Editor,

Thank you for reporting on a local innovator – i.e., Former Navy man harnesses AI for recipe app (Sept. 24th). Mr. Ortiz embodies qualities of immigrants that are both common and highly admirable, including service to country and hustle. I appreciate your sharing his story. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the only true natives were walking the shores of Whidbey and Camano when most of Europe was convinced the sun rotated around the earth. The rest of us are immigrants, plain and simple.

We’re living in dark times, when U.S. Rep. Randall — a member of the House Oversight Committee — can’t get a straight answer from the Northwest ICE Processing Center in her own district, to address valid concerns over living conditions and overcrowding at the facility. There was more transparency in 1942, when our government began loading Japanese-American citizens onto trucks bound for the Minidoka camp in Idaho. I find this and similar actions by the current Administration dehumanizing and shameful.

Returning to Mr. Ortiz, I applaud his ingenuity and wish him luck in his future entrepreneurial endeavors. What a perfect metaphor. Let’s all open the refrigerator (and our minds), and see what we can make with a cup of basmati rice, a sprig of Thai basil, a poblano chili, a few Medjool dates, and a slice of Jarlsberg. If we can’t see past the cottage cheese, what a very dull dinner indeed.

Nat Scholz

Bayview