lummi island wine tasting mar 21 ’25
Wine Tasting Friday Mar 7 4-6 pm
welcome signs of Spring…
NO Friday Bread Pickup This Week 🙁
This time every year our baker goes somewhere to watch a bunch of basketball games!!
Island Bakery has developed a rotation cycle of several dozen breads and pastries. Each Sunday the Bakery emails the week’s bread offering to the mailing list. Orders received before 5 pm Tuesday (and not already claimed!) will be available for pickup at the wine shop each Friday from 4:00 – 5:30 pm. Contact us at least two weeks before your visit to get on the bread list .
This week’s $10 Wine Tasting
McManis Chardonnay ’22 CA $14
Lush and inviting with pure fruit flavors, voluptuous palate of peach, apricot, vibrant citrus, and melon and an easy, creamy texture with hints of vanilla and a smooth, lingering finish.
Natura Carmenere ’22 Chile $14
Attractive bouquet with cherry aromas and hints of chocolate and spice. Big volume taste on the palate with soft round tannins and a firm, well-balanced structure. Good balance between fruit and oak with a long, juicy finish. 100% organically grown grapes.
Jacob Williams Syrah ’21 Washington $34
Hand-destemmed, open-top fermentation, manual punchdowns, 11 months in 12% new American oak; earthy aromas of crushed gravel and a juicy blue- fruit palate with flavors of red pepper berries and spicy finish.
Economics of the Heart: SS United States Still Afloat
flickr photo by chrisinphilly5448
The SS United States was the last great passenger ocean liner. She was launched at Newport News Shipyard in 1952, is about 1000′ ft long, 100′ wide, and 150′ from keel to masthead. And, because the Korean War was still happening, she was overbuilt and powered to allow easy conversion to military duties.
She holds the record average speed (30kts/35mph) for Atlantic crossings in both directions, and was iconic until nearly 1970, when air travel made such vessels too much of a luxury to sustain. For decades the United States Conservancy tried unsuccessfully to refit the ship, and the current plan 🙁 is to sink her in Okaloosa County, FL as an “artificial reef.” Alas, so it goes, as Vonnegut might have said.
In many ways the history of this ship parallels the history of our country; born in wartime, carefully built to the exacting specifications of our Constitution, and setting the high bar by which ourselves and others could be measured. Hers has been a long, slow passing from public consciousness as fewer and fewer are left that remember her era.
The story of SS United States is a haunting metaphor for our presently unfolding national crisis. Over the last two months, our country has been taken over by a small group of habitually angry, mean-spirited, sexist, racist white men. Driven by a toxic sense of personal entitlement, they are committed to destroying our 250 yr-old ship of state, dismantle her for parts, throw the passengers and crew overboard (or worse), severely punish anyone who resists their cruelty, and embrace our historic enemies-turned-fascist-dictatorships as an offering of adoration and obeisance. No one who has ever taken an oath to defend the Constitution will ever willingly accept that. Resistance will take as long as it takes.
We have learned a few encouraging things in these two months. First, these guys are not the brightest bulbs in the box. Second, their ham-fisted and illegal mass firings of essential workers at all levels across the federal government have led to chaos and legal pushback. Third, the heart-breaking sudden abandonment of our long-term traditional allies around the world, imposition of trade-stopping tariffs on long-established imports, and slashing of the federal workforce have put us in an entirely avoidable downward economic spiral which will hurt everyone.
To consider that let’s pull out the dog-eared chart of the Economic Circular Flow. The simpler versions only included households, businesses, products, and labor, leaving out environment, natural resources, health, and community well-being. My long-time personal favorite version is this very entertaining video from a long time ago by career environmentalist Annie Leonard, who explains it all clearly and convincingly. The government’s stated goals of pumping more oil and gas, backing off development of renewable energy sources, and doing away with the EPA will hit a lot of roadblocks in a nation much more committed to climate change than even a few years ago.
Since January we have watched in horror as the Project 2025 playbook has selected targets with the dual goals of crippling specific functions of federal offices and inflicting pain on specific categories of “enemies.” Their goals are not to save federal money but to steer it for their own $interests and for the sadistic pleasure of inflicting suffering on legal and illegal immigrants, non-whites, young women, and blue-state residents and governments. The glue that holds all the elements of Project 2025 together is the underlying philosophy of white male supremacy, often thinly disguised as “Christianity.”
Some 23 blue state attorneys general began meeting early last year to prepare for the “second coming” of the Tweetster. Their dedication to the rule of law prepared them to respond to each unfolding breach of the law with an array of federal lawsuits, most of which are in process at the moment. Their preparation and dedication has markedly slowed the ongoing coup agenda. Their aggressive efforts are an ongoing positive sign.
Also encouraging is the recent brief comment from the very conservative Chief Justice Roberts regarding the Tweeter’s desire to impeach judges he didn’t like: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” The comment is widely interpreted as a “teaching moment” that the T should not ignore.
Last and definitely not least mixed note: 1) our unilateral withdrawal from NATO and huge tariffs against historic trading partners are crashing the stock market, killing our farm export markets, and raising costs for everything we buy, making it likely our entire economy is in for a very rough ride; and 2) the worse things get economically, hopefully the more people will, you know, “turn Blue!”
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2072 Granger Way