This week I spoke at the City Club of Tacoma. My closing was atypical in that I focused less on public safety and more on public affairs. In my opening, I discussed our innovative initiatives to make the community safer and reform the justice system, but in closing I told three quick stories relating to my themes of safety and civility.
Some say I stay too far above the fray, that I should get my hands dirty. I say you can rebut misinformation without slipping into the mud. That’s the semi-lofty goal, though it can be a high-wire act. In this, writers and public officials are similar: we live, as Karl Wallenda put it, on the wire. And, as the Posies sang in 1990, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
This picture from the 1960 presidential campaign is my favorite shot of JFK & RFK.
Thanks for reading.