Survival of what fits, a miscellanyIt's a joy to poke fun at Jean Godden and others of her ilk who have made a living writing columns full of bulletined non-news items such as 'Mayor Nickels seen at buffet with third plate' or 'Bumper sticker seen on Lake Union Trolley (but no passengers).'Don't get me wrong though, I've learned from Jean. Her problem, before politics saved her, wasn't the format but the content. Sometimes so many things are happening and need to be noted that bulletin-style is the only style that fits.So without further ado:* Justice was served recently in the Gerald Eastman case, but as usual the King County prosecutor's office cannot lose with good grace. They are seeking a new trial for former Boeing inspector Gerald Eastman, who was accused of taking files from an employee-accessible system at Boeing, and leaking it to the Seattle Times and the P-I. Eastman, who worked for Boeing as an inspector for more than 15 years, took documents he claimed showed serious quality control issues at the giant airplane corporation. Eastman's recent trial ended in a hung jury, but King County prosecutors, who supposedly work for us, are going to spend a planeload of money trying to once again convict a whistle-blower, without dealing with whether the files Eastman leaks proved there were serious problems at Boeing. Wrong!* I believe God is an ironist. I can't prove it, but it's no secret that most of the greatest writers in literature's long history were definitely ironists. And most of them would enjoy noting that a 21-year-old man recently charged with second-degree murder after a hip-hop party on the South Side, is named Lovelychild. That's his legal first name. Now, if someone named Dirtyrat wins the Nobel Peace Prize, the circle will be complete.* Art's beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But to my way of seeing, Selma Waldman was a genuine artist who wore her deeply held anti-war convictions right on her canvasses for all to see. Waldman, who died of cancer April 16, was better known in Germany than here, where she'd chosen to live for the past three decades. I met Waldman on assignment for this paper in 2003, when she had a show hanging at Gallery 110 downtown near Pioneer Square. Waldman's sketches at that show graphically portrayed the reported torture at Abu Ghraib prison. Waldman has her art hanging all over the world. A series of drawings entitled "Falling Man" was permanently installed at the Berlin Museum in 1986.After writing about Waldman, she invited me to her tiny house in the Rainier Valley, where she lived surrounded by her art and books. And more books. Waldman was an artist in the best sense of the word, and even if she wasn't as appreciated here as elsewhere, she kept working. She will be missed. Waldman was 77.* Finally, in a recent column I talked about my dismay at once again visiting the Midwest, Cincinnati and Chicago, to see family in the blighted area where I was forced to grow up. I have been a Westerner, Washington, Idaho and Hawaii, for the past 25 years. Climate is better, environment is less spoiled, population is more diverse, and there's no comparison in quality of life.As noted previously here, Cincinnati, smaller than Seattle, has three times as many homicides in a year. Chicago, supposedly the great Midwestern city, has averaged three or four homicides ever day since Al Capone was the unofficial mayor there. Forget the horrible winters, the place is more dangerous than Iraq.Last weekend, in Chicago, as I was arriving back at the King Street Station, The City of Big Shoulders and Many Murderers saw nine citizens killed in 36 shootings. That's NINE in one two-day weekend. The murders included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and one angry customer who shot up a plumbing supply store with an AK-47, the Russian-made automatic weapon the North Vietnamese used against us during the Vietnam War.Let's let Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis, who would love to live here, have the last word about livability in the Midwest's biggest city: "There are just too many weapons here. Too many guns, too many gangs." Despite the problems here, Seattle, at least compared to Chicago, rules.[[In-content Ad]]
