Help preserve, improve Fort Worden State Park as a recreational, historic, educational, natural resource

 www.givebigwa.org/FRIENDSOFFORTWORDEN

Since my wife and I moved from Seattle to Port Townsend in 2015, one of our favorite places has been

Fort Worden

State Park.

We enjoy reading and sunsets on the beach, walking along forest trails and gun batteries on Artillery Hill, taking photographs, wandering the new Chinese Gardens Interpretive Trail, attending concerts, workshops, and other events there, and getting espresso drinks at Reveille and other drinks at Taps.

To give back to the park, we also volunteer for several nonprofit organizations that operate there:

Centrum Foundation

(both of us),

Port Townsend Marine Science Center

(Donna), and

Friends of Fort Worden State Park

.

I've been especially involved with the all-volunteer Friends of Fort Worden since 2019, becoming a board member and helping with communications, marketing, fundraising, and trail maintenance.

In just the past couple of years, Friends has launched a multiyear Habitat Restoration Initiative, restored a historic guard shack, installed trail steps and building handrails for public safety, installed the Chinese Garden Interpretive Trail, purchased landscape maintenance equipment, paid for trail, traffic, and directional signs, and funded two AmeriCorps service members for habitat restoration and public outreach for 10 months. And more -- including maintaining the trails and removing Scotch broom and invasive dune grass.

From May 4-5, Friends will take part in the annual statewide

GiveBIG

fundraising campaign. I've been supporting our planning for that important event. We're seeking to raise enough money during GiveBIG to fund two AmeriCorps members from fall 2021 to summer 2022. And we're hoping to raise funds for other projects, such as restoring a historic gas station and fulfilling other needs not funded by Washington State Parks.

Fort Worden is a favorite destination not only for Port Townsend residents but also for visitors from across Washington and beyond. Please consider supporting Friends' mission to preserve and improve this wondrous state park as a recreational, historic, educational, and natural resource.

To make a onetime or recurring donation, please visit this website:

www.givebigwa.org/FRIENDSOFFORTWORDEN.

Outlining: Create a Useful Outline for Your Writing | Grammarly Blog

Lindsay Kramer writes at the Grammarly Blog:

"No matter what you’re writing, outlining is a crucial early step in the writing process. An outline provides the framework upon which your finished piece of writing is built; it provides the template to fill in with your unique insights and ideas. 

"Of the five steps of the writing process, outlining is part of the second: preparing. 

"Whether you’re writing a lengthy research paper, a short essay, a blog post, or a presentation, outlining is a crucial practice that can save you lots of time later. It’s also a roadmap you can refer back to at later writing stages, particularly if you find your writing cruising off course or feel stuck in the mud and unsure of how to get rolling again. ..."

Continued at this link: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/outlining/

What’s Your Pronoun? | ACES: The Society for Editing

What’s Your Pronoun? | ACES: The Society for Editing

Christine Steele writes in ACES: The Society for Editing​:

"Sometimes people might make assumptions about the gender of another person based on that person’s appearance or name. Using someone’s correct personal pronoun is a way to respect them and create an inclusive environment, even online.

"Besides they, which was Merriam-Webster’s 2019 Word of the Year, there are alternatives to using he and she when someone’s gender is unknown or when they are not simply male or female. They is not the only option. There are less-familiar pronouns, such as ze, zir, and hir, but singular they has become a pronoun of choice for many. It’s important to become familiar with other pronouns.

"The Human Rights Campaign Foundation points out that being misgendered can be hurtful, angering, and even distracting. Everyone should have the option of expressing their preferred name or personal pronoun, and the way this is communicated may vary across settings—formal vs. informal, email vs. in-person/virtual meetings, name badges, business cards, and so on.

"The following is what I’ve learned from a training session, along with some excellent resources, about the different types of pronouns and how to use them. ..."

Microaggressions in Editing | ACES: The Society for Editing

Microaggressions in Editing | ACES: The Society for Editing

"Editors, like all humans, have implicit biases, which can sometimes be reflected in our edits. Although we may believe that we’re improving the copy, we may actually be undoing the conscious choices that writers have made, especially when we make assumptions as we’re editing. 

