The teachers, lessons and surroundings are different. So are the expectations.The changes - and potential stresses - are significant for students making the milestone leaps between elementary, middle school, high school and college.Pre-teens entering middle school must leave the cozy comfort of a single classroom to go to a bigger building with multiple subjects and teachers.Young teens entering high school must balance greater academic and social pressures as they look ahead to college.High-school seniors face a state graduation test, college requirements, career choices and separation from parents as they enter adulthood.To help bridge these big transitions, Bertie Conrad, school-based counseling supervisor at Youth Eastside Services, has these words of wisdom.
Call it a "garage sale," "yard sale" or "estate sale," summer is the time to clear out the attic and stick tiny, florescent stickers on that old pair of hockey skates, your mother-in-law's mismatched tea set and that sci-fi book collection that is getting moldier by the year.Garage sales can be a fun way of cleaning the clutter, but there are a few things to keep in mind before you set up your Saturday storefront.OptionsFirst, decide if having a sale is worth your time. While there are some good reasons for spending the weekend hosting a sale (such as meeting new neighbors and getting your kids involved in getting rid of their stuff), also consider the time involved in preparing a successful garage sale. You may want to hire someone else to manage your sale. A small, hourly fee and a percent of the proceeds are standard compensation. Or donation is always a good option; check www.ci.seattle.wa.us/html/citizen/volunteer.htm for a list of area agencies. Some will even pick up small household items from your curb.
With the prices of homes escalating so rapidly in the Seattle market and without adequate education and training for placing a down payment or monthly mortgage, a large portion of the multi-cultural community will be priced out of the market, according to Leilani Finau, a coordinator of the first Latino and New American Homebuyer Fair held at El Centro de la Raza. The fair, held on Saturday, Aug. 19, was specifically geared toward teaching the Latino community financial literacy and educating them about the process of purchasing a home for the first time. Staff members and volunteers busily greeted and registered event participants at the front door as booths filled with bankers and government-housing program representatives eagerly approached potential homebuyers with products and services available.With over 300 participants, classes such as building and maintaining good credit, predatory lending and the home buying process were filled to maximum capacity. Participants raised their hands and asked numerous questions while quickly jotting down notes as facilitators responded with the answers in Spanish. In addition to the classes, day care and child care facilities were provided to entertain children as parents attended the sessions. There was also entertainment and raffle drawings, as lunch was being served, for prizes such as gift cards to Home Depot and appliances. According to a report by The Seattle Times in July 2006, North Beacon Hill saw an average price change of 21.3 percent while South Beacon Hill saw an average price change of 16.5 percent from 2004 to 2005. In addition, The Seattle Times also reported that the median price in 2005 for a home in North Beacon Hill was $336,000 while the average price for a home in South Beacon Hill was $300,000.
On Friday evening, Aug. 18, the Take a Poem from Your Heart Reading series brought Tomas L. Gayton to Columbia City's Bookworm Bookstore for a special presentation of his poetry. Gayton was born and raised in Seattle, the grandson of black pioneers John T. Gayton and Magnolia (Scott) Gayton and the oldest child of the Seattle jazz drummer Leonard Gayton and Leonard's wife Emma. T. Gayton grew up in Seattle's Mount Baker neighborhood. He began writing verse soon after graduating with a Juris Doctor from the University of Washington in 1970. Besides being a poet, Gayton is a Civil Rights Attorney, social activist, world traveler, teacher, and lecturer. In 1977, he moved to San Diego. His writing has appeared in numerous publications and literary journals. "Winds of Change," his fifth volume of prose and poetry is a bilingual volume. Gayton has performed around the world, including California, Paris, Seattle, Vancouver B.C., Cuba, South Africa, Peru, and the Dominican Republic.
Leaving a place which children can build upon is the highest form of progress any society can ever truly hope to achieve. Our community has been building a place for our children to call home at El Centro de la Raza for 34 years now.But while we are concerned with the immediate needs of our community members and families, we also think about the long-term affects of the lives people have to live and the conditions that people of color have to face now and in the future.Over the last 34 years we have had to learn systems and procedures not only to thrive but also to survive. The same could be said for our families. Throughout that process we have learned that it is imperative do everything we can to find and provide stable lives to as many people as possible. This must happen both financially as well as socially. Because it is through stability that progress can be made.Financial as well as social stability are achieved through consistent work. The community of El Centro de la Raza is on intimate terms with the kinds of struggles there are with buying and maintaining a home. Such a struggle started in 1972 with the occupation of the old Beacon Hill Elementary building.
