BURN BAN IS OFF! >>>

The fire marshall has turned off the burn ban for Pierce, King, Kitsap and Snohomish counties because winds are dispersing the air pollution that built up across the Puget Sound over the past week. You may fire up now.

For those who like charts, click here. 

BURN BAN IS ON! >>>

Once again, the fire marshall has thrown down a stage one burn ban for Pierce and Kitsap counties this time prompted by high pressure over the Puget Sound region bringing cold temperatures and calm winds. You have to stop burning your crap beginning at 4 p.m. today. You can't light up until further notice.

For those who like details, click here. 

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Manhunt: Search continues for killer of Mount Rainier ranger. (News Tribune)

State Political Map: It's a go. (News Tribune)

Giant Check: Washington state Health Care Authority receiving $17 million as a federal bonus payment for having enrolled children in subsidized health care coverage. (News Tribune)

L.A. Arson: Fifty-five "fires of concern" have broken out in the Los Angeles area since Friday. (CNN)

Iowa Caucuses: Late strategies emerge. (CNN)

New Year On The Korean Peninsula: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says the two Koreas are at a turning point. (BBC)

Marginal Revolutionaries: The crisis and the blogosphere have opened mainstream economics up to new attack. (The Economist)

Year-end Lists Continue: The 30 harshest musician-on-musician insults in history. (Flavorwire)

Year-end Lists Continue II: The worst people of 2011. (Videogum)

New Year's Eve: World's tallest building shows off. (Gizmodo)

Portrait Of The Year: George (Sexy People)

Every New Year's Eve we do it to ourselves. Why? Is it the sweet clink of the ice cubes? The exhilarating pop of the cork? Or just the way the night seems to open up into endless magical possibilities?

Whatever it is, things aren't so magical the next morning. There's nothing glamorous or exhilarating about bloodshot eyes swollen shut. Instead of trying to remember who dropped the poison into your eyeballs, soothe the savage orb with wikiHow's seven steps to cure puffy eyes. You're so welcome.

From everyone at the Weekly Volcano and Spew land, we wish you a happy new year!

LINK: 5 Ways to be a Better (cough) You!

NOT GOOD >>>

A new study from the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner gives a bleak picture of our state's population without health insurance. The number of Washingtonians with no health insurance has reached 1 million, according to a new report from state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler. About 14.5 percent now have no coverage at all.

See the whole study at:
http://www.insurance.wa.gov/legislative/uninsured-washington.shtml

"This is a grim milestone for the state, and we believe the situation will remain bleak for two more years," said Kreidler. "But it's important for people to know that there is hope is on the horizon."

• Among the report's findings: From 2008 through 2010:
• The number of uninsured people in Washington grew by 180,000.
• Charity care by hospitals and health care providers rose a staggering 36 percent.
• And the percentage of residents without health coverage worsened in 31 of 39 counties.
• In several counties, more than 1 in 5 residents has no health coverage.

Counties with a particularly high percentage of uninsured residents include: Adams, Grant, Okanogan, Franklin and Yakima. But the problem also worsened in King, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane counties.

BURN BAN IS ON! >>>

The fire marshall has thrown down a Pierce County burn ban prompted by forecasted stagnant weather conditions and rising air pollution levels. You have to stop burning your crap beginning at 5 p.m. today. You can't light up until further notice.

For those who like details, click here.

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

City Of Tacoma Budget Woes: Tacoma City Council has five ideas. You better be certain you're being robbed or it will cost you. (News Tribune)

Tacoma's Future: An alternative view of Tacoma in the 21st century. (News Tribune)

Um, Not Guilty To DUI: Fife's mayor pro tem spins the wheel. (News Tribune)

Your Turkey PiñataOutside Is Going To See Hell: High winds forecasted for Thanksgiving. (Kitsap Sun)

GOP Debate: The latest GOP presidential debate exposed deep fault lines among the candidates on how to grapple with the nation's security challenges. (CNN)

U Can't Haz Sadz: The hushed dangers of startup depression. (Beta Beat)

Trippy: The magic of Hollywood's green screen. (Flavorwire)

Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys: 12 dumb ones. (TruTV)

Time To Face The Day

MONDAY, OCT. 10, 2011 >>>

1. Over the years musician Rosco Wuestewald has set of groups of musicians in different regions to back him as a way to battle the high cost of touring. This indie-folk project, Onward, etc. hits the Mandolin Cafe at 6 p.m. Drop in and see who's in the band.

2. Drop in on Meditation Monday at the Lakewood Progressive Spiritual Center, or "The Center," to those in the know. The relaxation runs from 6-8 p.m. and will cost you $10. There is a punch card option.

