OWNER FIGHTS BACK AND BEATS MIGHTY CHEVRON Ric Kastner, longtime owner of a gas station at 3317 W. Government Way, grumbled a little bit about having to change the signs when his Texaco station was converted to a Shell franchise last year.
■ Django Sussman holds up his son, Lucas, 3, for a personal meeting with the Seattle Police Department's horses, while Zachary Ceballos (background), 3, has his own visit with one during the third-annual Picnic at the Precinct. The North Precinct, 10049 College Way N., also had live music, free hot dogs and ice cream, tours and a show-and-tell of police gadgets. photo/Bradley Enghaus
A few weeks ago, Karen Clark's 8-year-old Australian shepherd, Tango, was struck by a Metro bus and instantly killed. The dog was Clark's life in many ways. She trained him and loved him. For days after the tragedy, which she witnessed, Clark was an emotional and physical wreck.
A month ago, I had a first date. It was drinks during happy hour at the Triangle Lounge in Fremont (his choice). We chatted quite amiably, I thought. Obviously, he didn't. When the waitress offered him a second beer, he declined. He announced he had to go meet a friend, after 57 minutes of conversation.I can take a hint. One to two hours is about right for a first date, and he called an end at the polite minimum. I smiled, shrugged on my jacket and strolled with him to the exit. We continued to chat until, in the shadow of the Lenin statue, I declared I had an errand in another direction. When he said, "See you again sometime," I nodded and smiled.Then he kissed me.
Last week, in a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, in a case that may set a precedent for generations, that corporate crime really does pay.The occasion was the slashing of the punitive damages lower courts had assessed against ExxonMobil for Exxon's culpability in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The incident, which a jury found Exxon responsible for, cost the North Pacific fishery and Alaska's economy billions. Fishermen were driven out of business; 19 years later, the pristine waters and beaches of Prince William Sound have never fully recovered.But that's OK. Mustn't inconvenience the nice corporation with the army of lawyers.Five justices randomly decided that punitive damages cannot exceed what a company pays to partially compensate (human) victims for their economic losses. Thus, for Exxon, the original jury award of $5 billion in punitive damages - already halved to $2.5 billion (for no apparent reason) by an appeals court - was magically cut to $500 million.
The Mikado is probably the most often performed piece of musical theater in the English language. Almost everyone has seen or been in this show either at school or at camp. The development of the original was featured in the recent Academy Award-winning motion picture, "Topsy-Turvy." The title of the film was based on the penchant of Gilbert to pull off a happy ending by the most improbable last-minute plot twits. The pseudo-Japanese setting for the opera was influenced by the great popularity of Japanese objects
Matthew Fioretti had it all going for him. His business, Four Winds Imports on Queen Anne Hill, was doing well, and so was his Four Winds Himalaya Guide Service, which had been mounting two climbing expeditions a year to the world's tallest mountain range.
How is it that this city's council members are getting paid so much? Below are the salaries of the mayor and the nine councilors:Mayor Greg Nickels $159,439.68Timothy L. Burgess $113,587.20Sally J. Clark $113,587.20Richard B. Conlin $103,878Jan Drago $103,878Jean H. Godden $113,587.20Bruce A. Harrell $113,587.20Nicholas J. Licata $103,878Richard J. McIver $103,878Thomas Rasmussen $113,587.20Most of these people are talented, hard-working, honest and civic-minded. But you can throw a rock over your shoulder and hit 20 people who fit that description - and they'll do the job for half that. When average working people are polled on why they stay and perform at their jobs, it's not the money that drives them, but the job itself. You've got big-hearted police officers, savvy schoolteachers and others down in the environmental trenches who could do the job and maybe do it even better. Why? Because you don't need a doctorate to have common sense, the instrument needed most for the job. And how the state came up with the salary rate for the councilors and the mayor is frankly amazing. Nationally, our beloved Seattle is a blip on the map, next to the likes of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. And yet Seattle City Council pay ranks right up there with the big boys. And some municipalities of equal or greater size have fewer councilors altogether. Portland, for example, has four commissioners, an auditor and a mayor. And when it comes to being progressive (its light-rail system went on-line years ago), Portland mops the floor with Seattle.If the city is worried about a balanced budget, perhaps it should start with not only reducing the pay of council members but reducing their number, too.
