Miss Ellie sticks out her tongue and takes a few tentative laps at the chlorinated water that's slowly rising around her paws. Once the water level reaches her shoulders, the treadmill beneath her paws begins to move. She hesitates, sliding backwards into the waiting arms of veterinary technician Jennifer Kimball. After a few coaxing words and reassuring pats, the nearly year old pug begins to walk on her three good limbs.Alycia Lamb, 35, veterinary doctor and owner of Sunset Hill Veterinary and Rehabilitation Center, watches expectantly through the glass walls of the tank as Barbara Melseth, Miss Ellie's owner, kneels down and displays the plush bear toy that'll serve as a reward once the session is finished.After a few minutes of tripod walking, Miss Ellie slowly extends her injured right foreleg and takes a hesitant step. Dr. Lamb smiles. This is what she's been waiting for.
A letter to all my children - Heather, the English professor in Arizona; Lily, the fashionista in Manhattan; and Joe, the student in Santa BarbaraSubject: Why Bob Dylan is worth noticingIn a nutshell, because:1. He's no genius; he's a piece of work.2. He left a mark on your parents' generation right up there with JFK and Ali.3. He's smart, fun and has got fascinating rhythm.4. There's a great Dylan book, a Dylan movie and an ongoing exhibit at the Experience Music Project."Democracy doesn't rule the world - violence does." Dylan said that, as well as: "I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours."
Seattle Parks and Recreation wants to come up with the perfect name for a new Magnolia park, and the public can make suggestions. That's a relief, because I have a few ideas of my own about a perfect name for what used to be the Magnolia Elementary School playground. Actually, my Thomas Guide already labels the expanse of cracked asphalt as the East Magnolia Playfield. But that's waaay too dull, given the less-than-thrilled and whiney reaction many nearby residents have had to the green-space windfall. However, the Parks Dept. doesn't want people to pick a name willy-nilly, no matter how upset they are. Nope, there are some ground rules we have to follow.I'll try.
Your first clue that Halloween couldn't be too far off was when the daylight hours of each day grew noticeably shorter. Then mounds of pumpkins appeared outside the door to the grocery stores. Autumn is definitely here, and that means Halloween isn't far off either.Back when I was in the fourth grade, Mrs. Noriega began decorating our classroom with orange and black cutouts of bats, ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns about the first week of October.Finally, after weeks of anticipation, the official announcement was made over the classroom loudspeaker: "This coming Friday, a schoolwide Halloween assembly will be held two hours before dismissal, and then you will go back to your classrooms for individual parties. Costumes may be worn."
This is another case of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Yes, our government in Washington state, like most governments, is wasteful, messy and full of pork projects.However, repealing the 9.5-cent gasoline tax is not the way to fix the problem. This is what's called shooting yourself in the foot. Let's look at some facts.Forget the emotional arguments and political rhetoric about the billions that will be spent on highway projects across the state, or whose project is more worthy. Let's talk clearly about how this initiative to repeal the gas tax affects you and me.The tax on gas at the state level went up 3 cents in July, as a portion of the planned 9.5-cent increase that will be phased in over three years. That put the state tax at 31 cents a gallon. With gas at or above $3 a gallon, it's not the state that is picking your pocket. When the full tax is implemented, the tax will be at 37.5 cents a gallon, and that won't be until 2008. Only Exxon knows what a gallon of gas will cost by then.As it stands today, and assuming you burn premium gasoline at around $3.09 a gallon, the tax is 10 percent - pretty much the same as the sales tax you're paying on almost everything you buy. The folks screaming about taxes are the same ones who scream about every tax. If they had their way, we'd eliminate all taxes, and along with them the fire, police and the highway services that are funded by this revenue.
Al Runte is very much at home in Seattle, having lived in his Wedgewood neighborhood for the past 25 years. Rivaling incumbent Mayor Greg Nickels in physical size and stature, he sits affably for the interview, inviting a curious on-looker to listen in and "be entertained."
A&J; Meats and Seafood is a Seattle institution that the city is fortunate to call its own. This longstanding butcher shop has been around since 1951 - the same year that the first long-distance telephone call was connected without operator assistance, the very first jet passenger flight was made and Mickey Mantle hit his first home run.A&J; came into being during a time that we often romanticize as having been "simpler," although it's more likely that the world was just a lot smaller and much less crowded back then. Certainly, it was an era where people traveled less and spent more time close to home, looking to their own neighborhoods to meet their needs.It was in that climate that Allen Ploe and Jerry Friar (hence "A&J;") left their jobs at Ploe's Meats on Rainier Avenue and opened their own butcher shop in the old Quality Market, on the corner of West McGraw and Sixth Avenue West.