"Sometimes our biases show themselves in microaggressions. These are brief, commonplace comments or actions—often unconscious or unintentional—that signal hostile or negative attitudes toward marginalized groups.

"Just because microaggressions are unintentional doesn’t make them any less invalidating or hurtful. In everyday life, microaggressions appear in different ways. Someone who is non-white is called a credit to their race. A disabled person is told how inspiring they are for persevering. A woman is referred to as a mom in an article about her professional achievements. ..."

Immigration law: Biden wants to remove this controversial word from US laws - CNNPolitics

Immigration law: Biden wants to remove this controversial word from US laws - CNNPolitics

From CNN​:

"The term 'illegal alien,' long decried as a dehumanizing slur by immigrant rights advocates, became even more of a lightning rod during the Trump era -- with some top federal officials encouraging its use and several states and local governments taking up measures to ban it.

"'The language change on the first day of this administration, with Kamala Harris the daughter of immigrants, to me it's not just symbolic...it's foundational,' says Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant whose organization, Define American, pushes for more accurate portrayals of immigrants.

"'How we describe people really sticks. It affects how we treat them,' he says. 'How we talk about immigrants shapes the policies. It frames what are the issues really at stake here. It acknowledges that we're talking about human beings and families.' ..."

The End of My Tools for Writers | Updated: Garbl's Writing Center has returned at a new domain

Updated: Garbl's Writing Center has returned at a new domain

The End of My Tools for Writers

A longtime website of mine, Garbl's Writing Center, and its domain name, garbl.info, have disappeared from the internet. The free editorial style and usage manual, concise writing guides, and plain-language writing guide at Garbl's Writing Center are no longer available (though links to it still exist on other websites).

After more than 20 years of developing, managing, and enhancing my website, I have decided to pull it from the World Wide Web. I've told the website host I want to cancel the subscription I began a year ago after moving it from its previous location.

Actually, my website began more than 23 years ago as Garbl's Writing Resources Online. Back then, in 1997, one reason I created the site was to learn how to develop and manage this increasingly important form of communication. I wanted to learn HTML coding and website design.

I wanted to use my new, growing skill at my workplace and for a professional group I helped lead as a board member. And I did that for the King County Department of Transportation, Road Services Division, and Wastewater Treatment Division and the Plain Language Association International. After I retired, I also helped manage the Washington Sierra Club website for a couple of years.

With Garbl's Writing Center, I also wanted to help new and experienced writers enhance their skills -- as I enhanced mine -- by providing them access to the growing number of websites about writing. It began as just a page of links with descriptions for other websites about writing. For fun (and to stroke my appreciation for making puns), I added a page called Word Play.

And during the months and years ahead, I added more and more categories and pages: Reference Sources, Writing Bookshelf (in association with Amazon), Plain Language, Favorite Fiction Writers, Words, Writing Experts, Style and Usage, Action (persuasive) Writing, Grammar Guides, Writing Process, Punctuation, Spelling, Vocabulary, Writer's Block, Creative Resources, Fat-Free Writing Links, Avoiding Bias, and Myths and Superstitions about Writing.

For several years, I invited folks to ask me questions about writing at Garbl's Grammar Grappler. But I later shut it down after my enthusiasm in responding to their questions felt more like an (unpaid) obligation.

Eventually, as I expanded the site beyond lists of links to other writing sites, I changed its name to Garbl's Writing Center. Besides the Writing Resources pages, my revised site included Garbl's Editorial Style Manual and Garbl's Concise Writing Guide. They have grown and changed from print and online versions that skilled co-workers and I had developed.

For several years in the early 2000s, my website included a page called Garbl's Links Against Iraq War, later retitled as Garbl's Links for Peace and Justice. During those years, I began responding to current events with occasional website posts reflecting my liberal-progressive politics.

