In Rainier Valley, a place like Columbia City is rare, a place where art gallery member Joan Robbins can meander on her lunch hour through a charming century-old business district. But much of Rainier Valley's development, especially along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and Rainier Avenue South, is not so pleasant. Along with well-known architecture critic, James Howard Kunstler, Robbins feels there is something wrong with many of the places where we live and work. We drive up and down typical post World War II suburban-style boulevards of commerce and are overwhelmed by the ugliness of big box stores, used car lots, chain link fencing, parking lagoons, gas station mini-marts, tumble down apartment buildings, the uproar of signs and the road itself clogged with cars. As Kunstler said a decade ago in his landmark Atlantic Monthly article, Home from No Where, "It seems as though the whole thing has been designed by some diabolical force bent on making human beings miserable." And in the case of MLK and parts of Rainier Avenue South, Robbins and other Southeast Seattle Arts Council members notice that the original diabolical design has fallen further victim to neglect and environmental contamination.
A thundering boom jolts the audience and jump-starts their hearts. Large sticks strike wide drums sitting on wooden stands. Other drums join in - some big, some small and soon a song is created. To the untrained observer it looks like a group of people just banging on a set of oversized drums: sticks waving about like the players are fending off a hive of bees in full attack mode. But there is at once rhythm, sound, touch, and timing. This is taiko, the ancient art of percussion music from Japan. Taiko combines different size drums from the hand-held uchiwa daiko to the odaiko, which can be more than 5 feet in diameter. Like any other percussion ensemble, accessory instruments such as shakers and flutes help create the desired sound imagery. Along with the drama of the drums, taiko also features the players moving through elegant and precise choreography. Each step helps tell the story of the entire piece.
Unless you were an anti or pro-monorail zealot, there wasn't much to get excited about in the recent election. Given the paucity of progressive or populist candidates or issues on the ballot, this election was a sorry statement on our ability collectively define our city's political future in any meaningful way. When we refer to progressives and populists here, we mean that large segment of our community that's getting little or no real representation down at city hall - neighborhoods and working people, communities of color, low-income people and the homeless, senior citizens, and small businesses. Together these constituents form our city's majority, and they are basically disenfranchised by the "corporate liberal" crowd that now dominates city hall.
How do you grab the attention of 120 middle school-aged students? The answer at Aki Kurose Middle School auditorium on Oct. 11 was not MTV or a movie star but student-made documentaries from the Dharamsala, India, Ollantaytambo, Peru and Alaska's Arctic Village. Local students from Hamilton Middle School, The Evergreen School and Aki Kurose Middle School watched with rapt attention as stories of Tibetan girls playing soccer, Peruvian girls selling handmade dolls, and boys fishing in the frigid Arctic were told in the teenagers' own words. The documentaries were made with the help of a Seattle-based nonprofit organization called "Bridges to Understanding," which connects youth worldwide through digital storytelling. You can view their students' work on www.bridgesweb.org.On Oct. 11, they came together for the first time to participate in a digital storytelling workshop. As the 120 students filled the auditorium, Sharon Greenberg from Hamilton Middle School helped the students see their common bonds by asking them to stand if they spoke more than one language, have friends from different cultures, and have pets (among other questions). The languages spoken by Bridges students included Vietnamese, Spanish, Chinese, Cambodian, Japanese, Thai, French, German, Phillipino, Hebrew, Italian, Swedish, Laos, Arabic, and North African languages.
They're warm and fuzzy, and people just love to feed them. But the hundreds of rabbits living in and around Woodland Park have got to go, according to Seattle Parks and Recreation. For one thing, they're tearing up the landscape, explained Barb DeCaro, a resource coordinator with the parks department. However, unlike an overabundance of Canadian geese that fouled the city's parks, the bunnies won't face euthanasia because their population isn't as large as the geese's and the impacts are not as big, she said. Instead, the rabbits are destined to live at the Rabbit Meadow Sanctuary in Redmond after they've been spayed and neutered, DeCaro said last week at a Board of Park Commissioners meeting.
Some years are better than others for the Alpine Hut, which sells both bicycles and ski equipment. The bike sales act as a cushion for the family-owned business on 15th Avenue West, said co-owner Nicole Fisher. "But the ski business is where we make our living."So last year, when snow was in short supply at area ski resorts, was a bad one, she said. "It was a tough season for everybody." In fact, according to Nicole's brother and fellow owner, Kyle Fisher, sales were down close to 30 percent from the year before. The Alpine Hut survived, but four other ski stores in the state didn't and closed down, Nicole said. With a record number of skiers hitting the slopes on the first day of the season at Mount Baker, the two are expecting a turnaround this year, they said.
