Hacking Camano Island

I spent a good part of today on Camano Island publishing projects. The first was inspired by yesterday's posting on Jay Rosen's PressThink blog, in which he discussed open-source journalism in Greensboro, North Carolina. It occurred to me that here on Camano, we have a very limited, top-down news distribution system, with only one small weekly paper that also serves a town in the next county. Not only is the news filtered by, shall we say, a modest budget for writers, but the only forum for community participation is a letters column dominated (at least where interesting topics are involved) by the rantings of the usual characters decrying the "bleeding heart environmentalists" and "liberal whackos" in our midst. Not exactly a medium of participatory journalism and free exchange.

In most communities, there are things like towns, businessess, coffee shops, hangouts, and other places where the general buzz percolates and finds its way from person to person. Not here. Camano Island has 12-15 thousand people but no town, and is a strange mix of commuters, artists, freelancers, retirees, and even a few normal folk. Great place, actually, but it lacks the cultural cohesion necessary to respond with any kind of unified voice to the dangers currently threatening us: a couple of particularly rapacious developers who think only of profit, slash 'n burn loggers who rape the land and leave stump farms, projects that fail to recognize the fragility of our sole-source aquifer, the opening of our public forests to hunting, and a trio of county commissioners who don't live here but nevertheless purport to speak for us on such matters as long-term planning and the value assigned to critical areas.

So being an outspoken and contrary cuss, I set up a new Camano Island blog as well as a set of discussion forums. Hopefully, this will help get people fired up enough to start thinking more like a community, though the reality may be somewhere in between ennui and a contentious can o' worms. We'll see.

None of this has much to do with Microship development, but this is my home base and I am constantly frustrated by the fact that I end up caring about things I can't control... ranging from Casa de Eyesore under construction next door to the guy trying to erect an unwanted business center and hotel on an inappropriately zoned parcel, pumping thousands of gallons of sewage a day 5 miles to a lot he purchased in a neighborhood just for that purpose. Inaction is tantamount to signing away our own heritage, even if I did come here to build boats.

More technomadic topics next time...

Goodies from Steve on eBay:

Way-cool Houston geek shirt with mouse thumb-hole (L)
A trio of 132-pin QFP to PGA Adapter PC boards
"Carpenter Gothic" photos of Victorian architecture
Trimble TANS GPS Manual & 2 old GPS World issues
Chateau C-870 circular stainless padlock

Goodies from Jeannie on eBay:

Rare purple Outdoor Research Seattle Sombrero hat, new (M)
2" of Franklin Covey & At-a-Glance Planner pages
Battenburg cutwork lace duvet cover & shams
J. Crew taupe linen casual suit