Charlotte Smith, a 2005 graduate of Franklin High School, was one of 22 Washington state students recently awarded a scholarship from the Greater Washington Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.Totaling $65,000, the grants were made possible by a $250,000 gift from the Seattle-based O'Donnell Family Foundation. Recipients were selected based on academic performance, financial need, volunteer and extracurricular activities, and essays they wrote about the impact MS has had on their lives. The annual program was established this year, specifically for students in Washington state.For unknown reasons, Washington state has one of the highest incidences of MS in the country. There are an estimated 400,000 Americans facing the unpredictable daily challenges of MS. Its cause and cure remain a mystery.
Summer is the time for long lazy days and weekends spent lounging around the house. For some families, summer lends itself to nights watching movies together without the stress of early bedtimes or hectic school schedules. Last week School Smarts discussed how parents could boost children's academic skills over the summer. This week we continue this discussion by describing additional ways to give everyday activities, such as watching videos, an academic twist.
My husband and I spent the last couple of weeks bicycling from Paris, France, to The Hague in the Netherlands. It was my second time to visit this part of the world by bicycle, my first being back in the 1970s.It didn't surprise me, of course, that much has changed after 30 years, but what surprised me more is that some things haven't. As we left the bike path leading out of Paris and began passing countless acres of ripening grain, we spotted our first rural village. Stone and cream-colored stucco walls and red tile roofs were not interrupted by even a trace of gaudy signage or advertising. Drawing closer we could see that the only adornments were pots of flowers hanging from windowsills and lining the courtyards. Nearly all the stores and houses were built along the sidewalks with none being set back behind parking lots or even yards. These villages exuded the ambiance of the sweet, rural communities portrayed by Peter Breugel paintings.
"Strippergate" is back in the news. Glaring front-page headlines announced recently that the King County prosecutor will pursue criminal charges against the owners of Rick's Strip Club - Frank Colacurcio and his son - for allegedly funneling illegal campaign contributions to city council incumbents Wills, Nicastro and Compton two years ago. The three had voted in favor of a controversial rezone benefiting the club. The city has placed a $650 lid on an individual's contributions to a candidate per election. The Colacurcios are accused of dodging that limit by slipping cash to friends, relatives, and associates who then gave that money to the three incumbents.Relentless coverage of these illegal donations dominated the news during the 2003 election and contributed to the defeat of Wills and Nicastro. Just for good measure, voters also kicked Margaret Pageler out of office even though she had nothing to do with the scandal. Lacking a credible challenger at the time, Compton was narrowly re-elected. While too much has been said about "Strippergate," little or nothing has been said or done about the more important, and far-reaching, examples of how special interests shape Seattle's decision-making.In the fall of 2003, the Seattle Displacement Coalition filed a complaint with the Seattle Ethics Commission that was subsequently upheld, charging council member Compton with failiure to disclose at least one free trip: he flew on a Vulcan Company (a Paul Allen owned business) private jet and enjoyed free admission to a Portland Trailblazer game with refreshments and seating in Allen's private box. Soon after Compton cast one of the critical votes favoring Vulcan's local agenda, including co-sponsorship of a resolution committing the city to the promotion of biotech development in South Lake Union. Compton only acknowledged these ethics violations after they were discovered and made public by the press.
For anyone who has ever tried taking an idea from being a mere kernel in your mind to being a fully fledged project, who navigated the murky waters of permits, public acceptance, consensus, obtaining money (public or private) and still demand donated time, realizes that a small miracle took place.That is just what happened on the corner of Rainier Avenue South and South Henderson Street in the form of a bus shelter. For those of us who are unfamiliar with this intersection's history, we might think it simply a more engaging shelter than most, but officer Cindy Granard of the South Precinct Community Police Team knows too well of the loitering and drug dealing that went on. Granard is not your average run-of-the-mill police officer.
When it comes to child-rearing, maybe, just maybe, the parameters of protracted preparation have reached their limit.While the thought of a pregnant woman reading a bedtime story to her swollen belly seems ever so endearing, the flipside - images of frenzied parents scrawling calculus equations on their toddler's Etch A Sketch - is somehow slightly less romantic.It is in opposition to these latter, nightmarish visions of well-meaning, if overbearing, parents that Johnny Dagnen and Sam Reich-Dagnen created "Braincandy," a children's DVD series that encourages kids age 4 and younger to "learn how to engage their five senses to explore, experiment and discover new things about their world - and themselves."
Some say technology brings the world to your fingertips. Still, despite the fact that we live in a hyper-connected, media driven society, it is not uncommon to find flummoxed expressions on the faces of news-weary consumers.That's because many are disillusioned by media coverage that critics say is too biased, too inaccurate and too sensationalistic. As a matter of fact, six in 10 people believe that news coverage is biased, according to the results of a May 16, 2005, survey conducted by the University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy.But rather than cursing at the weather-forecaster or throwing bags of pork rinds at their television sets, a group of local educators is trying to teach Seattle students about the media.