Building on my growing interest in the use of plain-language writing principles to enhance communication, I also added Garbl's Plain English Writing Guide. BTW, I still advocate (and try to use) plain language (plain English) for clear, concise, readable writing. I'd be happy to discuss it and share resources about it.

When I retired from full time work in early 2011, I launched Garbl's Pencil (later revised to Gary's Good Cause Communications) on my website to offer fee-based writing and editing services. I deactivated that page in 2015, the year I moved from Seattle to Port Townsend.

For about a year, I tried to post regular items at this blog, UnGarbl'd Thoughts, focusing mostly on writing. Although it still exists, I make only infrequent random postings these days.

As my retirement continues in Port Townsend, I'm feeling less and less motivated to maintain the site AND to update its old-fashioned appearance. In 2019, I took down the first section I had created, Garbl's Writing Resources Online. I was no longer spending any time looking for new websites to add and no longer had the desire to review weblinks occasionally to make sure they were working or revised, dead and removed.

And now, feeling there are other things on which I want to spend my time, energy and money, I've decided to take down the entire site. Our language continues to change, and though I intend to watch and learn as it develops, I'm not interested in keeping my website up-to-date.

So long, Garbl's Writing enter, it's been a fun and challenging learning and sharing experience. I hope I've aided and inspired writers as much as I've learned while developing and managing you.

Trump's Insurgency From Inside the Oval Office - The New York Times

Trump's Insurgency From Inside the Oval Office - The New York Times

Peter Baker writes at the New York Times:

"President Trump’s relentless effort to overturn the result of the election that he lost has become the most serious stress test of American democracy in generations, led not by outside revolutionaries intent on bringing down the system but by the very leader charged with defending it.

"In the 220 years since a defeated John Adams turned over the White House to his rival, firmly establishing the peaceful transfer of power as a bedrock principle, no sitting president who lost an election has tried to hang onto power by rejecting the Electoral College and subverting the will of the voters — until now. It is a scenario at once utterly unthinkable and yet feared since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s tenure.

"The president has gone well beyond simply venting his grievances or creating a face-saving narrative to explain away a loss, as advisers privately suggested he was doing in the days after the Nov. 3 vote, but instead has pressed the boundaries of tradition, propriety and the law to find any way he can to cling to office beyond his term that expires in two weeks. That he is almost certain to fail does not mitigate the damage he is doing to democracy by undermining public faith in the electoral system. ...

"He and his staff have floated the idea of delaying Mr. Biden’s inauguration, which is set in stone by the Constitution, and he met with a former adviser urging him to declare martial law. His erratic behavior has so alarmed the military that he might try to use force to stay in the White House that every living former defense secretary — including two he appointed himself — issued a warning against the armed forces becoming involved. ...

"Mr. Trump’s efforts ring familiar to many who have studied authoritarian regimes in countries around the world, like those run by President Vladimir V. Putin in Russia and Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary.

“'Trump’s attempt to overturn the election, and his pressure tactics to that end with Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, are an example of how authoritarianism works in the 21st century,' said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of 'Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present.' 'Today’s leaders come in through elections and then manipulate elections to stay in office — until they get enough power to force the hand of legislative bodies to keep them there indefinitely, as Putin and Orban have done.' ...

"Mr. Trump’s fidelity to the concept of American democracy has long been debated. He has expressed admiration for strongmen like Mr. Putin, Mr. Orban, President Xi Jinping of China and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, evincing envy of their ability to act decisively without the checks of a democratic government. 

"He has asserted at various points that the Constitution 'allows me to do whatever I want' with the special counsel investigating him and that his 'authority is total' to order states to follow his wishes.

"He has sought to turn government agencies into instruments of political power, pressuring the Justice Department to prosecute his enemies and go easy on his friends. ...

"Even now, just two weeks before the end of his term, Mr. Trump has left doubt about how he will leave the White House when Mr. Biden is inaugurated.

"What he could try to do to stop it remains unclear since he seems out of options. But he is not yet willing to acknowledge the reality of his situation and follow John Adams’s example."