According to the calendar, spring started a month ago, but this being Seattle you can’t always be sure. A hint was when we began waking to the calliope of bird songs these days. No longer did the screech of the alarm clock at oh-dark-hundred hours have us hurtling ourselves out from under the comfy, warm covers.
he billboards we usually drive by and ignore — except to see what the Washington state lotteries’ winnings are up to — are the latest focus of the free-speech controversy in King County.
When the push was on to build the new football stadium, I had a first-row seat and was privileged to be actively involved in the campaign. During that brief campaign we talked about how important the team would be to the economic life of Downtown Seattle, the taxes and jobs it would generate.
Interest in “happiness” is exploding! Book after book talks about new research. There’s an outpouring of international interest in Gross National Happiness, measuring progress in terms of the well-being of people and the planet, not just Gross Domestic Product. Why this new interest? There seems to be a sense of urgency, a feeling that we can’t just go on in our same, old ways. We know that people and the planet are in deep trouble.
The medicinal benefits of marijuana are now recognized throughout most medical communities and are steadily resonating among political circles, law enforcement agencies and the public at large. Today most people know a friend or loved one whose chronic pain or nausea was relieved or could have been by medical marijuana.
It’s prom time again. Some of the high schools have already held their big spring formal dances, but lessons in dating terror still lie ahead for a number of teens out there. When we went to the prom, the idea of parents renting hotel rooms for us students or even staying out all night was something that couldn’t even be comprehended. Times have changed I guess.
Of all the details about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the one that stays with me is the death of a woman during the assault. At first, the media reported she died as a “human shield,” held in a final act of cowardice by bin Laden himself or one of his accomplices. Then the media said she had been “caught in the crossfire.” Finally, it was revealed that she was shot while unarmed in her quarters and was the wife of the Al-Qaeda courier who literally led American troops to bin Laden’s doorstep.
In a drama that appears to be getting increasingly confusing and absurd by the moment, the best comment of the week may belong to Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin who dubbed the August referendum on the deep-bore tunnel as the “Seinfeld referendum.” “It’s a referendum about nothing,” Conlin told KUOW listeners recently, referring to the description of the popular 1990s comedy series.
Brand Strategy Retreat Expert Maria Ross, founder of Red Slice, a branding consultant and author will spend four roll-up-your-sleeves hours educating you on what brand is and why it matters to your bottom line. The event is Wed., May 25, 1:00p.m.-5:00p.m. at the Hotel Max, 620 Stewart St. For more information, call 206-728-6299 or visit the website, http://www.hotelmaxseattle.com.
The June 2 grand opening of the impressive Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation headquarters in Lower Queen Anne is undoubtedly one of the neighborhood’s most momentous social and financial events in years. It couldn’t happen at a better time for Lower Queen Anne merchants, who appear to have suffered more than their share of economic blows in the past few years.
Folklife Beatdown A man called the non-emergency line for the Seattle Police Department on Tuesday, May 31st to report that he had been robbed at the Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center over the weekend. The victim said he’d been enjoying the festival on Sunday, May 29th when his backpack was stolen around 4 p.m. He didn’t see who took the backpack, but after a witness pointed out a group of teenagers, he took off running after them.He eventually caught up with one of the teens, who didn’t have the backpack. After speaking with the teen, he turned around and saw the rest of the group running towards him. The victim tells police the group knocked him down and took his cell phone and wallet from his pockets. He said that although the group kicked and punched him, he did not have any injuries from the event. The group then ran off, and the victim couldn’t provide police with a description of any of them. He did say that he found his sweatshirt on the ground. It had been in his backpack.
With any luck, by the time you are reading this, we will have had a glorious weekend of warm sunshine, long walks, bike rides, kayak paddles, barbeques and all the things people do when the sun comes out in Seattle. What did you do last weekend? Did you clean your house? Pay bills? Do yard work? Accomplish something so you didn’t feel like you wasted the weekend away? Or did you enjoy the onset (finally) of summer, by leaving all that behind to play?
Coffee Club $2.00 toward your morning coffee at Muse, compliments of George Andrade. Wednesday, June 29th from 8:00am to 10:00am George Andrade will be available to answer your financial questions, and treat you to $2.00 OFF your morning order. Muse Coffee Co. is located at 1907 10th Ave West (at 10th and Howe). Questions? Call (206) 285-3727.
Never mix friendship with real estate
For 25 years now, the animation company Pixar has been making quality movies, from “Toy Story” to “Up” and all of them for the most part have been extraordinary. However, nobody’s perfect. From time to time even the animation powerhouse will make a movie that doesn’t meet the expectations of their previous films.