In October of 2002, almost a year after the United States Patriot Act was passed by Congress, the Magnolia Neighborhood Peace Project held a community forum on the controversial law. More than 200 neighbors turned out for the event, reflecting widespread concern among citizens that the law gave the government more powers than it needed.Three years later, with portions of the act up for renewal, our concerns have increased. The Senate and House have each passed different versions, with advocates for civil liberties supporting the Senate version (S 1389) of the Patriot Act. Many believe the Patriot Act gives the government too much power to spy on innocent, ordinary citizens. This and other privacy concerns have resulted in resolutions calling for Patriot Act reform from more than 400 communities, including the city of Seattle, King County and seven states.Groups from the left to the right, as diverse as the American Library Association, The Free Congress Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have urged that the 342-page law be reformed.
The time frame: World War II had just ended, and Pope Pius XII was Vicar of the Roman Catholic Church.At age seven I was officially sanctioned as an altar boy at All Saints Catholic Church in Flint, Mich. The predominantly Polish-American community started the parish and were successful in convincing the Bishop to appoint Polish-speaking priests to administer the congregation.Roman Catholic Churches celebrate a variety of masses. Two common types celebrated on Sundays are known as Low and High Masses.High Mass was always held at 10:30 a.m. The sermon was delivered in Polish, followed by the priest walking up and down the main aisle, attended by two acolytes, blessing the congregation with ample doses of sprinkled holy water. Attendees at High Mass consisted mainly of first generation immigrants.For years my standard assignment on Sunday was the 5:45 a.m. mass, which was attended mostly by General Motors factory workers. All Saints hosted three priests who officiated at the six daily masses, running from 5:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. and including the Children's Mass; the Polish-culture Mass took place at 10:30 in the morning.This last mass of the day was another assignment I served for years; other boys had refused, but I volunteered. The pre-Vatican I and II years (i.e., before 1966) were unique because the church imposed stiff communion requirements. Fasting and abstaining meant few to none of the parishioners went to Communion at the last mass.
I like to think of Magnolia as the closest far-away suburb of Seattle. We have the benefits of living near a great downtown, but once here, it seems like living in a distant, wonderful small town.But the price of that quality of life - as with freedom - is eternal vigilance. For example, there are discount airlines, Bellevue developers, branches of the United States government and some public officials who don't share our priorities for the future of Magnolia.And so it's been the main mission of the board and members of the Magnolia Community Club (MCC) to focus on that future, and protect it from outsiders' indifference. So far it's been a pretty good year.
Plans to replace the Seattle Center skateboard park with one on Elliott Avenue West are on hold and may be scuttled, according to several city sources.The development follows months of work and two public planning meetings over the design for a park next to a King County Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) facility on Elliott. The change also imperils a relatively tight time line that calls for having a replacement in place before the old skateboard park is demolished to make way for the world headquarters of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.However, contrary to a recent story in an alternative weekly, the change of heart is not based on a county demand that the city buy the land outright instead of leasing it, according to Pam Bissonnette, director of the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks. Instead, the Seattle City Council and Mayor Greg Nickels have directed the Seattle Center to look again for a location on Center grounds or - alternatively - to have Seattle Parks and Recreation find one on Parks-owned property closer to the campus than the Elliott Avenue site, said Parks spokeswoman Dewey Potter.
Queen Anne got its first pho restaurant this past weekend when Carol and Henry Pham opened their Pho Viet Anh at 372 Roy St. On Sunday there were dancers doing a traditional lion dance and firecrackers and a hungry dragon that possibly had designs on the restaurateurs.
"I think I'm an interesting person," says Elizabeth Campbell, with intriguing certainty. Who would say such a thing about herself? Elizabeth was born in Seattle on July 25, 1952, the first of Marilyn and Verne Redman's six children. Though busy at home, Marilyn found time to volunteer for the school district, and to participate in local historic preservation.Verne has worked in the warehouse at Abbey Party Rents for 45 years. In his 70s now, he still does. When he started, the company also rented out medical equipment for home use - hospital beds, oxygen tanks and such. Elizabeth remembers careening around the warehouse in wheelchairs with her siblings.Elizabeth grew up on Queen Anne. She attended John Hay Elementary School, was in the first entering class at McClure Junior High School and graduated from Queen Anne High School in 1970.
The stage is set: A team in green and yellow runs onto the field, anxiously awaiting the signal to begin. A familiar figure in gray walks out and brushes off home plate, steps back behind the catcher and yells, "Play ball!" The universal call is heard across the diamond, and play begins.This figure in behind the plate is the umpire - and a kid. For umpiring is a job kids in Magnolia have been taking on for three seasons now. To help them along the way, Magnolia Little League runs the Youth Umpire Program. Designed to train interested individuals in the rules of softball and baseball, the program prepares them for challenges they may face on the field.
My latest column on tea (March 23) stirred up so much interest and so many questions that I am encouraged to brew up yet another on this very refreshing subject. I have had many inquiries about the subject of high tea. The very title used to be a standing joke for British comics, the punchline being: "You want high tea? Put your cup and saucer on the mantelpiece - it's higher than the tea table."Actually, there is a great deal of misconception over here about high tea, conjuring up visions of lace tablecloths, silver tea services and formal afternoon tea enjoyed by high society. In fact, the reverse is true. High tea is a very informal early supper, enjoyed by farm laborers and rural blue-collar workers. These folks start their day quite early, so they have their dinner at noon, and high tea provides a fitting end to a long, hard day.
