In my mind hypocrites are the worst sinners. Whited sepulchers is what I believe George W. Bush's alleged personal Savior called them back in the day when gods walked the earth and Brittany spears were weapons for the then-feisty Gauls, who hadn't yet been weakened by excessive saucing (ask the Romans if you don't believe me).According to a reader's letter in the Feb. 23 Seattle Times, local television traveler Rick Steves, whose trips to Europe are among the brighter spots on local PBS, told an audience at the University of Washington's Kane Hall that some dim bulbs are rating his shows according to how much nudity (ancient statues and post-medieval art museums) he's foisting upon the ever-innocent American public.
It's not news that "humankind cannot bear very much reality," as T.S. Eliot once noted. We've always looked for short cuts to avoid confronting certain individuals and experiences head-on, in all their richly intimidating complexity. Only difference nowadays is that our culture actually encourages us to grab the first and handiest label when it comes to anything more complicated than a cartoon character. (And despite his lack of depth, even poor Sponge Bob Square Pants can't escape getting slapped with a scarlet H - for homosexual - by the religious right.) Easy to say we're a polarized nation, drowning in politically correct idiocy, and let it go at that. But that red and blue, liberal and conservative dichotomy is spawning a truly scary way of describing the world. Faced with living, breathing, messy reality, we're given to saving time and thought by whipping out conceptual cookie-cutters to make it fit into our own, familiar status quo.
JOHN CRANE"A large role. In meeting people and just getting an initial vibe from someone, I pay attention to what I first feel in any situation."MARK KROEGER"I don't think that it plays a role - it is just there. You don't think about it - it just happens."
It's a chilly Saturday morning in Discovery Park. A thick, soupy fog hangs low in the winter sky, obscuring the surrounding treetops. Not the ideal conditions for bird-watching. But the group of about 20 people and a smattering of dogs that has gathered in front of the Visitor Center is undeterred. Those in attendance are representatives, volunteers and friends of various local environmental and neigh-borhood nonprofits, and everyone is excited to begin this morning's walk along the Salmon Bay Wildlife Corridor.
Queen Anne Baptist Church was full on Saturday, Feb. 5. Friends and family members gathered in wooden pews to say their last goodbyes to Robert Allen Gardner, a Queen Anne resident and renowned community member, husband, father and friend to many."He never talked about what religion he was," said Eric Vogt, a professor at Seattle Pacific University. "He lived it."Robert A. Gardner, known as Bob by friends and family, passed away at his home on Sunday, Jan. 30. He was 85 years old. His wife Aline, daughter Sue Gardner Lucier and son Greg survive him.
Our Lady of Fatima School's eighth-grade Boys AAA basketball team won an exciting championship game Sunday, Feb. 20, beating Holy Rosary West Seattle, 47-31, before a nearly full house at O'Dea High School.It was the Falcon's third straight year the team has won the CYO city basketball championship, and they hold a 10-0 record in CYO playoff games since 2003. After the sixth grade championship, Fatima was placed in the AAA division with the eight highest-ranked teams.
Saturday errands can be a fascinating rollercoaster ride if you keep your sense of humor close at hand. First stop was the drycleaning establishment that promises one-day service. They advertise that service in very large letters on their windows. What they don't advertise is the service is only available Monday through Friday.So, in a fog, it is off to the next errand. The mind is wandering over the choices in my closet that might work as alternatives for the party tonight. Also I miss a couple of turns while thinking about helping them to paint M-F on their windows.
I found out today that being unreliable has its place.It's a good thing that my husband is unreliable, because I counted on this little personality trait of his when I locked myself out of my house this morning. It happened because I was in a hurry, trying to get my two youngest daughters down to the bus stop in time. The second the door closed, I knew it was locked and I was, shall we say, up that proverbial creek without the proverbial ladder... er, paddle.
November 1971. Across an old oak table piled with print, the old librarian passed me the latest Rolling Stone. Under a drawing from hell was:We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like, "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . ." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about 100 miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas...Hunter Thompson and his 300-pound Samoan lawyer were on a roll:
"We haven't had any rain since Thursday, and parts of the yard are still squishy," my stepmother told me over the phone this past Saturday in a tone of amused amazement. Pools of standing water prevented my dad from working in the garden, and the dogs churned up patches of mud, which they happily dragged through my parent's house in El Cajon, Calif., a medium-sized city sitting in a desert valley on San Diego's eastern border.Eleven years worth of rain in just over a month, said my Dad while I looked outside at a Seattle sky that seemed, with its unclouded expanse of blue, more like late summer than late winter.A few days later this atmospheric roll reversal between the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Southwest flooded back into my brain after learning the Kyoto Protocol officially went into effect on Feb. 15. An increasing and impressive body of scientific work suggests that the atypical weather we've been experiencing is inexorably linked to the staggering rise of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
George Aoyama'I think that everyone goes on hunches. How can you ever really know? Most of us make decisions on what we think or feel is right or what we have done in the past.'
