Finding good help can be a real chore, just ask two Columbia City mothers. Since October of this year Kristin Danielsen-Wong and Deb Koon have been desperately seeking a crossing guard to assist children in crossing Rainier Avenue at Edmonds Street. After two near hits within a five-week period at the intersection of Rainier and Alaskan Way, the two moms have been on a crusade to improve the street safety for children of Orca Elementary School. The problem started in September of this year when Danielsen-Wong and Koon were walking their children home from school. All were nearly wiped out by a car taking a left-hand turn off Alaskan Way onto Rainier Avenue. Five weeks later they experienced another near hit, and it was immediately clear that action needed to be taken to make crossing Rainier Avenue safe for children, let alone adults.
Named for the chalky escarpments nearby, White Bluffs is one of our state's oldest towns. It was established in the early 1860s on the Columbia River as a ferry and riverboat landing.Both the towns of White Bluffs and Hanford were evacuated in 1943 to make way for the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Now a ghost town, White Bluffs is marked only by a boarded-up bank and pump house.By happenstance, Arthur Dell Moulster was born there on March 3, 1923, though his family live in Hanford, where he would grow up. When his mother went into labor, his father was at his job as a station agent at the Hanford train depot.Moulster's brother, then 12, drove his mother from their home in Hanford to a midwife's house in White Bluffs. His brother was too short to see over the steering wheel or reach the pedals, so the driver's seat was plumped up with pillows.
Out with the old, in with the new, we cry. We bustle about, cleaning cabinets, streamlining clutter and all the time making vows that this year, the new one, will be so much better than the old, dying year. We yearn for that sense of the perfection of the new. Think of the smiles, the sense of hope we all feel when looking at a newborn, all swaddled in warmth and sweet innocence.Yet the old has a stubbornness to it. Deeply ingrained, almost like fingerprints, it does not disappear. Upon reflection, we should rejoice that we cannot completely erase the past. I certainly would rather not make again some of my major blunders.
Jane Austen was born on Dec. 16, 1775-an auspicious date observed by the Jane Austen Society of North America. Our local chapter, the Jane Austen Society of Puget Sound, has celebrated the birthday since our formation in 1994.In 1996, we observed the occasion at the governor's mansion in Olympia, at the invitation of Mrs. Mary Lowry, the First Lady of Washington at that time. Mrs. Lowry had a great interest in the works of Jane Austen and became a member of our local chapter. Tea was served in the state dining room to a gathering of JAS members elegantly attired in Regency costumes-a most impressive formal function followed by an interesting program. Jane would have approved.
Here's a "heads up" about what promises to be a very big exhibit coming in fall to the Pacific Science Center-the Dead Sea Scrolls, which will be making a rare appearance outside of Israel.Pacific Science Center museum president Bryce Seidl estimates the exhibit will draw between 200,000 and 250,000 visitors. Attendance records for the museum could be broken. Tickets to see the scrolls are now on sale at the Pacific Science Center.The major new exhibition, "Discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls," will last from Sept. 23, 2006, to Jan. 7, 2007. It will feature 10 of the scrolls, including four scrolls never before seen by the public.Also included is a collection of artifacts from the ancient settlement of Qumran near the Dead Sea, along with interactive exhibits explaining the science behind the excavation, preservation and interpretation of the scrolls.
t's that time of year again. Another 365 days in the can, put to bed, down the hatch, however you wish to phrase it. Gone is still gone.Time goes a heck of a lot faster as a body grows older.I never thought I'd become quite the cliché-monger I've turned into, but certain things the old folks used to say above my head when I was a child have, to my great surprise, turned out to be true. Time really does fly, and the flight speed picks up as we age.I'm no Einstein, but the reason for time's seemingly increased velocity as we approach Ride's End has en-gendered a pretty simple Wilkensian theory: When you are 10, a year is one-tenth of your life. Think of one-tenth of anything - that can seem like a long time. At 50 that same year is a mere one-50th of your life. A drop in the bucket. A whisper, and it's Happy New Year.As I do every year, I am making me some resolutions.
First, and by all means, Happy New Year from the editors of Queen Anne News and Magnolia News. Here we are in all our photogenic splendor. Well, no, not all; we have to tone down the glam factor in the interest of public safety. I'm the stately presence on the opening page; my picture is first because, after all, this is my paper.
