On Sunday mornings, Clint Pehrson and his family drive from their home in Queen Anne to University Lutheran Church in the University District. On the way they pass three other Lutheran churches.Why drive so far?"There's a level of discourse here that [we]'d miss anywhere else," Pehrson said. He and his family come for the congregation's socially, culturally and politically progressive attitudes. Many parishioners of the U-District's churches travel from beyond the neighborhood for similar reasons. The Rev. Tom Quigley and his wife live in Mukilteo, but attend University Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). "[Parishioners] come either because they're attracted by the [social] mission (as with my wife and I) or they lived in the U-District," Quigley said. Quigley and Pehrson are at the forefront of a movement that could result in dramatic changes for several U-District churches. The congregations are exploring two separate, yet related, proposals: first, moving in with each other into a shared facility, and second, worshipping together as the U-District Ecumenical Parish. The latter would integrate multiple denominations into a single parish. Congregations can join one without the joining the other.
It was a busy summer here," Susan McCloskey, principal of B.F. Day Elementary School, recently announced. With the wide, wooden halls teeming with excited children, it looks to be a busy fall as well. "[The kids] just bring a positive energy," Susan said, as she anticipates another school year. We all have good reasons to anticipate a future for Fremont's only public school and the oldest, continuously operating school in the beleaguered Seattle School District.It's "always in the back of my mind," Susan said about school closures, but "I'm pretty confident that B.F. Day won't close." Currently, the school has 260 kids, which Susan admits is below capacity. The building could accommodate 400, but it would mean a tight squeeze: "We're not so low." She believes some schools must close, that Seattle doesn't have the population of students needed to fill the number of schools currently operating, but "I don't feel any danger here," she said.Major remodelThe Fremont community already fought a successful battle to keep the school open, back in the ancient history of the late 1980s. When the school district agreed to keep the school open, they did a major remodel of the more than 100-year-old building. Susan still praises the work done and assured me the building is in fine shape and very secure.This past summer, the school district put a new roof on. Lloyd A. Lynch General Contractor Inc. did the work, on schedule, and were "really friendly to deal with," according to Susan. They did a complete tear-off of the old roof, some minor replacement of the wood frame and installation of a shingle roof with a 35-year guarantee.
A local public health crisis has been prevented - for now.Earlier this year, the King County Health Department recommended that the North Public Health Center and the North Seattle Dental Clinic be closed due to budget deficits. These facilities are both located in North Seattle and are a critical resource for the low-income uninsured and underinsured. The North Public Health Center, for example, receives more than 50,000 visits annually.Services provided by the public-health facilities include primary care, as well as family planning, pre- and post-natal care, immunizations, HIV/AIDS testing and dental care. Providing these services is fundamental to sustaining a healthy, vibrant community. Washington State funded public health through the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET). However, passage of Initiative 695 in 1999 repealed the MVET, cutting state funding for public health that has never been fully restored. The resulting budget gap due to this and other revenue losses prompted the recommended closures.
You can take the Seattle Art Museum Film Series out of the Seattle Art Museum (to the Museum of History and Industry, till spring 2007), but you can't take film noir out of the series. Not if it's fall, and not if Greg Olson is bent on making a 29th year of it as curator of the nation's oldest annual celebration of noir, that cinematic belladonna that first bloomed in mid-1940s Hollywood and memorably festered well into the next decade. Olson is, of course, thus bent, and several hundred obsessive Northwest noiristes rely upon it.By this point Olson's ongoing inventory of "The Film Noir Cycle" has long since paid tribute to the cardinal noir titles (such as, last year, "Scarlet Street," "The Blue Dahlia" and "Cry of the City"). Now the series' agenda tends more toward mining unheralded gems and pushing the envelope: pushing the envelope in terms of both enlarging ticket-buyers' awareness of the myriad movies comprising this genre-that-never-was-a-genre, and teasing out what can and cannot be defined as noir. In addition, each year's lineup now includes a title or two that postdate noir's classic, historical period (Orson Welles' 1958 "Touch of Evil" being generally regarded as the last word) and raise the question whether the crime films and thrillers of the '60s, '70s and beyond can be said to extend noir's heritage or profane it. (Semantic conundrum: Can the profane be profaned? Discuss amongst yourselves.)One other feature that distinguishes Olson's noir programming is that, whenever feasible, the curator seeks out 35mm prints, often from archives or private collectors. The increasing availability of vintage films on DVD is a boon to cinephiles and casual viewers alike; and as it happened, Olson's 2004 borrowing of the Library of Congress restoration of Fritz Lang's "Scarlet Street" - long available only in smudgy public-domain prints and videos - was followed within the year by Kino's release of crisp DVDs mastered from that same restoration.
