With the strings of holiday lights and lawns filled with illuminated Santas, candy canes and Nativity scenes, it's easy to overlook the gorgeous colors and shapes Mother Nature has on display in the depths of the darkest days of winter. Staff photographer Bradley Enghaus took these images of berries upstaging a string of lights, pods weathered gray and ready to drop their black seeds for spring's new crop, and rose hips dipping toward earth on their thorny stem all in the Mount Baker neighborhood solstice eve.For six months we have been losing daylight, but the sun started its slow journey back on Dec. 22. when it set at 4:21 p.m., a mark that will gain by about a minute per day until the heat of summer is at its peak and we've all forgotten about our months of cold rain and close skies.
Mayor Greg Nickels has signed legislation to include protection for homeless people under the city's Malicious Harassment Ordinance.The bill stiffens enforcement of laws protecting people from harm by allowing prosecutors to bring an additional charge of malicious harassment to an existing criminal charge.
Whether you're stopping by your favorite location of The Seattle Public Library or making a visit to the Library's around-the-clock virtual branch at www.spl.org, learning how to use library services has never been easier. Just go to the Library's Web site and select "Using the Library" to get started.
The Qwest Foundation announced its support of El Centro de la Raza on Dec. 13 with a $5,000 contribution. The grant will be used toward the purchase of computers for classrooms and to educate families on a broad variety of information and opportunities available from Qwest. This grant in particular is an element of the Spanish-language Motívate.Edúcate.Elévate. program.
The Central Puget Sound region is set to receive $88.2 million to help finish one major light-rail project and launch another that will carry even more riders.Of particular note, the bill includes $19.6 million in early funding for extending light rail from Downtown Seattle to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington. Sound Transit is working to start building the University Link project next year with a $750 million grant the agency is seeking from the Federal Transit Administration.
Flavors of Latin America and Africa merge at Villa VictoriaThe wooden, ladder-back chair caught my eye first. A creamy, rich yellow delicately hand-painted with a cathedral scene across the top slat. It called out Mexico by its mere presence. Decked out in bright colors and her trademark brimmed hat, Smith is a bundle of energy, ideas and determination, driven by a desire to make the most of her return to health after surviving cancer three years ago.
During the afternoon of Dec. 15, a work party of about 20 volunteers - adults and teens - from the King County Social Justice Program descended on the Rainier Valley Cultural Center in Columbia City to do more than a spot of cleaning. The group helped out the center, operated by Southeast Effective Development, by cleaning the carpet and floors, polishing fixtures and wood, doing some light painting and trimming bushes, raking leaves and picking up trash outside. Above, Ian Sherman sweeps the stage.
On the morning of Sept. 8, I read about the death of a Seattle bicyclist and the injury of his companion under a large truck.Later in the day, I was late to the funeral of an old friend because the route was block off for another witless bicycles-only event. As I detoured through other streets, I stopped for crosswalk pedestrians, one with a child in a stroller, as two intrepid, noble kinds of the saddle breezed through without slowing, let alone - perish the thought of being inconvenienced - stopping.Seattle streets are a mess. Seattle traffic policy is a mess. Car and truck traffic by itself is dangerous enough, and it is made far more dangerous by touchy-feely programs to accommodate a horde of largely incompetent and dangerous cyclists, on streets that are already overloaded by car traffic.
Last month, voters soundly defeated Proposition One, the $18 billion roads-and-transit package, an outcome we applaud. Post-election polls showed voters really disliked the roads portion of the package, as well they should have. It was nothing but a recipe for more cars and air pollution. By contrast, those polls showed a majority would have supported a ballot measure with only the rail portion. The pro-rail lobby has seized on this and called on the governor and Legislature to put a light-rail-only proposal on the ballot next year
Constitutional privacy concerns raise alarms The Seattle City Council voted 6-3 on Monday, Dec.17, to pay for a $50,000 study that would determine how all rental units in the city could be inspected for housing-code violations. Outgoing council member Peter Steinbrueck, who cosponsored the legislation with council president Nick Licata, framed the argument for an inspection program as a way to tackle substandard housing in the city.But the inspection program raises constitutional concerns about privacy rights at both the state and federal levels, according to the Queen Anne-based Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound.
PERMIT DECISIONS: 3715 S. Angeline St. (3006562) on a Land Use Application to subdivide one parcel into nine unit lots. The construction of townhouses has been approved under Project No. 6105055. This subdivision of property is only for the purpose of allowing sale or lease of the unit lots. Development standards will be applied to the original parcel and not to each of the new unit lots. The following appealable decisions have been made based on submitted plans: Short Subdivision to create nine unit lots conditionally granted. The hearing examiner must receive appeals of this decision no later than Monday, Dec. 31.
Dawn: The lightening sky bleeds with the beautiful orange and red hues of a rising sun. An infinity of diamonds sparkle and shimmer and glint on the waters of Lake Washington, Lake Union, Portage Bay. To the southeast, Mt. Rainier rises up through the mist with a breathtaking blend of eternal rebirth and prehistoric splendor, a scene-renewed daily-of this land's timeless majesty.So, what's it worth to you? What would you pay-over and above the roof and four walls of requisite survival-to own, literally, a view like this? As with any of earth's scenic gifts, can the priceless really be tagged with a monetary value?
The holiday moon in Rainier Beach. The moon was full the day after Winter Solstice.
Photographer Mary Randlett, who moved to Queen Anne as a young teen in 1938, isn't the most famous person to have walked the hallowed halls of Queen Anne High School. That mantle probably belongs to Hank Ketchum of Dennis the Menace renown.But through her life and work, Randlett has reflected the ever-elusive Northwest soul like nobody else who spent his or her formative years on the Hill. At 83, she has long been regarded as a Northwest artistic treasure.
When the art history of our city is written, 2007 will stand out as a banner year for the visual arts. Citywide, two major events occurred, both involving the Seattle Art Museum. The opening of the Olympic Sculpture Park brought back Alexander Calder's "Eagle" into the public eye as the iconic symbol of the new park. The expansion of SAM downtown added new luster to the older Robert Venturi building, and local arts patrons stepped up to pledge $1 billion worth of artwork to the new facility.