For many, Sound Transit and the prospect of light rail on Capitol Hill is something of an abstraction. One can look south and see the initial light rail segment, which connects downtown to Sea-Tac airport, taking shape. While that line is expected open in 2009, for the Hill light rail has been a more abstract subject, often one filled with contention, certainly one filled with uncertainty.But recent decisions by the Sound Transit Board are leading to a tangible Sound Transit presence on Capitol Hill and for the light-rail station slated for Broadway. At the end of April, the board formally approved the plan to extend light rail from Downtown Seattle to the University District. The decision, while not unexpected, means the agency will move forward to obtain a $700 million federal grant needed to complete the segment. While that money, more than 40 percent of the $1.5 billion needed to complete the line has not been secured, the agency is confident the federal government will approve the funding.According to Ron Endlich, Sound Transit's North Link program manager, the project received the highest possible rating from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), making it a prime candidate for federal money. It was able to do so, he said, because of the large ridership numbers Sound Transit expects. The agency reports that downtown to University District segment, which includes Capitol Hill, will see 114,000 daily riders by 2030. This compares to the 45,000 daily riders expected on the downtown to Sea-Tac segment by 2020.
A convicted felon identified as Joseph LaTour was arrested for a firearms violation after handing rounds of ammunition to Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu just outside St. Mark's Cathedral around 9 p.m Thursday, May 11.Tutu, in Seattle to speak at the 75th anniversary of the cathedral, had just addressed a standing-room-only congregation. He was talking to a small group of people outside when he was approached by LaTour, 58. The archbishop continued to his car after giving the rounds to a bystander, who immediately informed a uniformed police officer on site. LaTour was apprehended and a pat-down search uncovered a loaded Remington pistol as well as a knife. No threats were made to the archbishop, said Seattle Police Officer Diana Nollette. The nature of the short discussion held between LaTour and the archbishop before the exchange of the .45 caliber rounds has not been determined.
Maya Lin is a heavy-hitter in the contemporary art world, and her current exhibit at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery, Maya Lin: Systematic Landscapes, knocks the ball right over the fence.The exhibit includes three large installations, an explanatory video, a multimedia description of her work on the "Confluence Project," a tribute to Lewis and Clark on the Columbia River and several small works. All of it is breathtaking.Unlike a more traditional art show where the view interprets the composition, technique and skill of the artist, this exhibition provokes the viewer to contemplate Lin's vision of the planet, wonder how her mind works and marvel at the result.Moving experiencesLin leapt to national prominence in 1981, when she was selected to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. She was just 20 years old and still an architectural student at Yale when her proposal was accepted. Although controversial at first, the memorial has since been called the most successful piece of public art in the United States. In the intervening 25 years, she has become best-known for her large-scale landscape art and monuments, though her studio-scale work is in many collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Last week was White Privilege Awareness Week at the University of Washington. As a student there, I was reminded of my years at Franklin High School, from which I graduated in 2003. While there I was enrolled in the humanities program, where the intensive studying prepared me for college. However, I still recall being one of a handful of minorities in this program, while many other minority students were enrolled in non-humanities or non-advanced placement classes. Franklin is a predominantly minority-populated school. Only 10 percent of Caucasians make up the school's demographics as of October 2005, according to an annual report published by the school. So why did it seem that the entire 10 percent of Caucasians encompassed a majority of seats in these humanity courses?While attending the University of Washington I also noticed the ratio between minorities and whites in a 500-person lecture hall. Of the 27,488 undergraduate students enrolled in autumn 2005, only 9,396 (34 percent) identified themselves as a minority, according to the university's office of registrar. Had I not been a student at UW, I would not have been exposed to the term white privilege. Even though I had never heard of the term, I knew the concept. At Franklin growing up as a minority, I experienced situations that made me realize that I could never become equal to my Caucasian classmates.