Eldritch horrors. That which the mind of man cannot comprehend. The cult of Cthulu.If any of those phrases give you a pleasant chill up the spine, then you've probably read H.P. Lovecraft or one of his many literary descendents. An early 20th-century writer of "weird fiction," Lovecraft captured the imaginations of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Alan Moore and countless others who were inspired by his mix of science fiction, fantasy and horror set in unexplored corners of modern America. Each October, Open Circle Theater celebrates Lovecraft even though, as artistic director Ron Sandahl admits, the man from Massachusetts was not the world's greatest writer."He had a lot of odd mannerisms, was very much an Anglophile in spellings like 'colour' instead of 'color,' and could be overly florid in his writing," pointed out Sandahl. "But he would come up with these great horrifying concepts. The sort of thing that makes you want to keep the lights on after you've finished reading."Like most Lovecraft fans, Sandahl discovered his hero in various short story collections issued by Arkham House, a publishing company founded by Lovecraft's friends after he died in 1937."During his life, most of his stories were only published in magazines," said Sandahl. "But after he died, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei wanted to issue his work in hardcover, so they created Arkham House." Wandrei also founded DAW, one of the leading science fiction paperback houses.
During retirement we wish to have a lifetime stream of income sufficient to support our lifestyle. Since taxability of income determines how much spendable income may be available, this is an important topic for consideration in planning for retirement income. In this article I will discuss income with regard to whether it is taxable or tax-free at time of receipt. The financial planner's concern and objective is to help her client keep more of her money during both the asset accumulation and distribution phases, while paying her citizen's share of taxes due.Currently taxable income includes wages and salaries, business and rental income, taxable interest and dividends, alimony, pension, annuity and IRA distributions received. For 2006, the taxable income rate can be as high as 35 percent. While many more people with higher incomes are now finding themselves subject to AMT - alternative minimum tax - individuals with the highest incomes are not affected by the AMT because their maximum marginal tax rate (35 percent) exceeds the maximum AMT rate of 28 percent. During the accumulation phase, several instruments offer the advantage of tax-deferred growth.
One of the charms of my favorite independent coffee shop, an aspect that gave it a very local feeling and, at the same time, a European atmosphere, was the presence of dogs. Customers were allowed to bring their canine companions with them, and many of them did. If anyone ever drove his or her dog to the coffee shop, I never heard about it. These were neighborhood residents who walked to the coffee shop with their pets and gave it an unmistakably local feeling.Part of my morning routine for the past two years has been providing treats and playing with the dogs during my morning coffee. Most often I would know the dog's name long before I knew, or could remember, the owner's name. Eventually I would remember the owner's name, and we would greet each other when we happened to meet elsewhere in the neighborhood.I like dogs, but since I am barely able to take responsibility for myself, I have chosen not to accept responsibility for an animal. I don't have a dog, but having dogs to greet and pet each morning was great.Someone, who apparently does not like dogs as well as I do, ratted the shop out to the health department in early September, lodging a complaint against the filthy beasts that frequented the place.