Pretty much everyone in Queen Anne and Magnolia was fed up with the monorail proposal when it came up for yet another vote this Novem-ber, according to the heads of the Magnolia Community Club (MCC) and the Queen Anne Community Council (QACC).And even State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles - a Queen Anne resident and non-voting member of the monorail board - was disappointed with the way things turned out."Hurray!" was the reaction to the vote by QACC chairwoman Ellen Monrad. "Finally, the people of Se-attle came to their senses and killed a bad idea."Voting records indicated that the majority of Queen Anne and Magnolia residents were in favor of the monorail when it came up for earlier votes, but that changed when a fifth vote, for a shortened line, came up, she said. "I don't believe anyone in Queen Anne and Magnolia voted for it," Monrad added. "I really do not know anyone who voted yes."
Pretty much everyone in Queen Anne and Magnolia was fed up with the monorail proposal when it came up for yet another vote this Novem-ber, according to the heads of the Magnolia Community Club (MCC) and the Queen Anne Community Council (QACC).And even State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles - a Queen Anne resident and non-voting member of the monorail board - was disappointed with the way things turned out."Hurray!" was the reaction to the vote by QACC chairwoman Ellen Monrad. "Finally, the people of Seattle came to their senses and killed a bad idea."Voting records indicated that the majority of Queen Anne and Magnolia residents were in favor of the monorail when it came up for earlier votes, but that changed when a fifth vote, for a shortened line, came up, she said. "I don't believe anyone in Queen Anne and Magnolia voted for it," Monrad added. "I really do not know anyone who voted yes."
Friends of Marshall Park and Queen Anne Park Stewards have been at odds over Seattle Parks and Recreation plans to restore the view at Marshall Park at the end of West Highland Drive.But the two groups - the Friends at the top of the park and the Stewards at the bottom - came to an agreement in November calling for a restoration option that is different from the one the parks department chose.If Parks agrees to the change, the Friends will drop its appeal to a City Hearing Examiner over the preferred plan, according to a signed Letter of Agreement the groups submitted to the City Attorney's Office on Nov. 7.
Working in the United States as an immigrant laborer, documented or not, is a dangerous proposition. According to a spring 2005 report on immigrant worker's rights compiled by the National Immigration Law Center, low-wage immigrant workers are among the most vulnerable to exploitation on the job, especially concerning wage, hour, health, and safety issues. This observation is backed by a January 2005 Human Rights Watch report that found "federal laws and policies on immigrant workers are a mass of contradictions and incentives to violate their rights."In Seattle, CASA Latina is the primary place where these workers gather to gain good, temporary employment. The non-profit organization's Belltown worksite is also the spot where immigrant workers learn how to deal with the legal contradictions and incentives in order to maximize the rights allotted them by the local, state, and federal governments.
Magnolia Theater launches this week with its take on "Aladdin!" The show will be presented three times in November and then again, three times in December, with a brand-new cast.
My wife and I saw Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger" at a matinee in 1975 and went straight to the studios of KRAB-FM to talk about it. There we discovered - on the air - that one of us thought it was pretentious hooey and the other thought it was a brilliant, radical and probably great film. We still cherish memories of that argument, although after revisiting the picture a couple of years later there was no daylight between us: we both knew we'd seen a masterpiece.
The future is here! And you'll find it at the Henry Art Gallery, where examples of the latest in electronic wizardry are applied to human interactions. It's a world where science fiction achieves reality. "Hershmanlandia: The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson," the first major survey of this highly acclaimed American artist, traces her 35-year history of experimentation and innovation. It offers everything from drawings on paper to a computer-generated person called Agent Ruby whose voice-recognition software allows her to converse with the visitor.Hershman Leeson has always been fascinated with issues related to human communication and the validity of experience both real and virtual. She divides her career into the B.C. period and the A.D. period. B.C. stands for Before Computers. During that time she drew and painted, created installation art and devised interactive performances.
Once again the holiday season has arrived! Have no fear - it's still possible to enjoy the delicious meals without haunting leftovers bursting your belt buckle. In fact, by following several healthful tips you can actually lose weight over the holidays. Basically, if you monitor your eating method over the next several months you can shape and sculpt the most important holiday present of all: your health.Your eating pattern is the most important factor in keeping the weight off this December. The key to a healthy diet is remembering to eat consistently. Instead of saving your ferocious appetite until Thanksgiving dinner, ingest small meals throughout the day. In so doing, you won't be famished once dinnertime arrives, and thus you will be less likely to overeat. Most healthy individuals eat five to six meals per day. By not eating all day you are essentially starving your body. As a result, when you finally eat that delicious turkey dinner, your body actually stores the food for later. Unfortunately, when your body stores food it is often stored as lipids - fat. However, when you consistently ingest food throughout the day, your body distributes the nutrients efficiently. In short, the consistent eating method actually deters your body from storing nutrients because your body recognizes that more food and nutrients are on their way.
The fall season has settled in. Shorter, rainy days; wearing our fleece jackets; munching on pumpkin scones; sipping eggnog lattes; watching new reality television shows and attending all those holiday parties. This translates into the average American gaining one to two pounds of bodyfat (but sometimes up to 10) by New Year's Day! Gaining one to two pounds year after year can really add up to a serious health problem.Basically, weight gain is about energy in and energy out. We take in energy by consuming food and expend energy through physical activity. Physical activity and diet should balance each other out; an imbalance can result in weight gain.