Just because something is said to be legal doesn't necessarily make it right (e.g. slavery, discrimination, or rip-off gas prices). White people in the United States are here, generally speaking, legally. Does that make it right that they took the land of the indigenous inhabitants? Many Latinos and others are here "illegally." Does that make them wrong?Within its nested environment with its homeland security, the general U.S. population needs to consider the push-and-pull factors behind illegal immigration that the population does not know about. People don't leave their home countries to work long-term out of curiosity or because they are criminals; they do so because they have to. Latinos in Seattle, and all around the country, are very much aware of these factors and the situations that forced them to leave in search of a better life and, simply, a way to survive.Some might say immigration isn't the United States' problem and that the immigrants' countries are to blame. However, consider things like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Simply put, NAFTA is a way for corporations to make larger profits with relaxed trade restrictions. Consequently it promotes cheap labor outside of the U.S. As a result, providing a reasonable income to many people in Mexico, for example, has become nearly impossible. When this happens there really is no choice; families must leave to find work.
For the students at Washington Middle School, and their peers who were visiting from Magnolia, most went to school on Thursday, May 11 expecting a typical day.However, it ended up being an unforgettable, inspiring and historic day for these students when Nobel Peace Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu paid a visit.The surprise morning assembly featured remarks by Seattle Schools Superintendent Raj Manhas, Washington principal Jon Halfaker and an introduction by Lori Markowitz, who launched an innovative curriculum on South Africa to the school called "Community Building Through Global Understanding."
Seattle Parks and Recreation invites the public to submit potential names for two parks in the Central District and Rainier Beach neighborhoods. Suggestions for names are due by June 7.The park in the Central District, located next to Colman School at 2400 S. Massachusetts St., was acquired by Seattle Parks and Recreation in 1948. Formerly, it was the school's playground. The Washington State Department of Transportation bought the land for use in staging construction of the I-90 lid project. Since 1997, Parks has leased the land from the state for parking for the adjacent Sam Smith Park.The 2000 Pro Parks Levy provided $309,300 for site improvements that include better pedestrian connections to the park and neighborhood. For more information about the project, visit www.seattle.gov/parks/proparks/projects/colmanschool.htm. The park in Rainier Beach, located along Lake Washington at the 9500 block of Rainier Ave. S., was acquired by the City of Seattle in the 1930s when Rainier Ave. S. was extended to Renton.
A group of South End residents have organized to oppose the construction of an 80-unit homeless housing facility that non-profit agency Downtown Emergency Services Center hopes to build at 5270 Rainier Avenue South, a currently weed-ridden vacant lot near the Columbia City and Hillman City commercial cores. In packed community meetings and e-mails to government officials, many residents have raised concerns about the facility's possible impact on the neighborhood, which they say is still transitional and fragile despite its recent economic resurgence. Site plans are currently being reviewed by funding sources including the Seattle Office of Housing, which will decide next month whether to provide more than $3 million to the $15-million project, said housing office spokeswoman LeAnne Nelson. The facility is slated to open in 2008.A chief concern among community members is the possibility of the formerly homeless residents, many of whom would be mentally ill, causing disruptions in the largely residential area around the site.
Some things never change.We were the lucky recipients of four kittens a couple of months back. Four delightful, furry balls of fun and mischief were born into our family.Oh yes, lovely little hairy creatures with sharp, pointed teeth and wicked, slicing claws that can knock over any plant or glass vase in the house by merely looking at it with their bright yellow eyes.I just love them. And not because they'll be the cause of me getting brand-new couches sometime in the near future. No, I love them for other reasons.If I had enough time, I'm sure I could come up with those reasons and explain them in elaborate detail to you. But that's not what I want to talk about today.Today I want to discuss males. Not just males of the human variety but, specifically, males of the feline species.You see, the kittens I have are all males. How do I know this? It's hard not to know when you look at them. They have no shame. No modesty. None.
Anyone who knows me, knows that we were the lucky recipients of four kittens a couple of months back. Four delightful, furry balls of fun and mischief were born into our family. Oh yes, lovely little hairy creatures with sharp, pointed teeth and wicked, slicing claws that can knock over any plant or glass vase in the house by merely looking at it with their bright yellow eyes. Wild-eyed, racing balls of fur that use my semi-new living room furniture as scratching posts or as spots to hork up nagging hairballs from their tummies. I just love them. And not because they'll be the cause of me getting brand-new couches sometime in the near future. No, I love them for other reasons. If I had enough time, I'm sure I could come up with those reasons and explain them in excruciating detail to you. But that's not what I wanted to talk about today. Today I want to discuss males. Not just males of the human variety, but males of the feline species specifically. You see, the kittens that I have are all males. I know this because it's hard not to know this when looking at them. They have no shame. No modesty. None. Zip. Nada.
