There's an overarching narra-tive for at least the last year in how Seattle's local political and media establishment have been portraying the Seattle School District. It goes something like this: Seattle's public schools are in a terrible crisis. That crisis is due primarily to incompetent leadership, particularly on the school board. What we need is fiscally responsible adults running the district, and everything will be better.The problem is that this narrative is not only untrue but a calculated and self-serving agenda designed to restore to power the same unaccountable, old-boy (and -gal) network that left Seattle's schools in such a fiscal mess several years ago.
The Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club will be temporarily relocating on May 11 to make way for the demolition and reconstruction of a new club building. The Rainier Valley Community Center will serve as the temporary home for the club which has been a staple in the community since 1976.
The Washington Press Association honored the Beacon Hill News & South District Journal editor Erik Hansen at the organization's 2006 awards banquet on April 28 at Seattle's Museum of Flight. His column, titled "Inconvenience, let me introduce you to tragedy," ran in the paper's April 12, 2006, edition. The piece dealt with the perspective changes one's problems undergo when cancer strikes a close friend. Hansen's column garnered an honorable mention in the contest's editorial journalism category for non-daily newspapers.
The Columbia City Farmers Market opened for business on Wednesday, May 2, with a hefty crowd turning out in the first hour. However, a strong, brief rainstorm thinned the crowd. The market is open every Wednesday from 3-7 p.m. until October 31. In business since 1998,m the market is located near the intersection of Rainier Avenue South and South Edmonds Street in the Columbia Plaza parking lot at 4801 Rainier Avenue South. Parking tokens are available for free lots reserved for market shoppers.
Grover Haynes, 76, a longtime Lakewood citizen, was recently honored as a recipient of the citywide Jefferson Award. This prestigious award recognizes the contributions of citizen heroes who quietly make a difference in improving the lives of others. Though retired, Haynes keeps a schedule that most working stiffs couldn't begin to maintain. This tall, unassuming gentleman is president of the Lakewood-Seward Park Community Association and has been for the past 10-plus years. He is a member of the Rainier Historical Society, he serves on the Municipal League Transportation and Issues Committee, and he is president of the Genesee Merchants' Association.
During the current local and worldwide battles of political, religious, ideological, philosophical, industrial, disaffected, unreal chaos, this newspaper has printed a basic, down-to-earth and to-hell-with-mushroom-cloud-threats real person's battle with cancer [see, "Walking down the cancer road," April 25].I've been thinking of this while I've been watching CH 9 KCTS' account of the battles and burnings-alive attendant to the translations and interpretations of the Bible in the 1400s and 1500s in England and Germany.
There's an overarching narrative for at least the last year in how Seattle's local political and media establishment have been portraying the Seattle School District. It goes something like this: Seattle's public schools are in a terrible crisis. That crisis is due primarily to incompetent leadership, particularly on the School Board. What we need is fiscally responsible adults running the district, and everything will be better.The problem is that this narrative is not only untrue, but a calculated and self-serving agenda designed to restore to power the same unaccountable Old Boy (and Gal) network that left Seattle's schools in such a fiscal mess several years ago.
"A mother's love cannot be bought for any price, nor can the values that she imparts," stated Maria Luisa Aguilera with conviction. Aguilera is an early childhood teacher at the Jose Marti Child Development Center located in El Centro de La Raza on Beacon Hill. Among teaching academic subjects in preparation for school, children are taught equality, social justice and family unity through poetry, art, music and community projects.
One of the pleasures of living on the Hill is that even those who lack space to grow vegetables can still find farmer-fresh produce by visiting the Broadway Sunday Farmers Market. The Broadway Business Improvement Association (BIA) hosts the weekly event, which begins operation this year on Sunday, May 13, and runs through to Nov. 30. The market, located as before behind the Broadway Bank of America parking lot on Broadway and East Thomas Street, runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
A convergence of nature and technology: Jessica Burgess (left, with camera phone), Sadie Kim and Jamie Wallace enjoy the newly hatched ducklings at the reflection pond at Seattle University on Friday, May 4. It's the second straight year the mother has selected the university campus.
One of the great perks of living on the Hill is our proximity to Volunteer Park, a lush urban setting where one can enjoy the quiet of a sheltering tree or the frivolity of a game of ultimate frisbee on the expansive grounds. In late April, a classmate invited me to attend a series of free performances at the park. Penned by Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who in November 2002 decided to write a play a day for 365 days. Titled "365 Days/ 365 Plays," the cycle offers a daily reflection on an artistic life. Some works are less than a page long, others are longer. The plays are presented in a variety of settings from traditional theaters to parks, bus stops and even online media
There's an overarching narrative for at least the last year in how Seattle's local political and media establishment have been portraying the Seattle School District. It goes something like this: Seattle's public schools are in a terrible crisis. That crisis is due primarily to incompetent leadership, particularly on the School Board. What we need is fiscally responsible adults running the district and everything will be better. The problem is that this narrative is not only untrue, but a calculated and self-serving agenda designed to restore to power the same unaccountable Old Boy (and Gal) network that left Seattle's schools in such a fiscal mess several years ago.
I look back and marvel at the fact that it's been, what?, only a week since the Virginia Tech shootings, and already I can't remember where I was when I heard the news.And this is not a short-term vs. long-term, middle-age memory clash, but a coping mechanism, the result of repetition on the mind, or the "weariness of again" as my friend Jeane so wisely put it. It's what allows us to say gloomily, "Oh, no, not again!" after the worst mass murder in our country occurs. And then, just like that,busy on with our lives.
The Legislature has gone home again. What did these part-timers do this year? And what didn't they do?We've already noted in this space last week that they totally wimped out in dealing with the firearms issue. But guns, despite being more important than bread in this country since the day I was back in the middle of the previous century, are not everything, whatever the NRA wackos believe in their twisted little hearts.On the plus side, our brave politicians did pass a bill establishing a domestic-partnership registry, which included extended rights for same-sex couples, among others. This is a good thing.
Photographic Center Northwest is calling for photographers to submit their work for the 12th annual Up & Now photographic competition exhibition.Deadline for submissions is May 25 with the exhibition running through August 30. Visit www.pcnw.org for submission guidelines.