The major newspapers and news magazines seem to have just discovered political "bloggers" (writers with their own Web sites, or "weblogs"). The old-media pundits often depict these "new media" upstarts as a threat to the established order of things.Despite these bashings from the MSM (blog lingo for the "mainstream media"), political bloggers really represent the renewal of citizen democracy in all its imperfect, messy, loud, impassioned splendor. These people are concerned about the future of this nation beyond the "horse race" campaign coverage.You can meet several political bloggers (along with assorted friends, colleagues, and non-writing citizens) at the local chapter of "Drinking Liberally," a national, semi-organized organization that brings the online conversations of the "blogosphere" into real face-to-face meetings. There are currently 162 DL chapters nationwide, including seven in western Washington. (Find them at drinkingliberally.org.)Seattle's Drinking Liberally meetups occur every Tuesday, around 8-10 p.m., at the Montlake Alehouse, 2307 24th Ave. E. You have to be of drinking age to attend, but you don't have to order any alcohol.Most meetups begin with informal chit-chat among whoever shows up. Shortly after 9 p.m., a small subset of the gang gathers in a corner with microphones and a digital audio mixer to record a "podcast," or Internet radio show. You can hear each week's episode at podcastingliberally.com. (Warning: Strong language can often be heard on the show, though it's not guaranteed.)
When it comes to eclectic shopping on the cheap, the biggest supply of bargains on Capitol Hill, day in and day out, is the Capitol Hill Value Village at 1525 11th Ave., between East Pike and East Pine streets.At this time of year, the main floor closest to the doors is given over to Halloween costumes and accessories. Rack after rack of spooky, glamorous and just plain weird (okay, maybe even tacky) costume ideas compete for attention with barrels of grim-reaper scythes (safe plastic, of course) and other ghoulish tools for mayhem and candy distribution. Better grab one of those red plastic baskets, or one of the big cloth shopping bags; you're going to need it.The Capitol Hill Value Village is just one of 200 stores in a nation-wide thrift chain, one of more than 20 in the Puget Sound area and one of just three inside the Seattle city limits. The for-profit, Bellevue-based company that owns the chain calls its stores "the ultimate treasure hunt." Whether or not it is "ultimate," the Value Village shopping experience is undeniably a treasure hunt.Filling three floors in the main building of REI's former Capitol Hill location, the variety and quantity of merchandise is impressive. In fact Mark Adams, store manager, said more than 9,000 items are added to the sales floors each day, Monday through Friday. Although the bulk of the sales is in clothing, Adams said clothes are not the best part of Value Village.
It's a new organization, still in its formative stage, one sorting out myriad organizational details and establishing goals. But the nascent Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce is starting to take shape.Capitol Hill has been without a chamber of commerce since its previous incarnation ceased operations nearly two years ago. Efforts that led to creating the new organization arose during a series of stakeholder meetings earlier this year. Those meetings led to the creation of an Action Agenda plan for Broadway and Capitol Hill, a plan the mayor approved in an announcement at Bailey-Coy Books in July. The goal was to improve the Hill's economic vitality; the city subsequently announced more than $300,000 be earmarked for improving Broadway's economic health. One of the items contained in the plan and directly referenced by the city was re-establishing the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce.Aided in part by the city funding, the new chamber is in the process of finding suitable office space, creating a board and building a website, among other tasks. An interim director, Amani Loutfy, has been hired to help generate members and make the organization operational.