Hopefuls for the mayor's office and four city council positions squared off at an Oct. 4 candidates' forum at the Nordic Heritage Museum.Moderated by veteran KOMO-TV correspondent and analyst Bryan Johnson, the forum engaged a number of topics, including the fate of the monorail - a beleaguered transportation proposal up for a public vote once again this NovemberMayor Greg Nickels said it was a tough decision to impose a deadline on the Seattle Monorail Project's board to come up with a plan for raising more money or shortening the line. "And it's particularly important voters get to make the decision in November," he added. Still, the mayor said he didn't think the chances of the monorail's survival looked good, and suggested that rapid-transit bus service could ease the sting.
West Point landmark will be education, cultural facility Mayor Greg Nickels formally accepted a deed to an important piece of Seattle history last week - the West Point Lighthouse in Discovery Park.Rear Admiral Richard Houck of the U.S. Coast Guard transferred the property to the city of Seattle at a Wednesday, Oct. 12, ceremony attended by community members and federal, state, tribal and local officials.
Miss Ellie sticks out her tongue and takes a few tentative laps at the chlorinated water that's slowly rising around her paws. Once the water level reaches her shoulders, the treadmill beneath her begins to move. She hesitates, sliding backward into the waiting arms of veterinary technician Jennifer Kimball. After a few coaxing words and reassuring pats, the 10-month-old pug begins to walk on her three good limbs.Alycia Lamb, 35, veterinary doctor and owner and of Sunset Hill Vet-erinary and Rehabilitation Center, watches expectantly through the glass walls of the tank as Barbara Melseth, Miss Ellie's owner, kneels down and displays the plush bear toy that'll serve as a reward once the session is finished. After a few minutes of three-legged walking, Miss Ellie slowly extends her injured right foreleg and takes a hesitant step. Dr. Lamb smiles. This is what she's been waiting for.
Your first clue that Halloween couldn't be too far off was when the daylight hours of each day kept getting noticeably shorter. Then mounds of pumpkins appeared outside the door to the grocery stores. Autumn is definitely here, and that means Halloween isn't far off either.I remember back when I was in the fourth grade, Mrs. Noriega began decorating our classroom with orange and black cutouts of bats, ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns about the first week of October.Finally, after weeks of anticipation, the official announcement was made over the classroom loudspeaker: "This coming Friday, a schoolwide Halloween assembly will be held two hours before dismissal, and then you will go back to your classrooms for individual parties. Costumes may be worn."That last little bit of information set off the quest for the "perfect" costume of such intensity that untold miles were added to family cars, and mothers would be kept awake until all hours of the night hunched over sewing machines.
The proposed new Seattle Green Line monorail supposedly will serve the Queen Anne neighborhood. However, when you look beyond the slogans ("Rise above it all"), what you find is that the monorail stations are so few and far between that the vast majority of Queen Anne residents live too far from a station to make using the monorail worthwhile.The only real value of the monorail would be to move people to and from downtown; virtually nobody who lives on Queen Anne Hill commutes to West Seattle. To see how useless the Green Line would be to most Queen Anne residents, it is helpful to use a few examples.
Seattleites could stop uttering those nasty four-letter words in traffic if the solution wasn't as taboo.No one has a positive opinion of the monorail anymore.But if Seattle doesn't commit to improving public transportation, the city is headed for a state of permanent gridlock.It is understandable why some resist. It's not as if the city has done an exemplary job of pitching it to the public. Most citizens believe the monorail is a waste of time, energy and tax dollars. Even though Seattleites take pride in being eco-friendly, we still rely on gas to power our cars and buses.What city officials and residents need to do is figure out how to make mass transit fit our needs.
When I was a youth, one of my first jobs was as an usher at the old (long-gone now) Albee Theater in downtown Cincinnati.The Albee had been built in the '20s or even earlier, for plays and live performances of all sorts; it was an oddly ornate place to watch movies.But by 1962 or so, when my little tale begins, the Albee had been reduced to a first-run moviehouse showing primarily blockbusters. Cincinnati has one six-screen arthouse now, far fewer outlets than Seattle, and I guess it was ever thus.When I put on my uniform - we looked like soldiers in the Phillip Morris army - the film being shown was "The Sound of Music." That turkey was still playing 360 days and change later when I quit.The experience of seeing snatches of that treaclefest more than 750 times gave me a lifelong hatred for Julie Andrews, musicals and the whole damn Von Trapp family.
Southwest Airlines' plan for Boeing Field was a close call for our neighborhoods. Thankfully it did not take months and years of lawsuits to stop their plan. I honestly cannot remember any plan of that scope being stopped so swiftly and surely. I extend my deepest thanks to the Sound Air Alliance group and other thoughtful citizens. It takes time and talent to gather the resources and information in order to effectively make a case against a corporate giant. I am impressed and full of gratitude. At the opposite end of that spectrum, the ongoing fight between Seattle Country Day School and its neighborhood is the standard development story. Years of acrimony and frustration leave each side feeling the most beleaguered.