This just in……

Tacoma Water is developing a new water conservation goal that will affect the types of conservation programs we offer our customers for the next seven years. As part of this process, we want to know what you think about water conservation and the types of programs we should offer.

To gather input we have developed a short online survey. The results of the survey will be used to design a draft conservation goal, which we will present at a public meeting in the spring. Please assist us by taking our survey at www.tacomawater.com/watergoals. Please be advised that the survey will close March 19.

If you would like more information about the water conservation program and our offerings, please contact us at 502-8723 or visit our webpage at http://www.mytpu.org/tacomawater/conserve-water/water-conservation/Default.htm.

Thank you very much for your time.

Daniel L. Muir
Water Conservation Supervisor
Tacoma Water
3628 S. 35th Street
Tacoma, WA 98409
253-502-8191

As Chris Van Vechten’s article so candidly presented, it’s time for a change in Washington State and we need to start with our name. Washington State is the most uncreative State name in the country and by changing it to something far more interesting and representative we’d be the first State in history to do so.

Vote for the name which you believe suits Washington best and we will then draft a proposal to the state legislature asking our elected leadership to adopt legislation to formally change the name of our state.  In 2010, The Melon will endorse only those candidates who agree to change the name from Washington to our newly endorsed alternative.

It may be political suicide for me to say this, but when I forget to take my adderall I lose all fear of such things.  I’ve been saying it for years, as a name “Washington” is the least creative nom de guerre awarded to any state in our union.

Aside from the obvious fact that our state shares its name with the nation’s capitol (consequently leading to unnecessary confusion across the heartland) our state lacks any of the indigenous flavor that peppers our neighbors.  States christened in native tongues include: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North/South Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Other states were named by explorers who found something unique about the land, it’s climate, or people.  These include: Colorado (from the spanish, “ruddy” or “red”), Florida (from the spanish Pascua Florida, meaning “feast of flowers” (Easter)), Maine (used to distinguish the mainland from the offshore islands), Montana (from the spanish word meaning “mountain.”), Nevada (spanish for “Snow-Capped”), Vermont (after the french “vert mont,” meaning “green mountain”)

A few were named after similar places.  These include: New Hampshire (From the English county of Hampshire) New Jersey (from the English island of Jersey), New Mexico (you guessed it) and New York (after the English city of York), Rhode Island (after the Greek island of Rhodes)

Finally, there are states whose names were derived from the imaginations of Europe’s most popular writers, like California and Indiana; and states with names whose origins remain a complete mystery to linguists and historians alike.  These include: Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho and Oregon.

True, a few states were named to honor certain individuals – but that was usually accomplished by adding an “a” at the end of the name:  Georiga (after England’s king Georgia II), Louisiana (in honor of Louis XIV of France), Maryland (in honor of Henrietta Maria (queen of Charles I of England), North/South Carolina (in honor of Charles I of England), Pennsylvania (in honor of Adm. Sir William Penn), Virginia/West Virginia (after Queen Elizabeth).

Washington remains the only state named after a president and that president is usually ranked second to Lincoln in the public’s esteem.

So I vote we change our name to something more appropriate and fitting of this great land we call home.  I have a list of suggestions and will be accepting more as the days and weeks go by before asking you – The Melon’s loyal readership – to vote on which name you like best.  We will then draft a proposal to the state legislature asking our elected leadership to adopt legislation to formally change the name of our state (a first in United States history).  In 2010, The Melon will endorse only those candidates who agree to change the name from Washington to our newly endorsed alternative. (We would have settled for a pledge to introduce a flat income tax but that seems unrealistic.)  The following is my brief list of alternatives.

1)  North Oregon

2)  West Idaho

3)  New Canada

4)  American Columbia

5)  Cascadia

6)  Salmonia

7)  Seatacolycane (Seattle -Tacoma -Olympia-Spokane)

8)  Clevelend’s Folly

9)  Middle Earth

10)  Altruria

11)  Ecotopia

12)  Camelot

13)  Wankalupa

14)  Aquaterra (water land)

15)  Verdeterra (green land)

16)  Washingtonia

17)  Skoocoom (lummi for “supernatural”)

18)  Sasquatch

19)  Holistic

You may vote for any of these or suggest your own. The top 10 will be funneled into a poll until we reach the final name.

Friend of The Melon, David Tveite has begun presenting his work on “A Regular Dude’s World Atlas, ” a presentation of the world by someone with a really good internet connection. Here’s a clip from one of his hilarious entries:

“Andorra is a thoroughly unimpressive little country of some 88,000 citizens located in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain. Andorrans speak Catalan, a language which is kind of like Spanish but not nearly as useful. Andorra was first discovered in 1278, when France was taking a shower and noticed a kind of abnormal growth near its genitals. Distraught, France rushed to the doctor, who assured it that the growth was Andorra, not cancer. France was very lucky this turned out to be correct because relatively speaking, 13th-century oncology wasn’t exactly the most reliable science ever.”

David is only on the A’s right now, but I’m excited to see this develop.

Pecha Kucha Night, devised and shared by Klein Dytham architecture, was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.

Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each – giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

It’s time once again to help The Melon see another great year. The costs of The Melon are very limited, our writers offer their own free time and craft their amazing articles/content out of their passion for doing so. But, like all things, there are some costs to maintaining our space and making sure it is meeting out needs, which is why in this drive we’re hoping to meet our goal of $1000 to update The Melon infrastructure and pay for our maintenance costs. We need your help to keep The Melon fresh. As a Melon Supporter, you’ll be added to our supporters list for FIVE WHOLE YEARS. FIVE! What’s more, is we’ll mention you from time to time as a Supporter who makes our content possible. Imagine your logo or name in one of our videos. Yeah, pretty cool.