3. Tuesday, A Perfect Life will screen at the Tacoma Film Festival. Tonight, from 8-11 p.m. at The Swiss, Joe Rosati, Heidi Vladyka and China Davis (the band responsible for A Perfect Life's soundtrack) will be at the Swiss to celebrate. Good times are guaranteed for all.

4. Are you ready for Toxic Karaoke? Not even sure what Toxic Karaoke is? Find out tonight at Lady Luck Cowgirl Up Steakhouse and Saloon.

5. The Royal Lounge Olympia hosts The Greta Jane Quartet for its last show celebration at 9:30 pm.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Freeloaders for the week

FOOR FOR THOUGHT >>>

To get to know her students better, an Olympia-area elementary school teacher recently asked them what they had had for supper the night before.

When his turn came, one little boy said he didn't have anything to eat; that it was his turn to miss a meal because his parents couldn't afford to feed his family.

My thought processes stopped for a moment when Robert Coit, the executive director of the Thurston County Food Bank, related the story to me.

Then I tasted anger.

Don't get me wrong; I am not some bleeding heart liberal in search of a cause.  On the contrary, I have a heart as hard as a blacksmith's hammer when it comes to earning what I want for me and mine.

This doesn't make me a Wall Street lackey - it just characterizes me as ambitious and gives me the ability to provide for others and myself.

But I draw a line at hunger.  No one in this country - the richest in the world - should go to bed hungry.  This is about a human need and right.

It doesn't matter that some adults have made decisions that have put themselves and any children they may have produced at the mercy of hunger.

Stupidity and hunger sometimes share the same ride to work, if you know what I mean.

Unemployment is more than happy to drive the car.

"The unemployed fuel the rising numbers of the hungry we see today," Coit added. 

According to the federal government's numbers, one in six Americans suffers from what is euphemistically referred to as "food insecurity."

What? Insecurity? Please. Spare me the verbal pabulum.

Hunger is hunger, damnit, and calling it anything else is as intellectually dishonest as it is cowardly.

Nationwide, 19.5 percent of Americans live in hunger.  Almost 14 million children go to bed hungry, and over three million of them are under the age of 5.

Hunger is a capricious and growing bastard that cripples lives.

"What we do in society today to address the issue of hunger is a band aid only," Elisabeth Schafer, a retired nutrition professor and volunteer at the Thurston County Food Bank, told me as she helped a young couple with a small child.

"Hunger hurts children; they need nutrition to grow and learn; we all have an investment in this; children are the future."

Cliché aside, Schafer's verbal arrow found its mark.

Helen McGovern, executive director of the Emergency Food Network in Pierce County, drove the point in deeper.

"18.2 percent of the clients we serve are children."  Then to add insult to the tragedy that anyone in this country is hungry, she added, "Another 24 percent of those we help are senior citizens."

Young, old and, yes, for those in-between, hunger doesn't give a damn.

In August, the network served 833,000 individuals.  During the first nine months of this year, more than 12 million pounds of food has been distributed.

That amount - like a person struggling to stay afloat - barely keeps families fed.

In both Pierce and Thurston counties, the number of people needing food continues to rise.

Coit and McGovern both pointed to bad life choices and the train wreck of an economy derailed at 9.2 percent unemployment as the reasons for more Americans needing help to feed themselves and their children.

"This is the front-line of fighting hunger," Marcus Stoll told me as we stood in a small, crowded room at the FISH Food bank at the United Methodist Church in Lakewood.  "Look around you, these people need food."

They did and they do.

I wondered about the little boy who routinely skips supper and goes to bed hungry to help his family.

My anger has a nasty aftertaste.

Want to help? Visit www.efoodnet.org or www.thurstoncountyfoodbank.org.

Can't see the slideshow associated with this story? Click here.

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Pissed He Was Shot Five Times: Prisoner has sued City of Tacoma. (News Tribune)

Good Ol' Fashioned American Capitalism: Koch Industries flout law with secret Iran sales. (Bloomberg)

Thank You Steinman: Rockefeller University biologist Ralph Steinman won the Nobel Prize, but died just days before the announcement, and Nobel rules prohibit awarding posthumously. Steinman developed a therapy to "harness the power" of the immune system and died from pancreatic cancer after extending his own life through his therapy. (CNN)

Awesome: Arrested Development is returning as a limited series on TV AND as a movie. (Deadline)

Who Wore It Better?: These Iranian soldiers or David Bowie in Labrynth?

Love Gun: Gene Simmons married Shannon Tweed.(US Weekly)

Seems Appropriate To Discuss: What's the best baseball movie? (Salon)

Fifty Years Of Famous Non-Words