Wine, which has arguably been around since Neolithic times, is enjoying a current surge of popularity in our country. According to a Gallup Poll, wine eclipsed beer as the alcoholic beverage of choice for the majority of Americans in 2005, and a study commissioned by this year's Vinexpo Bordeaux wine fair determined that the United States will be the world's top consumer of wine by 2008. An increase in local wineries, improvement in the quality and variety of wines in general, and pop-culture references such as the wine-obsessed film "Sideways" reinforce its standing as the drink of the moment.So where does this leave the average wine consumer? In many cases the answer is "confused," and selecting a bottle of wine from a retail establishment can be as tricky as taking a pop quiz. First there is the fairly straight-forward question of white or red, which is generally accompanied by a price consideration. But more difficult posers follow: What grape (or grapes) is the wine derived from? Should I choose a Northwest producer, Californian or something European? How do I decide on a "brand"/winery (rather than just grabbing the bottle with the coolest label)? And, most impossibly, the combination question: How to determine a "good" year for a particular grape from a particular vineyard in a particular region of a particular country?
I don't know who owns the Egyptian Theater on Capitol Hill, but I bet it's not Bill Gates or Paul Allen.When we attend the Egyptian, we usually park on a side street. Last Saturday we were going to the 4:15 p.m. showing of "Capote" and meeting friends at the theater at 3:45. There was no parking close by. On all nearby side streets they've installed computerized parking meters that you must feed when parking from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. You're allowed to pay for up to two hours of parking, no more. If we fed the meter at 3:40, it would expire at 5:40, and for 20 minutes we'd be eligible for a $40 ticket. To be safe, we sat on the curb until 4 o'clock, then fed the meter $3 for two hours, and were late meeting our friends.
I love animals.Before I continue and tell you what makes me tick, I thought I should get that on the record.Last week I went to my neigh-bohood QFC and was perusing the produce when I saw a woman digging through the apples. Out of her large purse peeked a tiny little head, which began to sniff the fruit.This lady brought her stupid little dog to the supermarket.Everywhere I go, I see dogs in inappropriate places. Someone had a Lab in Target. A man brought his poodle on the bus.And they weren't service dogs either. The only assistance these people needed was someone to knock them silly.When did it become acceptable to bring your pooch wherever you go?I've always been a cat person myself, and if I brought my cat out on a leash, I would get some strange looks.I love my cat, but I know other people don't. Felines are sweet and caring and the perfect companions for me, but others might think they're mean animals who scratch or bite as soon as they get the chance.Before I'm branded as a dog-hater, let me say that dogs, like cats and all other pets, have their places. Dogs are great in your yard or in your house, as long as they don't disturb others. Even taking a dog to the park is fine by me if it's on a leash and you bring your scooper.
These are such troubling times that whenever some ordinary thing to relish occurs, I welcome it. Compared to the stale contentiousness of politics, celebration seems to lighten the air until I see that life is nothing. Nothing, that is, but a gift. Especially in the inconsolable haze of Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and the "us against them" feel to the world all round.Today I celebrate this: my mother has sent her first e-mail. After threatening to store the computer I bought for her in the garage, which is her way of putting it down, she finally called that "nice young man" who works at Best Buy. His team of computer wizards is called The Geek Squad, and my mother thinks it's because he's unmarried. I love the fact that a 25-year-old is patient enough to sit with my 79-year-old mom until she learns to trust the memory bank that, at first, she thought money could be deposited into (directly into) after he suggested she manage her checking account online.Her first e-mail said only: "Can you read this?" - arriving seven times because, I suspect, she approached the send button much like she does cooking: Why make a saucepan of soup when you can make enough to feed the neighbors, the bridge club and even the mailman?
I've been working in Olympia the past few weeks.One of the people I work for down there is a news junkie, and so CNN is on their living-room television maybe eight hours a day.When CNN began 25 years ago, they literally covered the world, 24 hours a day. Now they run the same few stories over and over. They have personalities named Wolfen and Heidikins who analyze the few feet of video the network has somehow obtained - most of it taken in Washington, D.C. - ad infinitum.Soundbites of Bush, talking-head interviews with experts on what Pinhead just said, ad nauseam.I've read that all of the big American news outlets have cut down their foreign operations, reducing the number of those exotic foreign correspondents who once caused envy and desire in even the most pedestrian reporters' hearts. American news operations rely more and more on whoever is on the ground in foreign hotspots these days.Or they simply don't cover much of the news, past a one- or two-line report scrolling by on the bottom of your television screen, while they show Scooter Libby limping around D.C. on crutches for the 20th time. Even on crutches Scooter stops and opens the door for a hot young blond staffer; Scooter's either a gentleman or a hound, although I've seen no analysis of that part of his behavior so I can't say.
I hope you saw the glorious new rim of white surrounding the Puget Sound Basin before the clouds came in low again. Sunday, the Olympic Mountains were lit up by the early-morning sun. Stopped you in your tracks. Such brilliance was startling after so much gray. It made you realize that the recent barrenness of the mountains was all wrong for this region. Now the basin has refreshed its ephemeral qualities - white mountain peaks, reflected up close in whitecaps on the waters. And then the clouds drift back in, mists obscure the brilliant clarity, and you wait again for the next grand showing.
Nonprofits work hard to catch the eye of philanthropists in hopes they'll provide sustainable income to their organization. Queen Anne Helpline is pleased to have caught the eyes of two young Queen Anne philanthropists: Claire Godbout and Nicole Godbout. Claire Godbout is a fifth-grader at Pacific Crest Montessori, and her sister Nicole is in second grade there. The sisters have been donating money to the Queen Anne Helpline every two months for the past three years. Karen Keeley, the girl's mother, said that they have a three-S's rule when it comes to their allowance: they divide it into savings, sharing and spending. The girls picked the Helpline as the place they wanted to donate to and share their allowance with.