The key players took their places a couple weeks ago in the tragicomedy of the Seattle Supersonics, our economically unviable professional basketball franchise currently making threats to cut and run unless the city bails the team out with some hefty tax revenues.In one corner, Sonics owner Howard Schultz: The Starbucks CEO actually had the temerity to suggest it's not a "threat" when he promises that the team will leave Seattle without the same kind of taxpayer help the Mariners and the Seahawks received in building their state-of-the-art playing fields.Local taxpayers have been burned not once but twice by the old "give us a new facility or else" softsoap. Enough is enough.Schultz can't understand why anyone would balk at bailing out a team that charges upward of $1,000 for a courtside seat and pays its players millions of dollars per season. Of course, what could we expect from the man who, when told that his New York baristas were struggling to unionize, asked, "Why are they doing this to me?"And in the other corner, Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata. Licata proved himself just as orbit-bound as the coffee king when, asked what impact the Sonics departure would have on the town, he replied, "On a cultural basis, close to zero."This is exactly the sort of liberal twaddle that so infuriates conservatives - and, frankly, who can blame them. In one fell swoop, Licata alienated a fair chunk of his constituency, folks who happen to be both liberal and sports fans.
Across from the large PCC market on Aurora Avenue North is an ordinarily small but clean window front housing the offices of the enduring Seattle nonprofit Youth Advocates. While its storefront is nondescript, through the doors is a new beginning for many of the adolescents who enter them. They are greeted by experienced employees, many of whom have been diligently working in the field for more than 13 years to change the face of foster care one child at a time. More than 6,000 children are currently placed in foster care in King County. Youth Advocates specializes in providing long-term foster care placement and supplemental education programming to 50 of these children age 10 to 18.
Tina Marie Mares is one busy beauty queen. The 2005 Miss Washington just returned from the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas, and she's battling a viral infection and possible exhaustion. And she is also preparing to continue her Miss Washington duties, which include speaking engagements across the state. This August, she will return to Seattle University to continue working toward her law degree. For Mares, time management isn't just a skill - it's a necessity. The dream beginsMares' path to becoming Miss Washington actually began at St. Catherine of Siena School in the Maple Leaf neighborhood, from where she graduated in 1995. Her mother, Elizabeth Mares, has taught kindergarten there for the last 16 years. Even though it was more than a decade ago, Tina Marie Mares is grateful for her time at St. Catherine's and credits the school, as well as her parents, for instilling her with the core values she holds so dear. Those values include remembering to be gracious and appreciating each day as it comes, she said.
The Anderson-Murray Civil Rights Bill (HB 2661), signed by Gov. Christine Gregoire last week after approval by the state Legislature, is under attack from political gadfly Tim Eyman and his professional initiative-filing organization.In a bit of a departure from his usual anti-tax norm, Eyman has filed a referendum on the gay civil rights bill. If it makes it to the fall ballot and gets voter approval it would strip the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community of the rights conferred on them by the Anderson-Murray bill.The bill, originally submitted to the legislature by Rep. Cal Anderson nearly 30 years ago, made Washington the 17th state in the nation to prohibit discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. It is only the seventh state to include transgender persons.
Here's what's happening at the Seattle Public Library's Capitol Hill Branch in February. For preschoolers, we will offer story times filled with stories, songs and fun at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesdays, Feb. 15 and 22. For more information on these and other programs, visit the library's Web site, www.spl.org, or call us at 684-4715.And here's a book to consider as we wait for a little seasonal snow."Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming our lives, our relationships, and our Families" by Pamela PaulPornography is a hugely controversial issue. Aside from being difficult to define, arguments rage over whether porn is constitutionally protected free speech, or just "smut," with no redeeming value. "Pornified" doesn't directly address these issues; rather, it discusses the effects of porn on its users/viewers, while letting readers make up their own mind about the free speech question.
There's a new place in the neighborhood, and it's full of Empty Space.The Jeanne Marie and Rhoady Lee Jr. Center for the Arts opened on Tuesday, Feb. 14, at the corner of 12th Avenue and East Marion Street. The $6.75-million arts center, housed in a former auto dealership, presents a gleaming front to the street: 90 linear feet of plate glass windows showcase a visual arts gallery as well as the red velvet tunnel leading to a new 150-seat theater.The Lee Center belongs to Seattle University and is the latest action of the university to reach out and connect with the neighborhood. Besides housing student shows in the gallery and the theater, SU intends the Lee Center to be an attractive addition to the street's entertainment offerings. Farther north on 12th, the Capitol Hill Arts Center and the Northwest Film Forum are drawing evening crowds to eclectic shows.
