Lawton Elementary School hosted its second annual World Cultures Night on Feb. 16, an event that supports the school's Around the World in Six Years world cultures study program.The academic goal states that that by the end of a student's six years at Lawton, she would have been introduced to each of the six major continents that make up our globe and have studied six separate countries in greater depth.This year's event focused on Africa and the Pacific Islands (including Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti). Students partook of a wide range of study and exploration over the course of several weeks. The highlights of this event were showcased at the event.
In spite of the time-honored warning, the English Speaking Union Shakespeare Committee is meeting today, March 15, to finalize plans for the New York trip awarded to the winner of the High School Shakespeare Competition.The local branch of the competition took place Feb. 12 at the E.E. Bach Theatre of Seattle Pacific University, with 13 contestants from local high schools performing a Shakespearean sonnet and a 20-line monologue from one of the plays. Shakespeare 2006 is open to any 10th-, 11th- or 12th-grader from a participating public, private or parochial school.One of the purposes of the English Speaking Union's National Shakespeare Competition is to help students develop and communicate their understanding of Shakespeare and his language.
Respect-do we understand what this word means? More importantly, do our kids understand the meaning of respect? I've been working with children and youth for quite a while now, and as each year goes, kids are exhibiting less and less respect, both for adults and each other.Of course, any type of behavior depends on the situation, upbringing, personality, demeanor, along with many other contributing factors. Nevertheless, a transformation is occurring in the attitudes of the young, in their minds and their hearts. A change is taking place in the world around them, forcing them to adapt.
"If you don't discipline that student immediately, he'll be big trouble later," I predicted.The 10th-grade student, a lanky boy standing 6-feet tall, fidgeted in his back-row seat in my morning integrated mathematics class at a Seattle area high school. His eyes glistened with anger. His face contorted.My admonition fell on deaf ears; the administrator-in-charge proceeded to lecture me, saying, "Dr. Sadowski, you obviously don't understand our culture (meaning African-American). That's the way most of those kids talk at home," he said. His tone was condescending.The vice-principal and I continued our debate in the hallway, out of hearing distance from the class. But, powerless to proceed further without his support, I resumed my teaching duties.Six weeks later, the same student attempted to steal a necklace from a classmate-while it was still clasped on her neck. He almost strangled her before I could reach the scene and intervene.The episode was violent. Chairs were pushed about and there was lots of screaming. This time the vice-principal suspended the boy. However, it was only for the balance of that school day.Predictably, by the end of the quarter, the student was expelled.
On Feb. 27, King County joined the state of Washington and the city of Seattle in having an official symbol-one that matches the face of the person after whom the jurisdiction is named.Seattle has Chief Sealth. The state has George Washington. And the King County Council's vote makes this county the first in the nation to adopt as our official logo the image of our foremost civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.This is a cause for celebration and the culmination of an effort that spans three decades. When the council-with a final vote of 7-2-approved this historic ordinance, an audience attending our council proceedings burst into thunderous applause and a chorus of "We Shall Overcome."Adopting the image of Dr. King as our logo pays respect and gives visibility to the fact that our county is named in his honor. We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of becoming Martin Luther King, Jr. County. In 1986, the King County Council-led by councilmembers Bruce Laing and Ron Sims-chose to recognize the life and legacy of the civil rights leader with approval of a motion renaming the county.
At the Uptown Alliance meeting last Thursday, March 9, guest speaker Mary Catherine Snyder, senior transportation planner for SDOT, spoke on the installation of parking pay stations in Uptown. Before the meeting, I asked her why stations allow the purchase of a maximum two hours parking time. The limit hurts movie theaters; two hours is not sufficient to view a one-hour, 40-minute film and walk to and from your car; if you're not quick, you may get a $38 ticket. She responded there are parking lots. I said yes and they're more expensive, and why should street parking be unusable by movie patrons to the detriment of the theaters? Does the city want that result, or not care? The pay station fees are a tax. When government takes money from citizens, no matter what it is called, it is a tax. Two guiding principles of taxation are: (1) it should be levied on those able to pay; (2) it should be levied on those benefiting from it. Those principles weren't set forth by Karl Marx; I learned them in my tax course, working on my accounting degree at the University of Illinois.
