Southwest Airlines may provide low-cost travel to its passengers, but its proposal to relocate its terminal to Boeing Field will cost Seattle neighborhoods and businesses immeasurably.The Dallas-based airline says it considers its impact on its airports' residential neighbors, yet it proposes to pay only $130 million - and that's for its own terminal, parking garage and accommodations for its own airport traffic.Even if the neighborhoods were to receive the same amount of money, it still wouldn't compensate for the resulting decrease in property values and the displacement of thousands of homes, businesses and jobs - no matter what the misguided Ron Sims says. The dozen businesses Southwest Airlines claims to displace include the Seattle-founded UPS parcel carrier, which only has about a dozen flights daily. Yet, interestingly, the airline's proposed plan doesn't appear to include the King County Sheriff's Special Operations building or Paul Allen's large, private hangar.
Nothing, it seems, is ever simple when plans for the city's parks are involved. But the proposal to fix up Marshall Park and the Betty Bowen Viewpoint at the end of West Highland Drive is especially complicated.Technically, it's a viewpoint park, one of 24 in the city. But Seattle Parks and Recreation admits that a lack of maintenance over literally decades has resulted in trees that have grown so tall they block a significant portion of the view."The reality is, we haven't had the resources to maintain them," explained Mark Mead, senior urban forester for the Parks Department. That's changed, and it's about time, according to Roger Belanich, who lives near the park on West Prospect Street. "The view has to be opened up; it belongs to the city," he said. Belanich says he's not the only one who feels that way. "There's been a lot of support from a lot of neigh-borhood people." But the vegetation-management plan (VMP) to restore Marshall Park has residents at the bottom of the park's incredibly steep slopes worried about the hillside coming loose and ruining their homes once the trees and groundcover have been cleared away.
Planning is moving ahead for renovations at the Magnolia Library, and the public was asked to express its "hopes and dreams" about the project at a meeting last week where, as it turned out, Seattle Public Library representatives far outnumbered neighborhood residents.The results of a feasibility study were also presented for the project, which has $875,727 from the 1998, $196.4-million Libraries for All bond measure budgeted for capital costs in and around the existing 5,904-square-foot building.Designed by architect Paul Hayden Kirk and landscaped by Richard Haag, the building won national recognition for its design when it was completed in 1964. But it's showing its age, noted Linda Larson, a Library Board steward.Renovations are needed for upgrading the technology, adding more computers, fixing up the air-conditioning system and "improving those windows without duct tape," she said of a few examples.
Anyone happening to wander near the Magnolia Playfields on July 24 may have stumbled upon an unfamiliar, even an exotic, sight: the championship match of the Seattle Hurling Club.Hurling is an ancient sport, originally from Ireland, requiring a combination of skill and bravery. It is Europe's oldest field game. But, to Rob Mullin, the club's team manager, hurling is really all about craic (pronounced crack) - Gaelic for fun.Five sports in oneThe Seattle Hurling Club has been in existence for the past three years and is part of the Seattle Gaels, a 25-year-old Gaelic football team. According to Mullin, "Hurling is ice hockey with rugby with soccer with baseball thrown in. The moves are similar to these sports, including hitting, passing, running and catching."The key pieces of equipment are the hurley, which looks like a snub-nosed, spatula-shaped hockey stick made out of ash, and the sliothar (pronounced like slighter), which looks like a baseball with the seams raised and exposed.The team purchases the gear directly from Ireland, and a player can be fully outfitted, including helmet, for about $150.
On June 7, Dearborn Park Elementary School held its multicultural dinner and celebration, which also doubled as the grand opening for the school's new gym and cafeteria.
Kal Gellein and Gail Williams are two people who value hard work and good food. The proud new owners of Kallaloo, a Caribbean Creole restaurant in Columbia City, are a prime example of what happens with a strong desire and a lot of hard work. But how did two longtime bankers change careers and take the plunge at making their lifelong dream a reality?Start with cheesecakeGellein is a tall unassuming middle aged gentleman with a laid back vibe. A Seattle native, he grew up amongst restaurants. His grandparents and uncle had eateries in the city and he always loved going to them. "For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted a restaurant", he confided. "I always enjoyed restaurant people and the life that is associated with owning an eating establishment. Of course, I love eating and I am intrigued by how things are put together in the kitchen." But it took 15-plus years working in the corporate banking world before he gave voice to that dream. Along the way, he honed his cooking chops by specializing in cheesecakes that coworkers swooned over. Meanwhile his wife, Williams, was also hard at work in her own banking career.
One of the tragedies of our democratic experiment is the lack of voices from us "Americans" who have suffered the most. What do I mean by this? Usually a black person is asked about black-on-black crime. If it's an issue revolving around immigration, a Latino is questioned. If its something regarding fishing rights, an Indian is consulted. The logic behind this makes sense; these issues to a large degree directly involve African Americans, Latinos and Natives, respectively.But do you ever see a person of color being asked to speak about Iraq, the environment or even The Da Vinci Code? If we are ever asked to speak about these kinds of issues, the media and others in power will turn to folks who many would consider sell outs in their respective communities because of how they conform to white norms and abandon their roots of color.As Malcolm X once put it, they became "house slaves." Point being, people of color are not included in mainstream dialog. Instead, we are continually confined to our "verbal reservations" if you will, where our words and positions on issues can't be threatening or controversial.