The West Emerson Street entrance to Magnolia now has a welcome sign donated by the Magnolia chapter of the Rotary Club.Unveiled on Wednesday, Feb. 23, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the national Rotary Club and the year-old Magnolia club, the new sign next to Goodman Racing not only greets visitors and residents, but symbolizes the group's humanitarian efforts, according to Rotary members.Although Magnolia's Rotary Club has only been around a year, Rotarian Muriel Boyd, wife of organization president Roger Boyd, said she is very pleased with the efforts the group has made so far to help the community."It's been 100 years since this guy from Chicago named Paul Harris got the idea of getting a group of guys together in the community to help out," she said. "So it started in the community like we're doing here."
The Queen Anne Historical Society has unanimously called for preserving the Park View apartment building on West Highland Drive, according to a Feb. 21 letter the organization sent to the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board.Property developer Lorig & Associates wants to demolish the 80-year-old building across from Kerry Park and replace it with a high-end condominium, Bruce Lorig has said. But - because it is a multi-family building - part of that process includes the company submitting a nomination to the Preservation Board for landmark status of the building.
It's a chilly Saturday morning in Discovery Park. A thick, soupy fog hangs low in the winter sky, obscuring the surrounding treetops. Not the ideal conditions for bird watching. But the group of about 20 people and a smattering of dogs that has gathered in front of the Visitor Center is undeterred. Those in attendance are representatives, volunteers and friends of various local environmental and neighborhood non-profits, and everyone is excited to begin this morning's walk along the Salmon Bay Wildlife Corridor.
I found out today that being unreliable has its place. It's a good thing that my husband is unreliable, because I counted on this little personality trait of his when I locked myself out of my house this morning. It happened because I was in a hurry, trying to get my two youngest daughters down to the bus stop in time. The second the door closed, I knew it was locked and I was, shall we say, up that proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle. Or key. Or enough brain cells to figure out what I was going to do next.
We haven't had any rain since Thursday, and parts of the yard are still squishy," my stepmother told me over the phone in a tone of amused amazement last Saturday. Pools of standing water prevented my dad from working in the garden, and the dogs churned up patches of mud, which they happily dragged through my parent's house in El Cajon, Calif., a medium-size city sitting in a desert valley on San Diego's eastern border. Eleven years' worth of rain in a little more than a month, my dad said while I looked outside at a Seattle sky that seemed more like late summer, with its unclouded expanse of blue, than late winter.A few days later this atmospheric role reversal between the Pacific Northwest and the Pacific Southwest flooded back into my brain after learning the Kyoto Protocol officially went into effect on Feb. 15. An increasing, and impressive, body of scientific work suggests that the atypical weather we've been experiencing is inexorably linked to the staggering rise of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
A group that included a Choctaw-Navajo native, a few elderly couples and mothers of small children met Saturday, Feb. 26, at the Green Lake Library. Together, they explored two questions of the book "Guiding Lights: The People Who Lead Us Toward Our Purpose in Life": "Who has influenced you?" and "How are you passing it on?"Eric Liu, author of the book and host of KUOW's "Power of Voice," is currently moderating Talking Circles: Community Conversations, a series of Q&A; discussions of the book and its ideas.It's a gathering presented by the Washington Center for the Book. Other sponsors included the Seattle Public Library Foundation, Starbucks Coffee and Verizon Wireless. In explaining his choice of sponsors, Liu said that "the premise of Starbucks and libraries is creating space.... I've always been that way, trying to connect dots between one thing to another."
Allison Robbins ( right), Carey Parker and Aaron McKallor - all eighth-graders at Villa Academy, 5001 N.E. 50th St. - talk with Tent City 3 resident Doug James for a documentary they are making about the homeless encampment.
While working for a website-design business in Costa Rica, Charles Brennick made a discovery that changed the course of his life. Inspired by the fact that a simple webpage could improve the economic and social condition of neglected groups, he hatched the idea to establish an organization that provides technological access to nonprofits. In 1999, Brennick founded InterConnection Computer Reuse and Learning Center, a nonprofit that accepts donated computers and then refurbishes them for other nonprofit organizations. In addition, InterConnection provides free computer repair and operations training to anyone who wants to gain computer skills.
A University District center for homeless youths was burglarized in early February, and about $1,000 in donated gift cards was stolen.The burglar entered through a ground-floor window into the office of Tyler Bauer, drop-in coordinator and caseworker for Street Youth Ministries (SYM), a faith-based service provider. The burglar stole a bundle of gift cards to Target, Fred Meyer and Payless Shoe Source from a box in the bottom of a drawer in Bauer's desk, he said.
