It's been 40 years since the death of Martin Luther King Jr., a fact that is well known to most Americans. But what is not as well known is that it's been only 40 years since African Americans have felt that they were free to be citizens of this nation. Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 into law one week after the death of King, on April 11. It was passed, in large part, because of his death. For the first time in the history of this nation African Americans were guaranteed the right to sit where they want, eat where they want and live wherever they could afford.
I'm writing this from Cincinnati, once, in the 1890s, the sixth largest city in the United States. Winston Churchill, on a tour of the United States 85 years ago, called the place "The Queen City." Winnie might not have thought much of Seattle way back then - we were a provincial outback, not a regional anchor and former most-livable city. Comparing Cincinnati and Seattle helps me realize that The Emerald City isn't so bad after all. Cities, like people, have growth spurts, fallow periods, peaks and declinesCities are different.
At some point in his life every man must ask himself one of the fundamental questions of existence: Should I grow facial hair? I realized this the other day when I saw footage of Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president. Richardson himself dropped out of the race clean-shaven in January. Now he's back with an extended goatee and a possible vice-presidential nod if Obama wins. It's a gutsy move, considering the ridicule Al Gore endured when he grew a beard after losing the 2000 presidential election. (If you had a presidential election stolen from you I bet you'd stop grooming and overindulge on comfort food, too.) You'd probably have to go
The following are based on incident reports from the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct. They represent the officers' accounts of the events described. Burglary, auto theft At 8 a.m. April 4, officers responded to a Federal Avenue East home after a woman reported her wallet and her car had been stolen. The woman told officers that the previous evening she went over to her neighbor's house for a short visit. While she did not see anything unusual at the time, she mentioned that she left her back door open while she was away. Around 4 in the morning, she heard a noise and went downstairs to investigate but found nothing amiss. At 7:30 a.m. she went to leave for work and noticed that her wallet and car keys were missing. Looking outside, she noticed that her car was gone as well. Further examination revealed that a bicycle was stolen as well. Officers attempted to find fingerprints in the house without success. There were no suspects. Drugs At 3 p.m. April 4, officers on a routine bicycle patrol on Boylston Avenue East noticed a man sitting by himself in Tashkent Park. As officers rode by, they saw the man drop a small, bundled plastic bag from his hand. Officers approached the man and asked him what he had dropped on the ground. "I didn't drop anything! That's not mine!" he said. Officers looked down and saw what appeared to be a small bundle of marijuana. The man continued denying dropping the bundle. He became agitated, then aggressive and threatening, then nonsensical. "I'm a sniper in the Marines! You'll get yours! You're a liar! I signed a waiver to serve my country; you should serve yours!" he yelled, among other phrases, to the officers. Officers saw a soda can on the table next to the man. Holes had been poked into it and a small bud of suspected marijuana was resting inside it. A lighter was found nearby. The man was taken to the East Precinct, during which time his ramblings never stopped. A test confirmed the substances were marijuana. The man, in his early 50s, was arrested and booked into King County Jail. Criminal trespass At 1:30 p.m. April 5, officers responded to a 15th Avenue East grocery store after store employees detained a man for shoplifting. Officers arrived and spoke with a transient man who lacked any identification but appeared to be in his late 30s. They learned that the man walked into the store, pulled three deli sandwiches meant for other customers off the counter and put them into a plastic bag he'd brought with him. The man next walked to the beverage aisle, pulled three cans of an energy drink off the shelf and put them in his bag. As he walked past the checkstands and out the store several employees yelled at him to stop. He ran out the door, dropping his bag in the process. When confronted he said the bag wasn't his. While at first uncooperative, the man was compelled to come inside and wait for police to arrive. Officers recognized the man from numerous previous encounters. He'd been issued a trespass admonishment card for the store within the past few months. As such, the man was arrested on the trespassing violation as well as attempted theft. He was subsequently booked into King County Jail. The food items, worth $22, were returned to the store. Suicide attempt At 2 p.m. April 5, officers responded to the Capitol Hill branch library after a man called 911 to report that he'd taken roughly 60 pills. Officers located the man in the library's parking garage. He was barely conscious and extremely lethargic. The man said he had been living in a car nearby and admitted to having a variety of mental health issues. Paramedics arrived and took the man to Harborview Medical Center where a full physical recovery was expected. Shoplifting Just after 4 p.m. April 6, officers responded to a café inside Swedish Medical Center. They found a transient man in his early 30s inside the hospital's security office. Earlier, the man had been seen stealing nearly $10 worth of food from the café. Two employees saw him put three slices of pizza, one container of orange juice and one container of Gatorade inside his clothing. When he left the café without paying, security was called and the man was detained without incident. The man was arrested and booked into King County Jail without incident. The food items were returned to the café. Assault Just after 11:30 a.m. April 6, officers responded to a domestic assault that was reported taking place in a Harvard Avenue apartment. En route, the officers learned that the suspect was last seen driving away from the area. The victim met officers and told them that he and the suspect had been dating for awhile but did not live together. The suspect was staying at the victim's apartment for a short time. An argument developed over money the victim said he was owed by the suspect. The argument escalated to the point where the suspect, in the victim's words, "came at him." The victim asked the suspect to return his apartment key. The suspect refused, and the victim had to wrestle it from him. After the struggle, the suspect drove away. The victim had scratches on his hands and arms but told officers he didn't know how he received them. He also refused officers permission to look around his apartment. Nor did he know where his boyfriend was going or where he lived. The man was provided with a business card and a case number.
