Small Stone January 1

I'm doing this Mindful Writing Challenge this month. I'm going to write a "small stone" every day of January and post them here, and that way I'll practice writing and blogging! I'm excited. Here's my first small stone:

Small Stone January 1

New Year's Day walk all by myself... out past the barns, up and down over little hills I can't see til they're right in front of me. Grey sky, white and brown speckled fields, even the pine trees seem grey today. The only sound my feet trudging through snow. When I am still, I can hear the mmmmmm and hhhhhhhhh of far away cars. My mind can wander with no one to call Mama and summon me back to my duties of love.  Ten minutes of footsteps take me far away.  

Will the last investigative journalist out please turn off the light?

Last night I read Tim Connor's really fascinating interview with the last investigative reporter the Spokesman-Review had: Karen Dorn Steele, who took an early retirement in March, as did her cohort Bill Morlin.

I read Karen Dorn Steele's newspaper stories on Hanford radiation experiments when I was in college. I have a thyroid disorder, and Spokane is in the shadow of the giant cloud(s) of radioactive iodine purposely released there. She made that story public in spite of, as she details, an unsupportive editor, a visit from the FBI, and an atmosphere of mandatory support for government operations at Hanford.

We were just trying to find out what the history of accidents was and the history of environmental pollution had been at Hanford. And so, I’m a stubborn Norwegian. I just kind of got my back up really. First of all I didn’t think an FBI agent should be sauntering into a newsroom. That’s not proper. It sends a chilling message. And secondly, it made me angry.