What's missing, in much of what I read in the two daily newspapers I plow through seven times a week, is any written sense of the déjà-vu I'm feeling every day. Is it because the columnists and reporters laboring in the fields adjacent to Elliott Bay, under the spinning world of the P-I, are too busy writing to read recent American history? That's a question I can't answer.But rather than belabor other toilers in the local journalism vineyards, I will attempt to fill the need as I see it, as is my wont - some might say bent.
Tomorrow is a big day for kids. It is national Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work day.For many children in our community and all around the country, it will be a day for satisfying that age-old curiosity: what do these adults do all day?The program was begun over a decade ago by the Ms. Foundation. Initially it focused on girls - and was criticized both by men's groups and the often-single female parents it was meant to encourage. Along the way the program evolved by inspiring discussion and new awareness about anti-family assumptions and stereotypes.
Frederick Law Olmstead, eat your heart out.When Parks and Recreation Superintendent Ken Bounds last week announced his decision to name a new park in Ballard the Ballard Commons Park, a collective sigh of relief spread the length of Crown Hill - at least, among the handful of Ballard activists and die-hard skateboarders who have lobbied for years to preserve the open space as a neighborhood and city treasure.The new, 1.4-acre park at 5701 22nd Ave. N.W. was formerly known as Ballard Commons or Ballard Civic Center during its development into a neighborhood park. Improvements to the site, which will be completed later this year, include a skateboard area, a lawn, a central promenade, large "landmark" trees and public art.
The Port of Seattle has released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for its proposal to find new uses for 94 acres of largely vacant land in the North Bay area above terminals 90 and 91. The Draft EIS includes five alternatives that could transform the under-utilized area during the next 25 years, and three of the alternatives include a controversial proposal to add residential uses to the mix. Some of the alternatives would also require an amendment to the city's Comprehensive Plan governing development in the Ballard-Interbay-Northend Manufacturing Industrial Center (BINMIC).
Gusts of wind, rain alternating with sunshine and still, chilly nights herald the glorious turmoil called Spring. Changeable weather during this season offers a reason to enjoy bowls of steaming, aromatic soups. The soups of Mexico are perfect now because they employ sweet, delicate vegetables fresh from the marketplace. Elton Hyndman, head chef of La Cocina at El Centro de la Raza on Beacon Hill graciously took time from his busy day to share some tips for creating great Mexican soups. La Cocina (the Kitchen) is a sparkling, brightly painted lunchroom serving El Centro's Child Care Center, a seniors program and the Latino Hot Meal program. The latter is open to all free of charge.
For once, Fred Thies was being interviewed. In his line of work he has interviewed thousands of people over the years. Now the tables were turned.Fred has worked for State Farm Insurance on Queen Anne for 50 years. He joined the company in 1955, when he was 30 years old. For the first decade he was a salaried employee. Then he became an independent contractor on commission. "The harder you work, the more you make," he says.His agency now has about 8,000 policy holders, twice as many as usual for a comparable agency. Fred calls that success, reasonable success.
In the spring of 1968 a small, motivated group of African Americans active in the Garfield High School and University of Washington black student unions connected with the fledgling Black Panther Party while attending the funeral of Bobby Hutton in Oakland, California. The young, unarmed BPP member was tear gassed and shot to death by police. Having traveled south to San Francisco State University for the second annual West Coast Black Student Union Conference, the Seattleites changed their plans when they learned about the memorial services for Hutton. A week later party co-founder Bobby Seale was in Seattle helping set up the first chapter of the BPP outside of California. Within the first month after opening their headquarters on 34th Avenue and Union Street more than 300 black men and women had joined the party. Now, nearly 37 years later, Seale is coming back to Seattle to participate in the first regional Black Panther Party forum and reunion on May 13-14 at Seattle University and Garfield Community Center.
Rolfing. To some the word connotes an unpleasant experience after a night of drinking. But according to Paul and Susanna Reynolds of Lakeside Rolfing Associates, Rolfing includes structural rebalancing treatments involving deep-tissue manipulation designed to bring the major body segments into a better alignment. It is considered a massage technique that involves realigning the fascia, the body's connective tissue that wraps the muscles and organs. The goal is to make sure that all of the body's bones and tissues are properly positioned.The practice takes its name from founder Ida Rolf, a biochemist who sustained major injuries while playing soccer. Advised by her doctors to discontinue the sport, she began to study, and put into practice, the concepts of fluidity and plasticity and how they could benefit the human body. The end result is a therapy that has brought pain relief, enhanced youthfulness, and provided freedom for millions of people.