The following information was provided by the city's Department of Planning and Development. Unless otherwise specified, written comments on projects should be mailed to 700 Fifth Ave., Suite 2000, P.O. Box 34019, Seattle, WA 98124-4019. Appeals are made, unless otherwise noted, to the Office of the Hearing Examiner, Seattle Municipal Tower, 40th Floor (SMT-40-00), 700 Fifth Ave., Suite 4000, Seattle, WA 98104. Appeals must be accompanied by a $50 filing fee in a check payable to the City of Seattle.
Homeowners, renters, business owners all have a stake in the upcoming decisions on how the city will "update" the existing 38 neighborhood plans. Changes in neighborhood plans and policies are a precursor to land use and zoning changes as well as a way to identify and prioritize needed infrastructure improvements to accommodate growth. The forum is Saturday, April 19 from 8:30 a.m. to noon in the Bertha Knight Landes Room, City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue .
Since opening in January, R. Crumb's Underground has attracted record crowds to the Frye Museum. As we bid a sad farewell to this exhibition on April 27, don't miss a chance to view these acclaimed works of creative genius for the first time, or once more.Illustrated Lecture:  Thursday, April 17 at 7 p.m.
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center (LHPAC) will host its fifth annual Afrcan American Film Festival through April 20. All festival activities take place at the historic Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center on 17th and Yesler (104 17th Ave. S. The African American Film Festival runs consecutive nights through Sunday, April 20.
Three Dollar Bill Cinema's "I Love The Nightlife!" April Film Series continues Thursday, April 17 with "Some of My Best Friends Are"..., presented at Northwest Film Forum at 7 p.m. and followed by a post-screening party at Madison Pub. In his book, "101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men," author Alonso Duralde writes about the film, "If this unavailable-on-video gem ever screens anywhere near you, cancel all plans and go, go, go."
With maturity comes insight. Also the wisdom that being 40 or 50 or even 60 doesn't mean you can't pirouette once in a while. That's the philosophy of Dominique Gabella's company Next Stage Dance Theatre. The dancers performing April 17 through 19 at the Broadway Performance Hall in "The Mysteries of Life" range in age from 62 to a "baby" of 37. The majority of the dancers in Next Stage are in their 50s. Gabella knows that most dance audiences don't expect that.
The Seattle School District and Seattle Parks and Recreation have proposed a land swap that would see ownership of part of the Interbay soccer stadium transferred to the parks department in exchange for the parks department handing over land by Garfield High School to the school district.Parks currently controls the school district-owned property in Interbay on a lease that will last another 24 years, said Terry Dunning, major transaction manager for the parks department. But parks is concerned the school district will end the arrangement when the lease finally expires.Parks owns the rest of the sports complex and leases it to the school district, while Seattle Pacific University receives guaranteed play time in the stadium because the it paid to have the stadium built, Dunning explained.
Homeless encampments in parks and greenbelts are almost as common as espresso stands in Seattle, and various city departments have made occasional efforts in the last 15 years to get rid of them. The results have been mixed; often as not, new encampments spring up within days to replace the ones removed. But the city has come up with new rules and procedures to get a handle on the problem, according to Patricia McInturff, outgoing director of the Seattle Human Services Department. The new rules and procedures are an update of a 1996 Seattle City Council ordinance, she said, and the change was sparked last summer by an effort to remove homeless encampments on a Queen Anne hillside above the Aloha Inn on Aurora Avenue North.
Gene Mayer says the 34th Street Garage he owns in Magnolia is a full-service automotive repair shop where he and his four-man crew work on just about any kind of vehicle. But it's obvious his true love, his passion, is working on hotrods. "The other day, all we had in here was hotrods," he said in an interview last week.Racecars are in his blood, according to Mayer, because he grew up with a father in California who worked on fast machines and was involved in racing. Indeed, photos of the hotrods his dad worked on cover the walls of the office in the Magnolia garage. And Mayer started helping out in his father's garage when he was only 12, he said.
A recent run of graffiti on Magnolia raises hackles of business owners Mike Smith from the Leroux clothing store in Magnolia Village thinks there's been an upswing lately in the amount of graffiti showing up on neighborhood businesses. "My sense is it's a small group of kids (or adults) doing it," he said. Police who deal with them say that graffiti taggers are typically middle- to upper-class individuals with low self-esteem, but whoever is vandalizing Village businesses lately, seems to be able to cover a lot of ground in a hurry, Smith said. And it doesn't seem to matter what time of year it is.
Queen Anne chef endures fire and worse in spate of horrible fortune Everybody has their lucky days and those fraught with misfortune, but for Maro Gjurasic, the yin and yang between luck and things that go horribly wrong seemed to orbit him like heavy planets. As winter approached in 2007, Gjurasic was practically broke. And things were looking grim. No unemployment compensation due to a technicality, and his carpentry gig had come to a standstill.