The proposed 2008 King County budget abandons the county's longstanding support for historic preservation by cutting funding for preservation and heritage support programs by 50 percent or more. It is also patently unfair to Seattle-based heritage organizations. The Seattle Heritage Coalition, a citywide group of preservation and heritage supporters who are closely following historic preservation and heritage policy, has analyzed the 2008 budget proposal, and we are shocked to find preservation funding slashed. The proposal misses an opportunity to raise the quality and quantity of heritage and preservation programming across the city and county.
The "big deal" about food is when you don't have any. Many of your Queen Anne neighbors don't have enough to feed themselves and their children. "The closure of the Bethany Queen Anne Food Bank in September 2004 has put an additional burden for food on Queen Anne Helpline," according to Helpline director Patricia Sobeck. The agency has experienced a significant increase in the number of calls for help with food, at least 60 for food alone so far this year. (These are the individuals who are not too proud to request help. There are many who do not.)"The Queen Anne Helpline is not a food bank; we do not have the resources to fill that gap," Sobeck went on to say.
801 W. Government Way (3006728) on a Land Use Application to demolish two existing structures each over 4,000 sq. ft. in an environmentally critical area (Discovery Park). The following appealable decisions have been made based on submitted plans: Determination of Non-Significance with conditions (no environmental impact statement required). Environmental review completed and project conditioned as applicable. Conditions have been placed on this project.
Teachers are underpaid in comparison to accountants. They are not underpaid in comparison to healthcare workers, excepting RNs and docs. But money aside, it is undeniable that teachers are very important. Bad teachers, whether they reach bad from burnout or natural inclination, do a lot of harm. Good teachers, well, they do a lot of good.
Several nights ago, Dec. 4, a nice, live wreath was placed on the outside door [of a building] on Valley Street. It was there for two nights before someone ripped the wreath off the door (hung with duct tape) and took off with it.This is a time of caring, peace and respecting your fellow individuals. I wonder how this person feels now that they have a stolen wreath hanging on their door?
My friends seem to be equally divided on the effect my semi-new (five months now) job working with the memory-impaired (mostly oldsters) is having on the Wilken persona. Fifty percent of longtime West Coast Wilken Watchers, or maybe even a little more than half, feel that my 35 to 40 hours a week with formerly successful folk, reduced by fate, age or God to a nearly total dependency on the kindness of paid strangers, has been good for me.
Winter comes to Beacon Hill. Most urban campers vacate to downtown shelters. A few struggle on under tarps, tents, bridges, sometimes lean-tos, shacks of salvaged or stolen lumber. Weather changes. Life's harder.Business goes on in the woods.Around the corner, there's an encampment of three men, two maybe armed with guns. There was a shot earlier this year. One resident is an Asian guy, "Uncle," a heroin dealer.
I confess. I love "Black Nativity." I've seen it every year since moving to Seattle nine years ago. And I never tire of it. So in honor of the show's 10th anniversary, I decided to drop in on a rehearsal and interview the performers who had been with the production since its Seattle debut.If you haven't seen "Black Nativity," you should know that Langston Hughes' gospel play unfolds in two parts: the birth of Jesus as seen through the improvisational music and dance traditions of African-American culture, followed by a rousing gospel songfest.
According to Washington's Better Business Bureau (BBB), the toy industry spends an estimated $300 million a year on safety testing and inspection of toys, and approximately 3 billion toys are sold in America each year. So far this year, more than 20 million toys have been pulled off shelves as a result of more than 60 recalls. This is more than twice the number of alerts the United States Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) issued last year. If you're holding a holiday shopping list that includes the names of a few good boys or girls, the local BBB offers the following advice to ensure that the toys you give are safe.
My friends seem to be equally divided on the effect my semi-new (five months now) job working with the memory-impaired (mostly elderly) is having on the Wilken persona. Fifty percent of longtime West Coast Wilken Watchers, or maybe even a little more than half, feel that my 35 to 40 hours a week with formerly successful people, reduced by fate, age or God - take your pick - to a nearly total dependency on the kindness of paid strangers, has been good for me.
I read with great interest an article by Doug Schwartz entitled "About that QFC site..." from a recent Capitol Hill Times. The city's Department of Planning and Development signs on the building describe the 290 residential units as "apartments," but I have the sickening suspicion that they're going to be more much needed (sarcastic) condos. Please tell me I'm wrong.
There's something sad about the impending bulldozing of the 500 block of East Pine St. The final weekend of November before the entire block was fenced off, several friends and I made a special trip to visit one of our old haunts, the gay bar Manray. We had heard the owners announced last call at 10:30, but convinced the bouncer to let us in for one final visit. After a round of Coronas, the group began reminiscing about Manray when it first opened in August 1999. In the midst of a summer romance that year, my new flame and I sat out in the open garden patio in the back mixing with other newcomers. That relationship would eventually take me all the way to South Africa where I met him and his travel partner to spend Christmas and the dawning of the new millennium. Looking back on it, he and I were not meant to last, but he gave me an adventure of a lifetime visiting a part of the world I'd only dreamed of seeing.
It's a stretch of fenced-off emptiness, a place that looks like a small ghost town or a Superfund site without the Haz-Mat suits. The north side of the 500 block of East Pine Street, for so many years a veritable hub of activity, is now derelict and empty and awaiting the wrecking ball. It's a damn shame, too. This stretch of street was a social nexus and contributed mightily to Pike-Pine's well-regarded sense of itself. When five popular bars and restaurants cease to be within a short period of time, by definition a neighborhood changes.
Drivers' education has a fresh, new look.Technology has changed, and now, so has the lesson plan. Today's drivers' ed classes increasingly involve PowerPoint presentations, point-of-view driving videos and modern, organized facilities. Teachers enlist a slew of contemporary techniques to keep students' attention and help them rapidly recall what they have learned. Acronyms abound as memory aids, from SMOG (Signal, Mirror, Over-the-shoulder and Go) to NOTS (No Open-Toe Shoes).
Global warming's all the rage.Everywhere you go, you hear about it. Whether it's in the classroom where an environmental-science course is being taught or the latest screening of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" or the ridiculous "Day After Tomorrow," the impending doom of climate change has apparently become public enemy No. 1.