First, and by all means, Happy New Year from the editors of Magnolia News and Queen Anne News. Here we are in all our photogenic splendor. Well, no, not all; we have to tone down the glam factor in the interest of public safety. I'm the stately presence on the opening page; my picture is first because, after all, this is the paper I serve. Richard Jameson, on the next page, could claim the same privilege at Queen Anne, of which he is editor.
Bonnie Sandahl, former executive director of the Seattle Children's Home, filed a lawsuit Dec. 21 alleging that she was the victim of sex discrimination at the longtime Queen Anne institution.Sandahl replaced David Cousineau, who resigned on Jan. 31, 2003, after serving as president and executive director for 10 years at the home, which treats youths with behavioral and psychological problems.As part of his contract, Cousineau received "a substantial severance package" even though he left the organization with a deficit of approximately $2 million, according to the lawsuit.Sandahl, a longtime employee at the home, said the board of directors appointed her interim executive director the day after Cousineau left, and they made her permanent executive director on Aug. 20.But the board refused to provide Sandahl with a contract or to give her the title of president, as they had with Cousineau, she said. "They lured me in; they did the bait and switch."
The News covered everything from the monorail fiasco to bridgework to homeland insecurity this past year. Here's a recap of some of those stories.
This has been a screwy movie year for me. Of the films that would end up on my Ten Best list, only two opened theatrically in the United States in the first half of 2005. As I put it recently to another editor, "You could say that film in 2005 was a matter of several days in September at the Toronto Film Festival." Whatever the reasons, there was a long, highlight-challenged stretch from the Seattle bow of 2004's best picture, "Million Dollar Baby," in the first week of January 2005 and the diamond-dust storm of fine films that has swirled around us in the last four months of the year.
Movies matter more than ever, I think. The best of them can be relied upon to counter the Cookie-Cutter Syndrome, that mind-shrinking virus that plagues the way so many people - and movie reviewers - conceive and communicate opinions these days.
Movies matter more than ever, I think. The best of them can be relied upon to counter the Cookie-Cutter Syndrome, that mind-shrinking virus that plagues the way so many people - and movie reviewers - conceive and communicate opinions these days. Discombobulated by moral shades of gray? Convinced that America is the center of the universe or, conversely, the root of all evil? Hate homosexuality? Wish religious types would keep it to themselves? Whip out your own chosen cookie-cutter - say, Fundamentalist Agnosticism - and slam down your readymade POV on any aspect of art or life that gives you the willies. That way, reality can be shaped into simple, familiar forms. No need to fret about how much living, breathing, recalcitrant complexity has been cut away. Like the poet said: "Humankind cannot bear very much reality."The five top films of 2005 are all about revelations, shining the light of day on what's been buried, what's gone (rightly or wrongly) underground. Each of these powerful visions edges us morally and spiritually out of easy, familiar readings of sin and redemption, violence and death. Most of all, they deconstruct different ideas and forms of love and home, brotherhood and community. The best motion pictures are votes for getting behind an artist's idiosyncratic gaze to eyeball The Big Picture in all its daunting, glorious, supercharged and infinite variety.
For more than 30 years, Greenwood resident Cris William-son's album "The Changer and the Changed" has represented a landmark in the music industry.The album was issued in 1974, under Olivia, the first all-women's national record company, which Williamson conceived of during an interview in Washington, D.C."The Changer and the Changed" has subsequently become one of the best-selling, independent releases of all time, with close to a million copies sold."From what people tell me, it really speaks to their lives in several ways," Williamson said of her album.
I had dinner recently in Fremont - the Center of the Universe - at the 35th Street Bistro, with a group of local 40- something singles. I ordered the fresh halibut, which came topped with a rhubarb concoction and fresh asparagus spears. Stunning. We sat at beautiful wood tables in the space formerly occupied by the late, great hippie granola/ organically-inclined Still Life in Fremont café ( sniff!...). The early evening light still poured through those floor-to-ceiling windows, a gray drizzle on the way, and I pinched myself to make sure this was not a dream. How did I ever get so lucky?Afterward, I went a couple blocks to my new hangout, called Postmark Gelato. It is located on a tiny triangle of a plaza next to the 50-foot, larger-than-life (because it is) statute of Lenin in mid-stride, and a Taco Del Mar shop.