Fall brings the harvest, and Pacific Northwest growers are now busy bringing in the crop of American-grown hazelnuts, a specialty nut cultivated almost exclusively in Oregon and Washington. Under appreciated in the United State, the hazelnut, a long-time European favorite, is also called a filbert and in England a cob or cobnut.The hazelnut is a member of the birch family and was gathered in China 5,000 years ago and enjoyed by the Romans as well. This sweet and tasty nut is native to the northern hemisphere, and while many varieties exist only a few major types comprise the bulk of the world's crop.Home grownWashington grower Brian Holmquist knows a thing or two about growing hazelnuts. Referred to Holmquist by Karen Kinney of the Columbia City Farmer's Market, I met Brian recently at his Holmquist Hazelnut Orchards stall at the Friday Pike Place Farmer's Market in downtown Seattle."Our family has been in the nut business for 78 years, but we've been farming the same land for over 100 years in Lynden, Washington," Brian noted. The original farmstead was founded by his great, great grandfather."This man always had a crop in the ground," Holmquist said. "He had fruit trees, nut trees, cows, grain, and strawberries. That way there was always a harvest. If one crop didn't succeed, something else did." Succeeding family members saw Holmquist's great grandfather and eventually his grandfather take the reins.
One of the biggest problems facing small businesses, and in particular minority businesses, is the ability to get capital during tight economic times. All of the present forecasts clearly show that minority business people are discriminated against when approaching traditional lenders far more than small, white-owned businesses.So what do you do when you need capital fast? Who do you call when a deal has gone sour and you need a helping hand?An old friend of mine, Michael DeVaughn, recently reminded me of an option that I had used in the past. "What businesses don't know can hurt them. People don't know that there is a group of people called factors. These people will take your invoices and give you 95-98 cents on the dollar," DeVaughn said before adding a caution. "I would suggest that you don't get carried away with this. You only use them during periods when you really need cash, and then stop or you may get overly dependent on these people."What DeVaughn is talking about is the fee that you pay to factors that should be in your bank account. Use them and pay them off and then go back to your internal bookkeeping system when the crisis is over."Factors are business loan sharks," DeVaughn said." They know you can't go anywhere else. The reason most people factor is that they have contracts but don't have the ability to pay their bills before the contract pays. After you get paid, cut [the factor] off."
Phil Lane has a vision. That vision is complex, expansive and founded in basic humanitarian principles, and though it contains applications in the realm of international politics, it is not meant for politicians. It is meant for the people.Lane - CEO of United Indians of All Tribes Foundation (UIATF) headquartered in Discovery Park's Daybreak Star Cultural Center - is the brains behind "The Fourth Way," a 42-page document that lays out a plan for global peace and prosperity in the 21st century. Broadly populist in nature and ideologically grounded in aboriginal folk wisdom, the document is subtitled, "An Indigenous Contribution for Building Sustainable and Harmonious Prosperity in the Americas." In basic outline and tenor, "The Fourth Way" is an urgent cry for unity among indigenous peoples everywhere, with the message that such a collective bonding carries social, spiritual, economic and political implications for a worldwide demographic that largely has existed on the tenuous margins of mainstream society.
A one-car accident that killed four men on Saturday, Sept. 30 at 8:40 p.m. left a large debris field filled with automotive, human and street infrastructure wreckage filling the 9500 block of Rainier Avenue South. "I was sitting at my computer in the living room," recalled T.C. Kern, a resident of Spinnaker Bay Condominiums, which is located in front of the accident scene. "I saw this car fly by, then I heard a loud and very long scraping noise like it was riding the curb. I heard a loud pop, saw a huge amount of sparks and then the power went out." Kern got up to take a better look out his window, and he saw several people walking around the crash scene, which made him feel the crash victims were ok. It wasn't until he, and several of his neighbors, rushed down to the condo complex's main gate to get a better assessment of the situation that Kern realized the fatal results of the accident.
The vocal quintet Archiglas will perform sacred and folk music of Russia at the Episcopal Church of the Ascension on Saturday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. Archiglas will also participate in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at 10:15 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 8.The concert will feature music from the classical and sacred works of several composers including Tchaikovsky, Ippolitov-Ivanoff, Rachmaninoff, Balakirev, Tchesnokov, Diletsky and Shvedov. The ensemble will then change to traditional costumes to perform folk and other secular songs from Russia's rich musical heritage.Each member of the group, directed by bass-baritone Dimitry Vorobjev, sings professionally and has received advanced musical training at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.