As of July 19, 1,766 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and more than 12,000 have been severely wounded.Most of us will never live through the suffering of a war firsthand, and regardless of our political affiliation, we will experience the pain of fallen and wounded soldiers and civilian casualties only from afar.Yet there are some among us who have served or are still serving in Iraq, who are not watching the war on television. Many of them will live through the hell of war not once, but over and over again - because of a syndrome called Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The Magnolia Little League 10-year-old All-Star team took second place at the District 8 softball tournament in Kenmore on July 13. They were undefeated going into the championship until they dropped their final game by a score of 13-10.Magnolia started the tournament July 9 in Woodinville with a victory over North Kenmore, 3-0. Dylan Wade pitched a one-hitter, striking out 10 batters and allowing only one walk in six innings pitched. Ben Welch scored two runs, and Kyle Kaupp contributed another run in the shutout.
We went with our friends Sue and George to check out the Lavender Festival in Sequim this weekend; you know, the banana belt of the northwest; that place where the sun always shines.It was about 65 degrees, and looked and felt like a December day in Seattle. Most people were bundled up like Nanook of the North.The drive over to Sequim is always a pleasant one, assuming you know where you're going, and we almost did. George drove. Having been to Sequim before, a few years back, we knew the way, or most of it. The ladies chatted away in the back seat while George and I did the same up front.We rolled into Sequim, unsure where the main tents were set up for the festival, when one of the women said, "Why don't you just pull into this gas station and ask?"When George and I were able to breathe again, I looked around and said, "Why don't you just ask us to demasculinize ourselves? Ask directions? Is there an exhaust leak back there?"
It was a cool, breezy day, Feb. 14, when my wife Rita and I took Beate to the Swedish Cancer Institute for a visit to the oncologist."Boy, that was something I thought I'd never hear," Beate said to us after exiting the doctor's office."What's that?" I asked."That the cancer is inoperable," Beate answered, and her eyes started to water. "Let's go home."It's one thing to read about cancer statistics, and another thing when it smacks you in the face. Books and Internet URLs on cancer abound but, really, in order to truly grasp the reasons why a cancer starts one should possess some rudimentary knowledge of genetic embryology. It wouldn't hurt to have studied a bit of cellular biochemistry either.How else could a breast cancer patient ever expect to understand her diagnosis? The two most important terms for a woman with breast cancer are: stage and grade. Try to explain those words without science terminology.
Gas taxes are necessary, but too high is simply that. They burden small business and heavily pinch daily commuters, many of whom have been forced to live far from their jobs because of high housing prices. We simply can't pay for it all at the pump.It's time to revisit an old solution, albeit an unpopular one: the motor vehicle excise tax, the dreaded "car tax" that was (finally) killed by a series of earlier Tim Eyman initiatives. But do it right this time. Here's a modest proposal for a revived MVET.
A U.S. District Court judge personally took charge of the Columbia River system after ruling that the latest Bush administration proposal to recover endangered salmon runs is illegal.In other words, the judge isn't buying what the administration repeatedly has tried to sell. That's no surprise after a fair-minded read, but it begs the question: When do we stop pleading and start planning? Planning is what's necessary, and it's an approach that for years I've strongly advocated in my Salmon Planning Act, which remains dammed up behind Republican legislative spill-gates in the House of Representatives. It's past time to open the spillway.We need a credible, serious, long-range salmon recovery plan based on science, economic analysis and community dialogue, not special interests producing banners and monologues. This is the only way we can ever hope to achieve results in the best interests of salmon, agriculture and the rest of the Northwest economy.
Magnolia resident John Cain is fed up about something that's partially his own fault. Cain took part in an effort to spruce up the neighborhood more than a decade ago, when angled parking in the middle of Thorndyke Avenue West was replaced with six landscaped median strips between 23rd Avenue West and West Plymouth Street.Dirt from a tunnel dug for an expanded West Point sewer plant was used for the median strips, which were edged with railroad ties, Cain said. "Then we started to plant this stuff," he added, gesturing in apparent disgust at an overgrown median strip half a block from his home on West Boston Street.One of the median strips between 23rd Avenue West and West Plymouth Street is nicely mowed these days, thanks to a nearby neighbor, Cain said. But the rest of the strips have turned into a mess of overgrown flowerbeds, grass and weeds as neighborhood interest has waned or disappeared altogether, he said. "So anyway, I called the mayor's office to get someone out here to do something."He's still waiting, but a fix won't be easy, as Cain found out at a meeting last week of the Magnolia Community Club's new land-use task force.
The United States Army Reserve at Fort Lawton is set to become just another part of Seattle's history later this year. A federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) has included the 38-acre Lawton complex at the edge of Discovery Park on a list of nationwide military installations it wants to shut down.What would happen to the property afterward is still up in the air, according to Mike DeCesare, communications director for Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Seattle). "There's been all kinds of talk about possibilities for it," DeCesare said.But getting bumped off the closure list isn't one of them because Congress has to OK or reject the entire package to avoid "various political footballs," he added. Congress members can't "cherry-pick" at the list, which was prepared with careful consideration by the independent commission, DeCesare said.