Ever since the 2001 Nisqually earthquake cracked and weakened the Alaskan Way Viaduct, we, as a city, have faced a serious problem which will take serious money to solve: serious as in billions of dollars. Mayor Greg Nickels knew what he wanted right away - tear down the viaduct, replace it with a tunnel, repair the seawall, open up waterfront property to new development, and fold in improvements for Mercer and Aurora north of the Battery Street Tunnel to enhance South Lake Union. Eventually given a $5 billion price tag, the tunnel was shortened and plans for South Lake Union put on hold, bringing the cost down to a mere $3.6 Billion. That is, if you don't think cost overruns will happen here, as they did in Boston's "Big Dig" which mushroomed from $5 to $14 billion.Meanwhile, citizens groups have come up with alternatives: the rebuild, the retrofit and the surface-only plan. The rebuild means replacing the current viaduct with a better-engineered structure in the same "footprint" along Alaskan Way at a cost of about $2.1 Billion. Like the tunnel, the rebuild involves shutting down State Route 99 for anywhere from three-and-a-half to seven years, while displacing some 110,000 cars that regularly drive the viaduct each day. But it's a lot less expensive and the state legislature has put cash on the barrelhead for the rebuild.The retrofit is the least expensive alternative and the least disruptive to freight movement, to commuter traffic from Ballard and West Seattle and to current businesses located on the waterfront. In spite of eight reputable engineers who have made the case for the retrofit at a cost of under $1 billion, the Washington State Department of Transportation has cold-shouldered this option.The surface-only plan makes the radical proposal to tear down the viaduct and not replace it at all while making various improvements to the street grid to absorb spillover and expand bus and rail service. By not building it this plan's proponents believe that many of the car trips will simply disappear, as has occurred in other cities eliminating major thruways. This alternative is not as cheap as it might seem - $1.6 billion by proponents' estimates.
Boswell: "Sir, what is the chief Virtue?"Johnson: "Courage, Sir. Without it, opportunity to exercise the others will be found wanting."Now more than ever this nation must find the courage to ask hard questions, and demand clear answers, about the Iraq war.Did the Bush Administration deceive the American public in the run-up to war? Is deceiving our country into war an impeachable offense?We believe, on both counts, the answer is yes.There is considerable, credible information on record to support such a conclusion. We believe President Bush, in a well-orchestrated campaign, sold this country into an unnecessary, incompetently conducted war based not on sound policy but personal pathology. This Administration was not the hapless victim of faulty intelligence - this is an administration of hyper-intentionality. As former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill stated: "From the very beginning there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go...It was all about finding a way to do it." The integrity of our democracy demands that we not ignore evidence of pre-war deception.
A few weeks ago I received an email. It was short and rather cryptic - "Dead Babies' race is tomorrow in Georgetown."Since that didn't mean anything to me, I hit 'delete'.Later that night, Holly and I headed down to the local watering hole and the topic of the moment seemed to be the Dead Babies. We quickly learned why there was such a buzz.For those that don't know, and I was one of those until a short time ago, the Dead Babies is this avid bike group, but the description doesn't do them justice. They LOVE bikes. They make them, build them, design them, and yes, ride them as well. They cruise, they joust and yes, they race. And it was the race that was the topic of the moment.The Dead Babies race is an annual event. The location is an undisclosed route that is kept secret until the night before. When all the prep work has been done and everything is set, someone lets the details out and this news spreads like fire. And the reason everything is under wraps is simple; it isn't exactly legal.