One of the laws in the Seattle Municipal Code which is often misunderstood and disobeyed is SMC 18.12.080, which states: "...It is unlawful...for any person to allow or permit any dog or other pet to run at large on any organized athletics area or designated children's play area."This means that the parents who regularly bring dogs onto the Sports Meadow at Magnuson Park are actually disobeying the law. According to [Seattle] Parks [and Recreation] Superintendent Timothy Gallagher, the athletic field at the Sports Meadow begins at the grass, not on the sidelines.It is a shame that so many parents and even a coach feel such a strong sense of entitlement that believe that the law could not possibly apply to them. It is unfortunate that these people are parents because their children are learning to flagrantly and belligerently disobey the law and that revenge on whistle-blowers is acceptable.
In 1984, if a guy told another guy, "I love Wham," that guy would be issued an alley-type beating so severe, with trash-can lid smashings, steel-toed boots to the ribs and broken bottles to the head, that it would make Sonny Corleone's pasting of Carlo Rizzi look like a game of patty cake.Really. It's just something you didn't do. An act of self-preservation if you will.
When I saw the headline "Baring It All for the Solstice" in the North Seattle Herald-Outlook of Friday, June 27, before I unfolded the paper to see the disgusting picture, I thought, "No, please, tell me no! I will not see a [Seattle] P.I.-style picture featuring nudity." The picture was even more disgusting than I had anticipated. I couldn't believe my eyes! I couldn't believe that your paper would print such a picture, and on the front page, no less! But my feelings of nausea and total disgust were all too real, leading me to consider discontinuing your paper.
In a timely exhibit about global warming, The Burke Museum's newest exhibit focuses on its effects on the animals of the Alaskan Arctic.Named after photographer Steven Kazlowski's recently released book of the same title, "The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World" exhibit uses 40 large-format color photographs from Kazlowski's collection to show the plight of the polar bear in its ever-decreasing Arctic habitat from global warming."I offer these images as a witness to an iconic species of an ecosystem that would be lost to future generations if we, as a global community, do not take action now," photographer Steven Kazlowski states in the exhibit's first panel.
My week began with a blow to the head and ended when I woke up on the Oregon coast. Last Monday I attempted to roll a fish tote, four-feet square, up the stairs from my Perkins-Lane-ish beach.
They're back! Those painters most of us love better than all others - Monet, Manet, Cassatt, Cezanne, Renoir - the list goes on. But this time they're joined by some of their greatest predecessors. Not only does the current exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum feature major works by the best of the Impressionists, but it also offers stunning work by 17th and 18th century masters like Goya, Murillo, Fragonard, El Greco and Hals.The Impressionists are traditionally viewed as artists who broke with the past,
BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION: Mike Hale will celebrate the 25th birthday of Hale's Ales Brewery, 4301 Leary Way N.W., with a full slate of free, all-ages activities on Saturday, July 5.From 4 to 10 p.m., guests will enjoy live music by Baby Gramps, The Senate, The Bouchards and Caela and the Dangerous Flares.The event also includes a birthday-cake cutting at 6:30 p.m. and the introduction of a 25th-anniversary Belgian "Dubbel"-style beer.EARLY CLOSING: Woodland Park Zoo will close at 3 p.m. on Friday, July 11, for its 32nd-annual Jungle Party fund-raiser. Visitors can remain on the grounds until 4 p.m.Closed all day that day are the north entrance at North 59th Street and Phinney Avenue North, the North Meadow and its walk path and the historic carousel. The North Entrance parking lot will close at noon.The "Butterflies & Blooms" exhibit will remain open.