The light from the TV filled the room. It was late, and I couldn't sleep. "Slices, dices, chops and purees - you can't cook without one." Right, I thought.  That's just what I need.I keyed the remote. Click! "...All the hit tunes you parked to in high school, this is the one rock collection you can't pass up!" Not all the tunes I parked to. Click!"The new Garden Claw, from the makers of the Garden Weasel, is just the garden tool you've been looking for." Click!Even though one of my advertising agency jobs during the '70s was obtaining legal approval for all of my client's advertising, I couldn't help but notice that, since the 1980s, the Federal Trade Commission was no longer strictly stressing the truthfulness doctrines. Nearly every new commercial was beginning to look and sound like the famous "Saturday Night Live" Bass-O-Matic skit.I was up at the hardware store a few weeks ago, browsing the aisles - a typical "guy" thing to do. Every once in a while you've got to fix something around the house to prove your intrinsic worth.I was trying to squelch the guilt trip my partner, the Lady Marjorie, was laying on me for watching more than eight continuous hours of televised automobile racing the previous day.As I turned down one aisle, I happened across the Garden Claw. Hmmm, I thought, no harm in at least examining it.
The most response I've ever got for a column in these pages came after I weighed in against drivers who plow through crosswalks, and speed against the light, all the while talking on the ever-present cellphone and/or chowing down behind the wheel.Walking around Queen Anne, upper and lower, is a lot more dangerous than it used to be.The Uptown Alliance doesn't disagree with that analysis and even sponsored a town meeting about the problem at the Bayview Manor auditorium last Thursday evening (May 11).Representatives from the DOT, Seattle Police Department and Emergency Medical Services were on hand, along with members of a concerned Queen Anne public.And David Levinger, director of Feet First, presented a study his pedestrian-advocacy group conducted, "The Intersection from Hell," aka Roy St. and Queen Anne Ave. N.Here's hoping something more substantial will be done about the whacks, some of whom are our neighbors, who drive as if pedestrians are targets in a video game, not living, breathing creatures sharing this otherwise lovely corner of the earth with them.Myself, I'm for the death penalty for anyone driving while on a cellphone who kills a pedestrian inside a crosswalk, something that happened more than 25 times in our area since 2000.
The investigative team of Beacon Hill News editor Erik Hansen and Magnolia News editor Rick Levin recently received a Washington Press Association "Communicator of Excellence" award for a series the pair wrote on immigrant labor in Seattle.The second-place award, which was granted in the category of editorial journalism for non-daily newspapers, was given for the four-part series "Work Wanted: America's Unknown Labor," which ran in successive issues of Queen Anne News from Oct. 26, 2005, to Nov. 16, 2005. The series focused primarily on the Seattle day-labor organization CASA Latina, which provides for-hire employment opportunities for a large segment of the city's immigrant population; open to anyone, the service is utilized mostly by Latin American immigrants.
I don't question the worthiness of, say, a symposium on carbon-dating heirlooms from Shirley MacLaine's previous lives, but if it's taking place in Tukwila, or Twenty-Nine Palms, I have to disqualify it from inclusion in the Bulletin Board.Yet, more and more, as I scroll my way through paragraphs of impassioned promotion, I can't find where the event, or the store, or the company office, is. Even the "letterhead" of the institutional message is oddly partial in what it deigns to communicate.No street address is given. Sometimes not even a town.A post office box, maybe. An e-mail edress and/or a Web site, invariably.The underlying assumption is that the only contact that really matters is cybercontact. If you have the edress or Web site, you can apply to the source for more information (not that it's always forthcoming even then). More importantly, you can fork over your credit card number and buy or enroll in whatever they want to sell you on.
There's a question I often hear as a wellness practitioner: "Is it covered by insurance?"This thought has also occupied my own mind as I ponder what wellness supports I will and will not allow myself. I've always been fortunate to have health insurance that covered expenses I encountered due to illness.But what I've come to realize is that, aside from periodic screening exams, "health" insurance primarily provides for responses to disease that has already taken hold. I'm not currently hampered by disease, and I don't plan to be in that position if I can help it. Instead, I choose to proactively support my health. I think we all have a right to optimal well-being both as individuals and as a society.How do you define "well-being"? Take a moment to wonder how you would like to feel-emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually-every day, and how your life experience might differ if this ideal state were normal for you.