Residents of the Brighton Apartments ride on the Rainier Valley's United Nations float
The Baby Dangerettes drill team smile and tap their way down the street;
The mid-term senatorial election is fast approaching, and the field of candidates is larger than you may realize. This November's ballots will feature five candidates from as many parties vying for Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell's seat. On that list will be South End resident and Green Party candidate Aaron Dixon.A Beacon Hill resident, the 57-year-old Dixon is a father of six with a well-established history of community activism. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dixon was a crucial, organizing member of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party. During his time with the BPP he advocated for the civil liberties of black students at Rainier Beach High School, started the Free Breakfast for School Children program, and helped open a free legal clinic and a community medical clinic, which is still operational as the Carolyn Downs Clinic located off of East Yesler Way. Today Dixon juggles the responsibilities of a statewide political campaign with his North Seattle nonprofit organization, Central House, which he founded in 2002 to provide transitional housing for homeless young adults as well as a base for a youth leadership project that currently operates in four Seattle high schools. In part one of a two segment series, Dixon discusses his reasons for accepting the Green Party's offer to run as their senatorial candidate, his experience working with the Washington Green Party's fledgling infrastructure, and his reception outside of Seattle.
"There is nothing either good or bad," says Hamlet, "but thinking makes it so."Chester Morgan doesn't think there is anything bad about aging. "It's a natural process," he says. On the other hand, he thinks there are lots of good things about aging. "There is much to remember, much to reflect upon," he says. "Relationships are enriched, and you value them more."Chester says he values his marriage of almost 60 years, and he is back in touch with a childhood friend from Colorado.Chester was born in 1922 in tiny Blaine, Colo., in the southeastern part of the state, the second of Ida May and Floyd Morgan's four children (Chester had two sisters and one brother). Until Ida May tamed him, Floyd was a cowboy. Working the cattle drives, he was a skilled roper.As a young child, Chester visited his Grandpa Jones in western Kansas, where he raised mules. "I remember with pleasure how he liked to see me," Chester says.One day, revivalists from the Pilgrim Holiness Nazarene Church came through Blaine and Floyd was converted. He attended Bible school in Colorado Springs in 1926, then became a traveling preacher, moving his growing family from one parish to another-to Springfield and Hartman, Colo., then to Henrietta and Prague, Okla. Prague was a Bohemian settlement named after the Czechoslovakian capital, but it is pronounced with a long A.Floyd didn't earn a predictable living as a preacher. "It was a scrabbled thing," Chester says. "Sometimes we survived on 'poundings,' donations from parishioners of a pound of meat, a pound of sugar, sometimes a pig's head."Chester attended junior high in Prague. In his eighth-grade class graduation picture he sits in the middle of the front row, flanked by six girls on each side. The rest of the boys stand in the back row. "I was small," Chester explains.
The teachers, lessons and surroundings are different. So are the expectations.The changes-and potential stresses-are significant for students making the milestone leaps between elementary, middle school, high school and college.Pre-teens entering middle school must leave the cozy comfort of a single classroom to go to a bigger building with multiple subjects and teachers.Young teens entering high school must balance greater academic and social pressures as they look ahead to college.High-school seniors face a state graduation test, college requirements, career choices and separation from parents as they enter adulthood.To help bridge these big transitions, Bertie Conrad, school-based counseling supervisor at Youth Eastside Services, has these words of wisdom.
Sports are exciting. One never knows how a game, match or race may turn out. This uncertainty keeps spectators on the edges of their seat, or perhaps off their seat, yelling and cheering on their favorite team or athlete.There is a thrill when they win, and sorrow when they lose. Anything can happen in a sports competition, and little is predictable; that is why they are often so thrilling for many spectators. Sports are also great for staying fit, meeting new people and creating close friendships, as well as teaching lessons that apply to the real world. Athletes learn perseverance, teamwork, commitment and how to work hard to attain a desirable outcome. There are many lessons in life that can in some way parallel lessons learned from participation in sports.So with all of these great benefits, it is no wonder that so many children and teenagers are involved in some type of sport. Parents want their kids to stay active and learn some great lessons, and their kids have a lot of fun playing and competing. Sports certainly are a wonderful extracurricular activity. There are times, though, when sports become no longer fun for youth.
The almost-annual Uptown Stroll is moving to a central location this year. On Saturday, Aug. 26, the fifth Stroll since the event started in 2000 (one year missed), will be located at that alleged "urban oasis," Counterbalance Park, corner of Roy Street and Queen Anne Avenie North. The Stroll is slated to run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.If you've never gone to this gathering of art and artists, you really shouldn't miss it.