Every year we lose about 2,000-4,000 low-income units to demolition, speculative sale, abandonment, conversion and increased rents. For every one unit we build with limited public funds, we lose three to four times that amount to the forces of redevelopment and gentrification. As we write this column, the land use committee of the Seattle City Council is entertaining changes to the downtown land use plan and zoning changes elsewhere around town proposed by the mayor. This will translate directly into the loss of even more low-income housing in our city.Tearing down existing apartment buildings and replacing them with new, larger ones always results in increased rents in the new units. The inflation in building, land costs over time, and the desire of developers to maximize their profits all work against replacing older units with newer ones for the same price. That's why the mayor's rezones aimed at adding increased density in our neighborhoods will only exacerbate our city's shortage of low-income housing, unless the council intervenes to either prevent demolition or guarantee 100 percent replacement of the destroyed units.
In the classic Hollywood musical comedy, the Music Man, appears one day in a small, culturally-starved, Iowa river-town and begins to sell the idea of a boys' band. Attesting to the strength of that basic human need for beauty and artistic expression, the Music Man's dream spreads like wildfire, bringing the town to life. Likewise, Jerri Plumridge, arts director for Southeast Seattle Effective Development (SEED) has honed in on the artistic needs in this community. Plumridge came to the Rainier Valley in 1980 as a student intern for SEED. A petite University of Washington creative-writing student with a gentle disposition, Plumridge didn't even have a specific job assignment at the time. She was just supposed to make herself useful in some way.
NSK - Neue slowensiche Kunst, or New Slovene Art - has been challenging the status quo in art and politics for more than 20 years. It's a collective of artists in many fields, a philosophical and political perspective, a virtual country - and now the subject of an exhibit at the Frye Art Museum. Although well known in industrial/techno music circles throughout the United States and Europe, the collective is off the radar screen for much of the general public. The Frye exhibit will delight existing fans and offer insights to the rest of us.But some background first. Slovenia lies south of Austria and west of Hungary. It was once part of the Hapsburg Empire, and there's a long and sometimes unpleasant history with the "Germans." Slovenia became part of the Yugoslavian state after World War II. Despite the firm hand of Tito, it developed a lively intellectual underground, which quickly blossomed after Tito's death. In 1991 Slovenia became an independent state; it's now a member of the UN and of the EU.
"I spent a lot of time here in the middle of the night," said Jack Hamann, referring to the midnight research in Discovery Park's forest that he did for his new book, "On American Soil," the historical account of a riot and lynching that took place in the park during World War II. "For two or three August 14ths in a row I came to the park in the middle of the night and took notes on what the plants were doing. I wanted to see what the thistles were doing - what the maples looked like." He wanted to gather the subtle details that take readers from the armchairs of their livingrooms into the dark and woody setting of a crime scene. He succeeded. On Aug. 15, 1944, the body of Pvt. Guglielmo Olivotto, an Italian prisoner of war, was found dangling from a gnarled maple tree within Magnolia's Fort Lawton. The night before, a violent riot had erupted between American soldiers and the Italian prisoners of war being held at Lawton - a riot at least partly sparked by the racial tension between foreign POWs and black American soldiers whose status was lower than that of the men they shared the Fort Lawton compound with. Twenty-four Italian soldiers were hospitalized, but Olivotto's was the only death. Forty-three soldiers, all African American, were accused of rioting, and three were charged with the murder of Pvt. Olivotto.
A 7-year-old girl walks through a brilliantly luminous, deep-red hallway at the Central Library in Downtown Seattle. Fascinated by the iridescence of the tunneled scene, the girl tilts her head, as though studying a painting in an art gallery. "It's red," she says to her aunt, Elizabeth Trautman, who guides her by the hand. Equally taken by the scene, Trautman admires the sight of color with her niece, who is blind."She sees colors, [and] that helps because you can describe things in color to her and she relates emotionally to color just like a seeing person would," Trautman said. She was attending a low-vision exposition at the library April 16 with her niece and her parents.
Wandering through the cavernous hallways of the big, blue building that sits atop the pulse of the Phinney neighborhood, one thing becomes abundantly clear: From the towering ceilings that fend off mid-morning drizzle to the creaky floors reminiscent of grandma's kitchen, this building is saturated in history. As with any century-old building, visitors here might be tempted to utter clichés that lament the walls' inability to communicate, and rightfully so. For every creak in the floorboards there is surely a story worthy of being told.What makes the place special, though, has nothing to do with antiquity or architecture. It's about people and, more specifically, the foundations of community.
For the last 13 years Tom Nolet, a teacher at Roosevelt High School, has been promoting student voices. To that end, he created and maintains the Roosevelt Art Show.Nolet's inspiration for the project was rooted in his belief that students needed a venue for their unique talents outside of school: "I felt like there was a need for students to express themselves...not only as they can in this [school] institution."