Washington State will observe National Preparedness Month, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio Awareness Month, and 911 Day in September, highlighted by a statewide earthquake and tsunami drill Sept. 13. Preparedness month encourages government agencies, businesses, schools and citizens to review emergency response plans and 911 procedures as well as to participate in a statewide earthquake and tsunami drill.
Michelle Weinberg was looking to develop new networking possibilities for her Green Lake advertising and specialty-merchandising company, Design One. Disappointed by the lack of a local chamber of commerce and with previous experiences with various networking groups, she began searching on-line for an alternative. She found Business Networking International (BNI), a group whose purpose is "to share contacts, ideas and referrals" according to their webpage.Weinberg recruited members, and on April 12, 2006, the Creative Alliance for Growth (CAG) was chartered. This chapter of BNI now has 17 members, ranging from independent business owners to insurance and real estate agents to various members of the health-care profession, including a shamanic practitioner.The group meets every Wednesday at Alebrije, a Mexican restaurant at 6417 Roosevelt Way N.E., at 1 p.m. "It's a great way to get you out of the office and open the door to other professionals and marketing ideas," Weinberg said.BNI's webpage claims that the group's entire referral system generated more than $1 billion of business in 2005. Weinberg says that there are more than 50 chapters in Washington alone.
It seems some people will do anything to improve their view.Just ask city arborist Nolan Rundquist. The Nebraska native has encountered all manner of arboreal shenanigans on the job, from the overzealous - and illegal - topping of city trees, to vigilante "girdling," a process whereby an unbroken circumference of bark is chiseled from a tree's trunk, breaking the continuous flow of water and nutrients and often killing the plant. Usually such acts are commissioned to improve visual access to that vaunted Northwest scenery of mountains, water or, ironically enough, more trees, and they can be carried out by anyone from the lone homeowner wielding a chainsaw, to a private arborist hired to trim some bothersome foliage.Whatever the case, Rundquist points out, cutting into trees on city property without a permit is against the law - period.
Here's what's happening at the Seattle Public Library's Capitol Hill branch in September.For preschoolers, we will offer story times filled with stories, songs and fun at 10:30 a.m., Wednesdays, Sept. 6, 13, 20 and 27. Miss Seattle, Weiya Zhang, will be hosting the story time on Sep. 27. For this year's September Project, the Seattle Public Library is presenting the Immigrant Experience Film Series at several branches. These documentary films will provide glimpses into the stories of why and how people come to the United States. Panel discussions with local immigrants and representatives of community-based organizations will follow each film. At the Capitol Hill Branch, we will be hosting two of the films.At 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sep. 9, "The Lost Boys of the Sudan" will be shown. This film follows two young refugees of Sudan's 20-year civil war, Peter and Santino, through their first year in America.At 2 p.m. on Sunday, Sep. 10, "Al Otro Lado (To the Other Side)" will be shown.
If you have recovered from your Bumbershoot sunburn (who ever prepares for 90 degree heat on Labor Day in Seattle?), the rest of the month is filled with strange entertainment on Capitol Hill. Some of this stuff is so close to the proverbial "cutting edge" for drama that they may draw blood if they are not careful.The sanest, but zaniest, entertainment this month comes from Sketchfest 2006. This two-week festival opens Thursday, Sept. 7, at the new Erickson Theatre Off Broadway, located at 1524 Harvard Ave. (between Pike and Pine streets). This year's Sketchfest features performances by sketch comedy groups invited by the Sketchfest jury to Seattle. Among those appearing at this Sketchfest are All American Push Up Party from Seattle, Bucket from Vancouver, B.C., the Cody Rivers Show from Belllingham, Dry Clean Only from Los Angeles, Elephant Larry from New York, and kevINda from Chicago, just to name a few. The festival organizers promise entertainment ranging from "intelligent" to "mind-blowing" and there's more information about each group at www.sketchfest.org.