I suppose I'm not the kind of guy to like Bill Gates. He is an ultra-billionaire preppy white guy that wears those funny sweaters and shirts.It's the same thing that he has worn everyday since high school at Lakeside, the ultimate snobbish school for rich kids.Plus, I never really got along with accountants and computer geeks because their minds operate in a cold, calculating way and leaves very little room for human spontaneity.But this guy has broken the mold - in our lifetimes, Bill Gates would have donated more resources to African people than any person in the history of the world.
The Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) is asking Seattle voters to approve a 10-mile monorail running between Dravus in Interbay (next to the golf course and driving range) to Alaska Junction in West Seattle - cutting all of Ballard and part of West Seattle from the Green Line.Monorail Proposition 1, if passed, will grant the SMP a blank check that could leave us with a revenue-sucking "monster rail" eating up our car-tab taxes, taking away funding for much needed street repairs and other vital traffic congestion improvements throughout the city. After spending nearly $200 million and running up $110 million in debt in three years, the SMP cannot tell us how long the monorail will be, where it will run, how many people will ride it or how much it will cost to operate. We do know that it will never be self-supporting on operations (as promised in 2002). If the shortened Green Line ever opens, SMP will have to come back to Seattleites asking for another taxpayer subsidy.
We strongly support the monorail and are voting for Proposition 1 on Nov. 8. No one in the city of Seattle understands the need for rapid, mass transit more than the residents of Magnolia and Queen Anne.Safe, high-speed and environmentally sensitive monorail technology is the answer. The citizens of Seattle have voted four times for the Green Line Monorail because they want an alternative to congested city streets.Seattle's voters are right; we need the monorail.The proposed Green Line Monorail will serve Magnolia and Queen Anne residents with stations on the west side and south side of the hill from Interbay to Seattle Center.The good news is that, right now, the Seattle Monorail Project is ready to go. The land for stations is purchased, the contract to build and operate it is in hand, new leadership with extensive transit management and construction expertise is in place, and Proposition 1 provides the flexibility for a conservative finance plan that fully funds the line without new taxes.
The other morning, conversation over coffee turned to a past event in Enumclaw. A disgruntled husband, rather than share a house in a divorce settlement, got a demolition permit and bulldozed the dwelling into splinters."I heard of something real similar," said Vern as he put his coffee cup down. "A few years ago, down in Tacoma, there was this guy who drove a cement truck. Well, his girlfriend was goin' out on him, so one night he drove up to her house and just filled her new boyfriend's Cadillac with cement."Well, Vern, I hate to burst your balloon, but the Enumclaw story was a verifiable fact. Your story about the Cadillac - well, it's one of those stories that always happened to "a friend of a friend" and can never be proved.The cement story is an Urban Legend. We've all heard some of them.Prof. Jan Harold Brunvard of the University of Utah English department has filled two books with Urban Legends - "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" and "The Choking Doberman" - and is working on a third. Some of the stories that we've heard and retold as truths turn out simply to be examples of modern folklore.
The swirling of the news - it is much like our autumn leaves being whirled aloft and down our streets from our blustery winter storms.Except that the torrent of bad news isn't the first of the season. The wars continue, the indictments now spread from corporate scandals to high-level government officials, the hurricanes keep forming, what we call natural disasters (i.e. tsunamis and earthquakes) have a scale beyond comprehension. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. We have a society that is ripping itself apart in disagreement, with the stealth destructive power of religion leading the way. A friend recently told me that he never discusses religion; what for?, he says - either you are just preaching to the choir, or no one is listening. But isn't that silence potentially more damaging?
The stage is set: a team in green and yellow runs onto the field, anxiously awaiting the signal to begin. A familiar figure in gray walks out and brushes off home plate, steps back behind the catcher and yells, "Play ball!" The universal call is heard across the diamond and play begins.This figure in behind the plate is the umpire - a job kids in Magnolia have been taking on now for three seasons. To help them along the way, Magnolia Little League runs the Youth Umpire Program. Designed to train interested individuals in the rules of softball and baseball, the program prepares them for challenges they may face on the field.
The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Magnolia is well known to parishioners for the fine fare it serves at dinners, but the meal planned for Nov. 20 will be decidedly different.Called a "Hunger Feast," the dinner is meant to mirror meals a cross-section of African society ends up eating most nights, said Betty Mueller, a church member who came up with the idea. That means most folks won't get much of a meal at all, she explained. Here's how it works. Diners will receive a randomly selected ticket when they walk through the doors, and the ticket will determine which of three dinners they get.
They build our homes, landscape our yards and harvest the produce we find in our grocery store aisles. Migrant labor fuels our economy, in Seattle and across the country, yet these 13 million workers, the majority traveling from Latin America, remain largely a statistic.The image of American labor has undergone a dramatic shift in the last half century. Gone is the portrait of the earth-bound worker captured most dramatically by photographer Walker Evans: begrimed and sun-scorched from long hours in the fields, working with one's hands reaping the harvest. Manufacturing jobs have fled abroad, where cheaper labor is outsourced to unregulated markets. If you work with your hands in the United States, it's more likely you pour coffee than pick the bean.The steady, 40-hour-a-week jobs have shifted from being dominated by the agriculture and manufacturing industries to jobs dealing primarily with the service and information industries. While Americans used to wear out the soles of their shoes and the knees of their work jeans, they now are more likely to develop repetitive use injuries from prolonged keyboard punching and weight problems from inherently more sedentary work.However, traditional forms of labor haven't disappeared: they've simply shifted to a new demographic, a growing population of immigrants that has the time and the drive to get the work done. Strong bodies and quick hands are still essential for America's economy to function, and statistics from the United States Bureau of Labor back this notion.