On Feb. 27, King County joined the state of Washington and the city of Seattle in having an official symbol that matches the face of the person after whom the juris-diction is named. Seattle has Chief Sealth. The state has George Washington. The King County Council's vote makes this county the first in the nation to adopt the image of our foremost civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as our official logo. This is a cause for celebration and the culmination of an effort that spans three decades. When the council - with a final vote of 7-2 - approved this historic ordinance, an audience that stretched from our council cham-bers burst into thunderous applause and a chorus of "We Shall Overcome."Adopting the image of Dr. King as our logo gives respect and visibility to the fact that our county is named in honor of Dr. King. We are celebrating the 20th anniversary of becoming Martin Luther King Jr. County. In 1986, the King County Council, led by councilmembers Bruce Laing and Ron Sims, chose to recognize the life and legacy of America's foremost civil rights leader with approval of a motion renaming this county in his honor.
The following letter, originally addressed to City Council member Nick Licata, was submitted to the News by Queen Anne Community Council president Ellen Monrad, with the request that it be considered for use as a guest column. To: Nick Licata, presidentSeattle City CouncilThe residents of Queen Anne are faced with an unpopular proposal by the owner of a commercial property within the boundaries of the Upper Queen Anne Residential Urban Village to demolish an existing grocery store as well as a 13-unit apartment building. The proposed development replaces these buildings with a larger grocery store plus a second level with additional retail space and parking with access from the adjacent residential streets.The proposed development is in direct conflict with vital Queen Anne Community Council planning objectives intended to promote a pedestrian-friendly retail development at the sidewalk and growth in residential development on the upper levels of mixed-use buildings within the Queen Anne Residential Urban Village. We believe mixed-used buildings with street-level retail and upper-floor residential creates the type of active and safe neighborhood shopping district needed on Queen Anne.
As a Midwestern kid growing up, I loved the idea of Texas that was then perpetrated on the citizenry at large.Texas, according to legend, was a place where men were bigger than life (remember "Giant"?) and the women looked pret-tier in gingham than Ohio ladies could ever manage to be in ball gowns.Maybe some of it was true, but most of it was sheer mythmaking, jingoistic propaganda.One of the really hard things about coming of age in the late '60s - if, like me, you were an American Legion patriot kinda youth who believed all the mythmaking b.s. - was that's when the lies started being publicly corrected and, to be fair, overcorrected.Not every cowboy was a killer, and not every soldier was a George Armstrong Custer maniac, but most of them weren't Roy Rogers or Lieut. John Wayne either.
No MUP sign outside the Metropolitan Market location on Queen Anne Avenue indicates that the development project has been slowed. For property owners and developers, this meddling by community members is the bane of their existence. Yet, as a community, I think we should extend hearty congratulations and support for all the hard work of those community members who have recently focused their efforts on the two new large developments.Many years ago I volunteered many hours of my time to work on the city-mandated Queen Anne Comprehensive Planning document. The city had designated Upper Queen Anne Hill as an Urban Village. Working within those constraints, surveys were undertaken and committees formed and public meetings held. Working through all the data and strong conflicting opinions, a final Comprehensive Plan was approved by the city. Members of this community went back to their lives, patched up some feuds with their neighbors and believed that the effort did have some redeeming value for the community.The disconnect comes when the city has asked its citizens to do the planning work for them, and then turns its back on the outcome.
When Shary Flenniken was 15, she sold her first drawing at the Magnolia street fair, a seminal event in her life. She graduated from high school in 1968 and took off across Canada with her boyfriend in a Volkswagen bus. They re-entered the United States in Vermont, and continued south to Washington, D.C., where they dropped acid and toured the pulsating monuments.She returned to Seattle and enrolled in the Burnley School of Commercial Art downtown. While there, she began to draw cartoons and contributed some of her artwork to an underground newspaper called Sabot, which eventually was taken over by the Weathermen.After art school Shary moved to San Francisco, where she joined a group of cartoonists called the "Air Pirates," who taunted the Disney conglomerate by turning Mickey Mouse into a villain.
