Proses are read

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman: In past years, Snohomish County taxpayers typically get their property tax statements on Valentine’s Day. But a delay in levy information means taxpayers won’t likely get their “Valentines” from the county until later in the week (Page B1).

Allow us some Valentine prose, while you wait for the bill:

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

Don’t think they forgot.

Your taxes are due.

More doggerel: Everett’s Cedar Grove Composting is appealing $169,000 in fines levied over odor complaints, claiming that wind data will show the complaints were traced to them in error (above).

Roses smell sweetly.

Cedar Grove, less so.

You don’t need a weatherman,

To know which way the winds blow.

Don’t know much about history: On this day in 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called author Salman Rushdie’s novel, “The Satanic Verses,” blasphemous and called for his death (Page A2).

Rushdie, once poor.

His “Verses” dubbed blasphemous.

Got a boost from a mullah,

Who pushed him past famous.

–Jon Bauer, Herald staff