The recent flap over the selection of Sally Clark, 39, to replace exiting Seattle City Council member Jim Compton, a.k.a. The Frequent Flyer, highlights more than one facet of modern-day Seattle life.Before her selection last week for the $97,000 job, Clark, 39, worked for the Lifelong AIDS Alliance and, at one time in the '90s, was an aide to former City Councilwoman Tina Podlodowski (now the executive director at Lifelong).Last week The Stranger applauded the choice of Clark, a lesbian, by the eight council members who had worked with Compton. The vote was 6 to 2 for Clark; council members David Della and Richard McIver, both ethnic minorities, originally voted against Clark but then changed their votes to make her selection unanimous.Clark was not chosen on the first ballot.The flap surrounding Clark's eventual choice was treated as a two-headed issue by the local dailies.First, Clark was white, and the other five candidates who emerged from the more than 100 applicants to fill Compton's (I can't say giant) shoes, are women of color.The second issue that emerged was twofold. First, some council members said they wanted a minority to take Compton's place - Compton is very white, if you recall.The second issue arose once the field had been narrowed to six when it was discovered that the other five candidates, those women of color, had met over dinners in which they pledged their sisterhood. Clark was not invited to these sisterly affairs.
The key players took their places last week in the tragicomedy of the Seattle Supersonics, our economically unviable professional basketball franchise currently making threats to cut and run unless the city bails out the team with some hefty tax revenues.In one corner, Tweedle Dee, otherwise known as Sonics owner Howard Schultz: The Starbucks bigwig actually had the temerity to suggest it's not a "threat" when he promises that the team will leave Seattle without the same kind of taxpayer help the Mariners and the Seahawks received in building their state-of-the-art playing fields.Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Apparently Mr. Schultz hasn't learned the first lesson of politics, i.e. no amount of upbeat rhetoric can whitewash an exposed con. Local taxpayers have been burned not once but twice by the old "give us a new facility or else" softsoap. Enough is enough.To borrow an oft-used sports metaphor, three strikes and you're out. Schultz, with his flyboy good looks and gee-shucks air of benign bemusement, can't understand why anyone would balk at bailing out a team that charges upward of $1,000 for a courtside seat and pays its players millions of dollars a season. Of course, what could we expect from the man who, when told that his New York baristas were struggling to unionize, asked: "Why are they doing this to me?"And in the other corner, then, Tweedle Dum, a.k.a. Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata. Mr. Licata proved himself just as orbit-bound as the Coffee King when, asked what impact the Sonics departure would have on the town, he replied: "On a cultural basis, close to zero."
In an effort to prevent a possible gypsy moth infestation, a small parcel of Miller Park is slated for pesticide helicopter spraying this spring. The gypsy moth, which is capable of destroying forests of trees and has been a scourge on the East Coast for more than 100 years, has been seen in limited numbers in Washington state.The state has conducted 15 aerial spraying operations, nine of which took place in or near Seattle. On Thursday, Feb. 9, the state Department of Agriculture (WSDA) held an open house at Meany Middle School. According to WSDA spokesman John Lundberg, roughly 20 people attended. The spray zone is roughly 100 acres in size and includes the area bordered by 21st Avenue East, East Republican Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Way and East Howell Street. There will be three to five helicopter sprayings, each of which will last roughly 15 minutes. The first spraying is scheduled to begin in the middle of April; the specific date is subject to leaf development and weather conditions.
Sheley Secrest is a phenom.This bright, lively 31-year-old woman is the newest president of the Seattle Chapter of the NAACP, which stands at 2,000 members strong.Secrest a former law clerk for federal judge Franklin Burgess has been working as an attorney for the Public Defender Association in downtown Seattle for only six months. But this Seattle University Law School graduate, originally from Puyallup, isn't the type of person to just let the grass grow on her watch.Secrest hasn't risen so far so fast by playing politics either: She is forthright and outspoken.Secrest characterized the local chapter of the NAACP, in the past as, "more of a social organization."Filling big shoesShe calls herself a protege of Carl Mack, who brought the NAACP into the news over the last few years with his many bold and confrontational approaches to problems of racism, real and perceived.Alfoster Garrett succeeded Mack in early 2005, when Mack took a job out of state, but his tenure only lasted about nine months. Secrest had little to say about Garrett, but she admires Mack immensely.
Lacking in star power. Dramatically uncompelling. Too morally ambiguous. A box-office downer. These are just a few of the witless charges leveled at "Munich," Steven Spielberg's briefing for a descent into hell. The filmmaker who has always placed his faith in the transfiguring power of family and home now envisions a world war in which that power is drained of its sustaining force - or turns as deadly as any other weapon of mass destruction. Subtle, humane, brilliantly conceived, "Munich" takes a big chance: this is a movie that invites its audience to measure up to Spielberg's own scrupulous standards.