It was disaster night at the Magnolia Community Club meeting last week. The focus was on neighborhood residents being able to fend for themselves for up to three days after a catastrophe, and doing as much as possible beforehand to prepare for any eventuality."You are your own first responder," said MCC president Vic Barry, who introduced a series of speakers who spoke of everything from preparing for and surviving earthquakes to insurance coverage to pet care.King County Council president and Magnolia resident Larry Phillips also made a brief appearance, and said the county is preparing for a number of different emergencies. But he said the greatest threat to the Puget Sound region was pandemic flu "if that should come our way."Seattle Emergency Management director Barb Graff spoke of a less intense scenario. "An earthquake is one of the worst things we'll have to face here," she said, noting there would be no warning before a temblor hits. "It could be tonight, or it could be 10 years from now."One way of being prepared for a quake is to identify things that can fall or break indoors or outdoors, she said. It is, for example, a bad idea to have a heavy, framed picture on the wall above your bed. "Move it," she urged.
When Donna Moriarty bought a house at 1104 Bigelow Ave. N. in 1999, one of the selling points was a carport in front of the home. Sure, she had to pay a fee for the carport because part of it is on city property, and she knew that from the very beginning. "I had to pay the permit in order to close," Moriarty said. "It was on the title."But it wasn't that much of a strain. The yearly fee started at $136.08 when she moved in, and it had climbed to $262.24 by 2004, she said. "They just sent me an invoice, and I paid it every year to the Department of Transportation."But it turned out Moriarty has been paying the wrong city department because of a mistake made more than half a century ago, she said. Moriarty found that out in February when she got letters from Seattle Parks and Recreation and the Seattle Department of Transportation with news that she had mistakenly been issued a Street Use Permit by SDOT.However, Bigelow Avenue North and strips of land on either side of the street are part of the city's park boulevard system. And private use of public park property became a contentious issue a decade ago for numerous residents on Bigelow, where encroachments included everything from fences to rockeries.The Street Use Permit for the 12-foot-by-27-foot carport and what Moriarty says is $5,000 worth of professional landscaping was revoked, effective March 3.That left her with three options, according to a Feb. 23 letter from MaryLou Whiteford, a senior real property agent with Parks. Moriarty can remove the carport, the parking pad and the landscaping, and restore the land to Parks standards within 30 days. She can also apply for a Revocable Use Permit from the parks department to do the same thing within 90 days for a $150 application fee. Or Moriarty can apply for a Revocable Use Permit to leave the carport and landscaping as is by paying a $150 application fee and a secondary use fee that is estimated to be $1,242.13 for the current year, according to the Whiteford letter.
A naked man and a clothed woman were spotted Friday morning 8 to 10 feet under the surface of the water at the end of Dock Nine below Chinook's. "A man working on a boat looking down saw them," said Port of Seattle spokesman Mick Shultz.The man was identified as 43-year-old Michael Wayne Grady, Shultz said, and the woman as Linda Sue Clark, 39. Cause of death was drowning, and manner of death is pending.Word on the docks is that Grady was living on a boat next to where the bodies were found, and that he jumped in to save a new girlfriend who had come to visit him and fell into the frigid waters.
Spring is just around the corner. The flowers are starting to bloom, and the birds are finally singing to the joys of a new season. Most of us start preparing for home projects at this time of year. Yet for many, there are so many projects we just don't know where to start. Lately, I have noticed some commonalities among clients who have asked for my interior-design advice. Many come to me after months and sometimes years of frustration and anguish over what to do first with their home projects. I can feel their pain and also their relief and excitement when I prioritize their home projects. It all makes sense when we have a plan!