heart-wrenching and life-taking incident with Minneapolis law enforcement happened. It has long since come to light that Mr. Floyd’s autopsy showed sufficiently high drug levels to complicate the outcome.

Mr. Floyd was not an exemplary citizen but no one can help feeling sad and deeply moved at the sight of his treatment at the knee of officer Chauvin.

However, the ensuing unraveling of our peace, which we all are familiar with after that Memorial Day tragedy, and the uncertainty and divisions over life in these United States this past year cannot be soothed, salved or solved by Sequim commemorating the unfortunate person of George Floyd by naming anything after him.

The best statement we can make to counteract racism is not to say anything, but to show in our actions that we respect everyone’s rights — to life, liberty and (legal) pursuit of happiness, as well as to each his or her own opinions.

I won’t go into the multiplicity of the BLM movement and various interpretations of its origin, goals and actions, except to say that it does not mean the same to everyone and putting up any formal recognition of an organization as controversial as it is, in our fair town, would have the effect of being “in our faces” in one way or another.

Is that really what we want?

Cindy Mackay

Sequim