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Count to ten: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

We start with one and end with zero, as we would counting to twenty or thirty or any ten count. So, coming to January first what decade is it? Is it the last year of the decade of the teens, the 2011 decade ending? Or is it the first year of the 2020s, starting the third decade in this century?

There is not universal agreement on when decades start and therefore when decades end. It is not like gravity or the speed of light: “186,000 miles per second per second is not just a good idea, it’s the law.” A decade’s start is not a fact, undisputable.

As the year ends, as the Weekly News’ fall subscription drive into all the homes in the La Conner School District ends, is there anything all the folks reading this editorial agree on? If new folks subscribe and as regular subscribers read on, how many issues away, how many words, how many events covered until we disagree? This is undisputable: disagreement between reader and editor will come. Over time, that is certain.

Reader and editor are going to disagree. The question is, what do we do with our disagreement? On the editing side, I hope you want an independent voice. As new subscribers come to read more and form both a relationship and an opinion of the Weekly News, I hope the paper earns both respect and trust. If we can disagree and respect each other and stay in relationship, we will be building a stronger community together.

Page two, the editorial page, is open to readers every issue. It is not for “oh, you are right” responses to the editor’s page. It is a page for readers to state their thoughts, analysis and opinion, whether in response to anything written on any page of the paper, editorial or not, or provide a new thought you have to offer.

Editors like to pick winners and they want to be on the right side. But a fundamental value they embrace is community. Community is not just one side or the winners or the loudest or the most powerful. Like the students in the school district, it is all of us, the tall and the short, the fast and the slow, the geeks and the grunts. The kids stick together, mostly, and that is what the grownups need to do, too.

Impeachment is here. It will pass. This is absolutely a fact: the long stretch of history will tell us what the truth is.

Newspaper editors around the country have more than the president and impeachment on our minds. We are thinking about the Constitution, democracy and the seemingly intractable stuckness of our country.

For now, people are firmly on one side or the other. Maintain your position as long as it makes sense to you. My concern is that we stay together in relationship while being brave enough to hear those with whom we disagree.

Life is a process, not a product. Whether 2020 ends a decade or starts one, we will live through it. We need to live through this minute, this time, now. As important as maintaining our integrity is recognizing and respecting the integrity of those with whom we disagree.

This editor does not try to be right with everyone. He does try to stay in relationship.

Your subscription to the Weekly News takes a chance on our community and a newspaper that challenges its readers. Bringing the paper into your house is also a commitment from you to moving forward together for the long march into the future.

Kind of like everyone in a La Conner parade.