Do you remember Bill Clinton's campaign slogan, "It's the economy, stupid"? Well, Bruce Lipton says, "It's the environment, stupid."I first heard of Bruce Lipton several years ago. He's a cellular biologist whose research supports the conclusion that our beliefs and feelings define our creative capacity.I highly recommend Lipton's book, "The Biology of Belief," to anyone who wants to understand our potential to create a choice life and to help others-especially our children-do the same. I recently attended a three-day workshop in Bellevue which featured Lipton and Gregg Braden. Now, I'm thoroughly inspired to share an overview of the message conveyed by Lipton's book and workshop presentation.Although I often encounter scientific research as a tedious endeavor, that is not my experience with Lipton. He has a gift for taking difficult topics, such as quantum physics and cellular processes, and not only simplifying them-but enlivening them!
I have been so focused lately on Seattle's growth, Mike McGavick's extraordinary retirement bonus and Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism that I've missed - and you, faithful reader, may have missed - a whole slew of interesting little news and feature items from here, there and everywhere in the crazed world we share.The Blue Moon, an ancient and honorable watering hole and musical venue on the west side of the University District, has finally come to some sort of agreement with our goodly-sized mayor's office and will be allowed to continue to do business. The city was trying to close the venerable tav down, citing alleged problems with drug dealers the bar denied hosting.Cynics in the area thought maybe it was the fact that the Moon's clientele don't generally look like condo owners with tiny dogs of unpronounceable breed waiting outside coffeehouses yapping away merrily, a form of noise pollution the new Seattle doesn't seem to mind much at all.
What can I say about Jimmy Woo's Jade Pagoda, the Broadway restaurant-lounge, which closed on Aug. 31?It was one of scads of eating and drinking spots around town that that opened up in 1933, the year Prohibition ended. It served beer and wine with its Chinese meals for the first 15 years or so. Then, as the state's Class H liquor license came into being, Woo added a cocktail lounge in a side room. It was what all cocktail places in Washington state were from the late 1940s until the late 1990s-a large, often empty dining room with a small, often crowded barroom. This was due to a state law in those days. Bars serving the hard stuff had to be appendages to larger restaurants, and had to make a certain percentage of their income from food sales.The Jade Pagoda's food could never be called memorable. What it lacked in "authenticity" it made up for in dependability. It was hearty and economical, if bland and familiar, Chinese-American food; which is to say, the fare you could get in a thousand Chinese restaurants in America and nowhere in China.But it's not the food for which the Jade Pagoda will be remembered.
This year there was no need to carry your bumbershoot to Bumbershoot, Seattle's annual end-of-the summer arts celebration at Seattle Center. The skies were clear, the days were warm and the people were out enjoying the last bash of summer.
I belong to a support group called Changes Parent Support Network, for parents of at-risk youth. Though I am not the support group type, this one works for me. I attend Changes every week because of the actions of our younger daughter. In the spring of 2002, when she was almost 13, she morphed from a delightful child into someone unrecognizable. She became hateful and ran away, frightening my husband and me to the core. When she came home, things got worse. Weekly counseling was pitifully insufficient. We had to do something more drastic; we had to intervene.We sent her first to a wilderness camp in Idaho for a month, then directly to a therapeutic boarding school in Oregon for 18 months.After she came home she did well for several months. Teachers told us she worked hard in school and was a delight to have in class. Then she suddenly spiraled downward again. Soon we were going to her school almost daily in response to the latest report of abhorrent behavior. Finally, she ran away again, and was gone all summer.Thus began a long, depressing, sorrowful pattern of her running away for months, and briefly appearing at home. She burned through friends, boyfriends and neighborhoods, and we know she was doing drugs.
McPaper - I mean USA Today - bannered that fact in a front-page headline early in July.The reason national media trendster-folk are noting our national growth is that this year we are approaching a population of 300 million people. We're expected to cross that particular numerical finish line in early October.We are growing faster than at any time since census takers started collecting extensive data early in the last century.In 1915, 91 years ago, America was a country of 100 million people. Pundits of the day pronounced shock and amazement.But 100 million was just the beginning. By 1950 there were 150 million of us. And in fact, that rise was nothing compared to what we Baby Boomers were going to do.Between 1946 and 1964 another 50 million of us came onto the American scene.In 1967, America's population was 200 million. Now, 39 years later, the country has added another 100 million people.Naysayers are worried about immigrants and immigration, legal and illegal, but I am all for letting in damn near anyone who wants to come. New blood, new life.Plus, there has always been an outcry and prejudice toward the newest Americans.