While we here at The Melon value our content and contributors greatly, and hope you enjoy what we are able to do for the community, we realize there are those with way more need than us. This is why we’ve decided to donate HALF of the total donations received to the Friends of the Orphans Haiti Earthquake Relief fund in honor of Molly Hightower, a native Tacoman who passed in the recent Haiti Earthquake while working to aid children in need. Read more about her here.

Even if we don’t reach our $1000 goal we will still donate half of it to this fund. So please, for The Melon and for those who really need it, help two great programs strive forward and continue making a difference.

It’s been a long time since my last arts update. In that time, the Pierce County Arts Commission held its annual Margret K Williams awards and doled out around $30,000 worth of community grants. Among the many programs we supported I was particularly proud to have played a leading role in securing funding for both Lincoln Center and First Creek Middle School to provide in-depth personalized arts education to underprivileged youth – but I failed to deprive the Pierce County Library System of funding for a short story contest. The library wanted the money to hire professional judges to select winning short stories and poems which the gifted authors could then purchase in published book form for a fee. I don’t recall how much exactly said fee was but it was considerable and led me to believe that this was more about securing business for vanity presses than anything else.

And so, I heroically – and publicly – declared to my fellow commissioners that the Pierce County Library was out to screw us and the children we support. Ironically, though in hind-sight predictably, I was met with extreme hostility and when the votes were tallied – it was 9 to 1 in favor of giving the Pierce County Library System the maximum allocation allowed. In the future, when I’m against something, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and emphasize the greatness of other programs so that non-priorities like poetry contests will walk away with a $500 pat on the back and nothing more.

The consultants from Wolf Brown that were hired some months back have developed an outline of Findings and Questions as part of their cultural planning process which has been in effect since October of 2009.

Of all these questions, the one that sticks out to me the most appears in Sec 4, paragraph D, line 3. It reads: “Are there particular approaches that can bolster vibrant but fragile entrepreneurial efforts or small arts and heritage groups?”

It’s here. Time for all the Melonites to walk the purple carpet and take photos in front of the Hummer/GM backdrop for the last time. Your votes have been tabulated, considered, rejected, re-tabulated and accepted to achieve a 82.5% democratic voice in this year’s Golden Melon Awards. Below are the winners. Congrats to everyone and thanks for another great year.

Interview of the Year:

The Melon Underground – Ep 01

With 6 episodes, The Melon Underground stands as The Melon’s longest running post-KUPS podcast. This episode of TMU featured Tacoma Urbanist, Erik Bjornson and went on to be one of the landmarks in discussion about Tacoma.

Melonite of the Year:

Erik Bjornson

A one time writer for the Melon, many times guest, Erik Bjornson has become just as ingrained in Tacoma lore as has RR Anderson. Erik Bjornson stands out as a first-class citizen for his public action and honest to goodness Tacoma advocacy. What would Tacoma be without Erik Bjornson? I don’t want to find out.

Seedling Award:

Best New Melon Contributor

John Hathaway – New Takhoman

In a lot of ways John Hathaway is the embodiment of Tacoma. Old fashioned, true to himself, gritty and willing to dig through grime to find just what he’s looking for.  When we met John Hathaway in an old dinner, we found him in a 50s gangster hat, dressed in a suit and tie, as if he was about smuggle something. But behind the hat, sharp mustache and focused eyes, John Hathaway is an idealist with a heart. We were pleased to be able to record a podcast with him and help promote the oldest Tacoma comic in existence, The New Takhoman. For his dedication to telling it how it is, and pushing the city to think no matter what, the Seedling Award is far to unimportant an award for John Hathaway. Tacoma should be giving him a medal of honor.

Honorable Mention: Erik Connell

It’s official.  The first round of tryouts is over and none of my top picks made it into the top 8 (for the record, they were Julio Quan and Jim Merritt). There were few surprises (Spoiler Alert: Ryan Mello and Rick Talbert have been slated to fill the positions from day 1). But then again, no matter who had been selected charges of cronyism were inevitable.

Even before Julie Anderson, Marilyn Strickland and Victoria Woodards had won their respective races there were those encouraging me to tryout for one of their seats.  I declined because:

1)  My lack of experience makes me unqualified to fill those positions.

2)  I’m a married man now, which – like it or not – makes politics more difficult (notice that neither Julie, Victoria or Marilyn have “taken the plunge” yet – although Strickland’s time is coming).  Politics takes time and money – I now want to be a homeowner and am thus focusing my efforts elsewhere.

3)  And FINALLY – I would be unbelievably self-conscious and timid if I was appointed to any elected office because I would not be able to speak with the authority that comes from being backed by the people.

Which leads me to my greater point – we need some sort of charter amendment forbidding those appointed to hold elected office to run to retain that seat.  These people are place holders who should be selected specifically because they lack grand political ambitions.  They should be wonks, not hacks.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve known Ryan Mello for years.  He works hard, holds to a progressive agenda, and would be an outstanding city/county councilman or state legislator.  (I don’t know Rick Talbert so I’ll leave him out of this.)  Nevertheless, the appointment process dilutes the democratic process into an insider’s game.  There’s no way it can be done fairly without compromising the credibility of the system.