Celebrating at the finish line of the 50th Ski to Sea OpiniOn Letters

s Mount Baker Experience magazine (sister publication to The Northern Light) was thrilled to sponsor a team for the 50th Ski to Sea Race from the top of Mt. Baker to Bellingham Bay on May 28. The eight legs were represented by Alex Hartley (cross-country ski), Andrew Grubb (downhill ski), Shayla Maupin (running), Ian Haupt (road bike), Elliott Smith and Sebastian Smith (canoe), Linda Finch (cyclocross) and Sarah Sophia Donohoe (kayak). The team came in 12th in the corporate category. A special shoutout to Ian Haupt (Mount Baker Experience editor and reporter for The Northern Light) for placing 53rd overall in the road bike amongst the 474 participating teams. Courtesy photo

The Editor:

The careful planning of traffic control measures is essential to ensure road safety and efficient traffic flow. However, the proposal to install stop signs on an uphill blind curve, solely to accommodate an additional exit for a new development, is highly problematic. This essay, authored by ChatGPT, will argue that such a decision would not only jeopardize winter driving conditions but also lead to congestion and disruptions on a designated Tsunami escape road.

1. Hazardous winter conditions: Placing a stop sign on an uphill blind curve during winter, especially in areas prone to snow and ice, poses significant safety concerns. In snowy and icy conditions, vehicles face reduced traction and increased stopping distances. Attempting to stop on an incline during such conditions becomes exceedingly risky, potentially leading to accidents, sliding and collisions with other vehicles.

2. Limited visibility and reaction time: An uphill blind curve already diminishes drivers’ visibility of oncoming traffic, creating a potential hazard. Adding a stop sign to this equation further compromises safety, as drivers may have reduced reaction time due to poor visibility.

3. Tsunami escape road congestion: Designating a Birch Bay Drive as a Tsunami escape route indicates its critical role in ensuring swift evacuation during emergency situations. Introducing a stop sign on an uphill blind curve along this route would lead to unnecessary stoppages and backups. In emergency scenarios, where every second counts, delays caused by the stop sign can impede the smooth flow of traffic, potentially endangering lives and diminishing the effectiveness of the designated escape route.

Conclusion: The proposition of installing a stop sign on an uphill blind curve solely to accommodate a new development’s exit is fundamentally flawed. A comprehensive approach that considers the long-term implications and prioritizes road safety and efficient traffic flow is necessary for making informed traffic control decisions.

Tom Baker

Birch Bay (Ed. Note: According to Tom Baker, this letter was produced by using ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chat box that was recently released to the public. We are printing it here for its novelty value; in the future, we will not knowingly publish letters written by non-humans.)

The Editor: I write in response to Mike Harkleroad’s letter in which he recommends that a previous letter writer read more of the history of the Second Amendment. I would encourage Mr. Harkleroad to read more deeply into that history himself.

The first clause, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state …” is rarely if ever mentioned, but is the key to understanding that history. Colonials wanted no standing army, thus the state militias. Those opposed to the new Constitution insisted on the Second Amendment to prevent the federal government from taking control of state militias.

Many, if not most gun-rights activists and some Supreme Court justices, look only at the second clause of the amendment: “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Note that the amendment does not say “The right of the people to keep guns.”

In the 18th century, the term “keep and bear arms” was commonly understood to be an organized community obligation for protection of everyone. In 1840, the Tennessee Supreme Court stated that “the right to keep and bear arms is secured, it’s of a general and public nature, to be exercised by the people in a body, for the common defense.”

Some justices use “originalism” to infer the intent of the founders and interpret the history of those times. They exhumed the 19th century to argue their Dobbs and Bruen decisions. But if the 19th century can be used to deny a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and strip 100-year-old gun control laws, then shouldn’t guns be limited to the single-shot, breech-loading rifles used back then?

I am not a gun owner, and I believe that the great majority of gun owners are conscientious and law abiding. I believe they would support sensible gun control regulations like background checks and doing away with military-style weapons –single shot or more – on our streets and near schools without backdooring tyranny. Enough blood has been shed because of propaganda and biased thinking.

Bob Schober Blaine

The Editor:

If I had given a donation to PeaceHealth recently I would be livid that outpatient palliative care is going to be discontinued. Perhaps the only way PeaceHealth management might be persuaded to reverse its decision to put outpatient palliative care on the chopping block is for fundraising to slow to a trickle.

Conversations are rampant that major donors are considering suing PeaceHealth for misrepresenting their intentions when they asked prospective donors to provide over $2 million in seed money to launch the palliative program, with the promise that it would be sustained.

Contact PeaceHealth’s foundation and let them know you will not donate to them in the future unless outpatient palliative care is restored to full service at peacehealth.org/foundation/st-joseph.

Another possibility for management to change its decision is for PeaceHealth to lose its tax-exempt status.

Dr. Rod Hochman, the chief executive of Providence Medical Group told an industry publication in 2021 that, “‘Nonprofit health care’ is a misnomer.” He went on to say: It is tax-exempt healthcare. It still makes profits.

Perhaps, PeaceHealth could donate the old St. Luke’s hospital, which was truly a community hospital as a homeless shelter

(See Letters, next page)