Over the last few months members of the indigenous African-American community and the more recent members from Africa have been engaged in a spirited debate about how we can work together. But as this conversation has progressed it's obvious that there is yet another issue that must also be dealt with.If the entire African-American community comes together and develops a collective agenda, what do we do with it? The point I am making is that any agenda put together by African Americans must be created as a part of a larger American agenda. It must be designed to fit into the agenda of the city, the county, the state of Washington and the United States.If we decide that education is a priority and outline all of the issues we have surrounding education, those issues will not see the light of day if they do not become part of the school system's agenda. It's the same with issues pertaining to the police department or streets. It's also the same with foreign policy issues. African Americans need to be clear about what we want America to do around the world. What would an African American foreign policy initiative for Africa, Central and South America or the Caribbean look like? Where do we stand on the issues in the Middle East or the killings of thousands of people in Sudan?What kind of trade policies do we want to see and how can we help some of these African nations throw off the yoke of the old colonial powers that still control their economies?
Pamela Austin, Madrona (not pictured): "I think it should, but in a way it already is: when you're in a library it's municipal. If you get the government involved, it'll be a lot of red tape - if you allow politicians a share in the world wide web (it was created by the Department of Defense and the French were involved too)."Jenny DearbornSnohomish" Wow! I don't think so. I think it should be personal, independent. I have a lot more choice that way. If I don't like AOL, I can switch to Comcast."Tim TigerCentral Area"It has so much potential, e-mail or chatting or information. If people can't afford it, it should be provided. But I think it's too expensive: take DSL - you've got the cable already there. I think there's profiteering. I was in Korea - it's affordable [and] they make it available. In Asia, generally, they make all services readily available. Here we talk about intellectual property, but over there they open it up, make it freely available. To them - at the end of the day - there'll be more business. Everybody gets to share everything."
The old Yesler Terrace Community Center at 835 Yesler is undergoing a spiritual reincarnation as the new Rainier Unitarian Universalist Center.Colorful banners spread their wings into the center's high overhead space, awash with surrogate sunlight from new, full-spectrum lighting. Marimba band practice rings out like a flurry of bells while volunteers brush on bright new paint.Yesler neighbors gaze in wonder through the open glass doors as if to ask what all this fanfare is about.It's about the Rainier Valley Unitarian Congregation's rental and refurbishment of the time honored edifice where Jimmy Hendrix once performed and generations of youth have honed athletic and social skills. Sharing the spaceAlthough the space is being restored partly for religious celebrations and church related activities, Rainier Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation plans to share the Center with community groups that need a place to meet and conduct their own activities.The large, cheerfully painted foyer will be open to local artists as a gallery to display their works. Meanwhile the congregation also hopes to partner with other community organizations doing social service activities and develop an urban ministry. Therefore the building is being renovated primarily as a community center, not a church, hence the new name, Rainier Unitarian Universalist Center.Rainier Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation Is a lay-led congregation, about 50 members strong. Since its founding in 1997 until its move to Yesler this past June, the group rented space from a Disciples of Christ congregation, the Findlay Street Christian Church in Hillman City's residential neighborhood. However, last year the Rainier Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation was notified that the building would be sold and they would have to move to a new location.
On Saturday, Sept. 9, Fishermen's Terminal will host the 18th annual Fishermen's Fall Festival. Sponsored by the Fishermen's Terminal Tenant's Association, the fishing industry and Port of Seattle, along with the support of many local businesses, the festival has long been a community staple for residents of the neighborhoods surrounding Salmon Bay."People come from all over," says Steve Funk of the Tenant's Association. "It's a great place to spend the day with your family, but it's also a good way for people from Ballard, Magnolia and Queen Anne to get reacquainted with their neighbors in the fishing industry."While the festival, which lasts from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., provides an opportunity to meet and learn about the commercial fishermen of the Salmon Bay-based North Pacific fishing fleet, the focus is also on having fun. Featuring live music from a wide variety of performers, games, contests, food and many activities for children, the festival offers a little something for everyone.