You can be the class clown

Be a clown: If you’re looking for something for the kids to do during the winter break, the Seattle Shakespeare Company and the ZinZanni Institute for Circus Arts offers a clown camp for kids ages 8 through 16. Kids can learn comic timing, slapstick and circus techniques.

A few program notes: Students should bring their own seltzer bottles. Sad hobo clown costumes are limited to the first three kids to sign up. And transportation is available, but it’s a teeny little clown car that seats a dozen.

Six geese a-laying: Sunday was the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, an on-the-wing census of the local bird population.

The bird count provides important information, but The Buzz has always found birds difficult to count because of their maddening refusal to sit still. We prefer our own annual tradition, the Great Spring Slug Count. Slugs are slow moving to begin with and even easier to count after Mrs. Buzz has flattened them with a garden trowel.

Rub-a-dub-dub: On this day in 1917, a New York newspaper published H.L. Mencken’s satirical history of bathtubs in America. It was all a hoax, including the passage that President Millard Fillmore was first to install a tub in the White House.

It was an obvious fabrication; everyone knows that Al Gore invented the bathtub.

—Jon Bauer, Herald staff

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

RGB version
Editorial cartoons for Friday, May 9

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Liz Skinner, right, and Emma Titterness, both from Domestic Violence Services of Snohomish County, speak with a man near the Silver Lake Safeway while conducting a point-in-time count Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024, in Everett, Washington. The man, who had slept at that location the previous night, was provided some food and a warming kit after participating in the PIT survey. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: County had no choice but to sue over new grant rules

New Trump administration conditions for homelessness grants could place county in legal jeopardy.

Schwab: Trump isn’t a lawyer, but plays president on TV

Unsure if he has to abide by the Constitution, Trump’s next gig could be prison warden or movie director.

Klein: Trump’s pick of Vance signaled values of his second term

Selecting Vance as his vice president cued all that what mattered now was not just loyalty but sycophancy.

Ask what Trump gets out of his tariffs

Just before Trump’s first election to the presidency, my wife and I… Continue reading

More moderates needed in politics today

It looks like both the MAGA people and the liberal Democrats are… Continue reading

EATS Act would overrides state protections for animals

I urge Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, to oppose the EATS… Continue reading

toon
Editorial cartoons for Thursday, May 8

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Comment: Trump’s pursuit of Canada risks losing what we do have

Insisting ‘never say never’ isn’t how to win back a once-valuable trade partner and trusted ally.

With investments coming, adopt habitat rules that fit

I was delighted to see the article (“Snohomish County salmon recovery projects… Continue reading

Build more housing sustainably to protect environment, climate

As a young person, I want to call attention to what citizens… Continue reading

Call Congress to protect funding for social safety net programs

When I was a child, my mother did not discourage me or… Continue reading

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.