"Trouble in Paradise" ... "The Scarlet Empress" ... "Bringing Up Baby" ... "His Girl Friday" ... "Shadow of a Doubt" ... "Laura" ... "Out of the Past" ... "Kiss Me Deadly" ... "The Searchers" ... "North by Northwest" ... "A Hard Day's Night" ... "Point Blank" ... "2001: A Space Odyssey" ... "Once Upon a Time in the West" ... "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" ... "The Shining" ... "Cutter and Bone" (a.k.a. "Cutter's Way") ... "Drugstore Cowboy" ... "Miller's Crossing" ... "Dead Man" ... "About Schmidt" ... All these movies have three things in common: 1) I regard each as the best of its year. 2) None won the Academy Award as best picture. 3) And none was even nominated. For that matter, most of my second and third choices weren't nominated, either. Thirty-nine Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences years that's happened. And I'm not counting the dozen or so years when I favored a foreign-language film. Opening the field to personal top pics that were nominated increases the number by only 10 ("Citizen Kane," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Chinatown," "Nashville," "Saving Private Ryan," etc.).All of which is to say, I don't place a lot of stock in the Academy Awards. But that doesn't stop me from being fascinated, more often than not, at the way the contest plays out, and from feeling warm and googly when I see how happy some people, mostly talented folks who have given a decent amount of pleasure to us moviegoers, get to be when their names are called out on Oscar night. Even if I wasn't rooting for them.This will not be a white-knuckle Academy year for me.
Ramiro Alvarez, owner of Taqueria Rosita, one of the several white burrito buses set up along Rainier Avenue South, served tasty, inexpensive and surprisingly fresh Mexican food when I stopped by for lunch during one of our sunny days last week. Despite being in the middle of his fourth consecutive 14-hour workday, Alvarez wore a warm smile. The one-man band hustled to take orders, plate taquitos and make change for customers while bouncing along to Latin American music. Alvarez's long hours have apparently paid off, as he said business has grown steadily over the past year since the stand's opening. The food's authenticity has clearly played a huge role in the eatery's growing success. Alvarez grew up eating at his grandfather's restaurant in Jalisco, Mexico, and brought many of his favorite recipes with him north of the border.
The key players took their places recently in the tragicomedy of the Seattle Supersonics, our economically unviable professional basketball franchise currently making threats to cut and run unless the city bails the team out with some hefty tax revenues.In one corner, Tweedle Dee, otherwise known as Sonics owner Howard Schultz: The Starbucks bigwig actually had the temerity to suggest it's not a "threat" when he promises that the team will leave Seattle without the same kind of taxpayer help the Mariners and the Seahawks received in building their state-of-the-art playing fields.Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Apparently Mr. Schultz hasn't learned the first lesson of politics, i.e. no amount of upbeat rhetoric can whitewash an exposed con. Local taxpayers have been burned not once but twice by the old "give us a new facility or else" soft-shoe. Enough is enough.To borrow an oft-used sports metaphor, three strikes and you're out. Schultz, with his flyboy good looks and gee-shucks air of benign bemusement, can't understand why anyone would balk at bailing out a team that charges upward of $1,000 for a courtside seat and pays its players millions of dollars a season. Of course, what could we expect from the man who, when told that his New York barristas were struggling to unionize, asked: "Why are they doing this to me?"And in the other corner, Tweedle Dum, a.k.a. Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata. Mr. Licata proved himself just as orbit-bound as the Coffee King when, asked what impact the Sonics departure would have on the town, he replied: "On a cultural basis, close to zero."
Every February I get in a funk and don't come out of it until the warm rays of summer and the majestic peaks of Mount Rainier soothe my troubled soul.Don't get me wrong, I believe that Black History Month is one of the most important months of the year and that's why I end up in a funk every year. I want more from this month than it's capable of giving me.Okay brother, what is it that you want?I want this month to be more than a dialogue about a past as though the history of my race began when we were shipped here as slaves. It took me years to put together the real reasons for slavery in this hemisphere and it mostly was the result of Black Moors conquering and controlling Spain, Portugal and half of France for nearly 800 years. That culture laid the foundation of European culture as it exists in Europe today. It was not until 1492 that the last of these Black Muslims were then pushed back into Africa. They left the Iberian Peninsula, retreated back to Africa and made Timbuktu one of the most remarkable cities of the time.It was their ships, charts and some of their crews that Columbus used to come to America, and it was during that fateful first voyage that the fate of Africans was determined.