The University District's rich history of icons and events may be converted into a history project that would be accessible to everyone. It is called a "Museum Without Walls."Last week, local residents gathered to brainstorm ideas for projects throughout the U-District that would capture the community's culture, as well as educate the public about the neighborhood's past. A neighborhood-wide museumJim Diers, a University of Washington community liaison and former head of the city's Department of Neighborhoods, said the U-District's history could be more accessible if it were out in the open and not enclosed in a building. The idea to have the "whole U-District become a museum" was developed as a plan to enhance a sense of community and connection for people in and around the area, said Susan Coleman, a member of the U-District's Arts and Heritage Committee.
Your store is fabulous! It's exactly how I'd want my room to look!" read the entry in Not A Number Cards & Gifts' guestbook. When owners of the Wallingford shop, Kara Ceriello and John deLeeuw, decided to reopen their primarily political store 11 months ago after being forced to relocate from Queen Anne because of construction, Ceriello said she did not realize what a following they would create. She said there are "so many regulars from this area, so many wonderful progressive people."Ceriello explained that the odd combination of gifts, toys and environmental and political products in the store stemmed from "stuff that we like and stuff that [she knows] people like."Partisan politicsShe and her husband have been activists for a long time, involved in various political and environmental groups, so it was natural, according to Ceriello, that they open a store that was geared toward their interests and political loyalties. Not a Number Cards & Gifts, 1905 N. 45th St., is decidedly partisan: "We are open to many things, and, of course, we are for freedom of speech, but we don't carry any Republican products," Ceriello firmly stated. "In the words of [George] Bush Sr.: 'Not gonna do it.'"
Vis-à-vis regular boilerplate crime - murder, armed robbery, burglary, those staples of the old-time daily newspapers where I began what the New Agers call my career path 30 years ago - Cincinnati, my just-revisited home, and Seattle, my adopted home most of the past 20 years, have gone in different directions.When I arrived here in 1984, fresh from covering Cincinnati's approximately 50 murders a year, I discovered that Seattle, although a tad bigger, also averaged about 45 to 50 homicides annually.In the 1990s, when Seattle's murder rate spiked and forced the creation of a gang task force, our citizens-removing-citizens rate of 70-plus surpassed that of Cincinnati, where the murder rate dropped under 40 per annum.But Seattle somehow grabbed "aholt" (as we say in the near South) of itself, and lately murders have dropped to under 30 annually. At the same time, with gang problems, police brutality and racial tensions on the rise - in a city the census claims is 35 percent black, but where black activists claim a full 50 percent, many unrepresented, of the citizenry - Cincinnati's murder rate has soared. At this writing, 80 citizens (a record pace for the alleged Queen City of the Midwest) have already been removed from the faulty census rolls, most, of course, the victims of gunshot wounds.To even the untrained eye, Cincinnati is a more violent place than Seattle.
As you might have figured out by now, through this column, I am what some might call a neighborhood activist. It's not a label I sought, nor is it one I am completely comfortable with; I simply try to help my community and give it a voice when one might be needed. By no means am I "the voice"; I am one of many.So, that's what I do. Why I do it - well, that's another question. I am not sure about the why, and that's what I'm pondering.Georgetown has occupied a lot of my time over the last couple of years. I am not complaining, mind you, just stating a fact. Sometimes it feels like every spare moment has been spent on neighborhood issues. I love my community and that's what truly drives me. Have I enjoyed lobbying? You bet. Has it been tiring? That's an understatement. There have been nights when I've cried into my Ben and Jerry's asking, "What am I doing?" Over the last few months, I have been questioning if it's been worth it. I've been wondering if my energy could have been better spent elsewhere. This might stem from exhaustion, or perhaps guilt. When I look back at the last two years, a couple of events stand out for me. The first, not in order of priority, is the battles of Georgetown which are well documented. The second event is my friend Jenn's battle with cancer.
Two weeks have passed since the mid-October school board meeting imploded from a lack of leadership and a surfeit of rudeness on the part of some in attendance. It's time for school administrators and parents to cast critical eyes on the wreckage. The school board has been called dysfunctional, and when it comes to the way they handle public meetings, that appears to be the case.Where was the discipline on Oct. 18? The meeting's three-hour time slot nearly doubled as the board members allowed impassioned speakers to exceed their time allotments and sat passively as rude, disruptive members of the audience interrupted the proceedings for the detriment of everyone involved. The mechanism for public input was disrespected and derailed.The board's job is to inform the audience of the ground rules, the consequences of breaking them, and enforce them if they are broken. While it may take beefed-up security to accomplish, it's the same old-fashioned and positive structure of communication parents should use with their children. It's elementary.
The proposal announced at a press conference last week by King County Executive Ron Sims and Port of Seattle CEO Mic Dinsmore to swap Boeing Field for a 47-mile eastside rail corridor that would be turned into trails is far from a done deal.That was something Sims' chief of staff, Kurt Triplett, stressed numerous times in an interview. But broaching the idea was necessary, he said. "We finally got to the point where we needed a reality check."The reality check involves primarily Port commissioners, but it's so early in the process that the proposal is only conceptual at this point, according to Triplett. "It's hard to know how the details will work out."Indeed, one of the details that still needs to be worked out is how much the Port of Seattle would pay King County for the airport. The county in turn would use that money to convert the rail line for recreational use, and a figure of $200 million has been mentioned repeatedly in press coverage.But Triplett stressed that no solid sale price has been established, and he noted that Sims only mentioned a cost of "hundreds of millions of dollars" in response to a question at the press conference. Also up in the air is how much money Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway would want for the rail line, Triplett added.Financial details aside, the idea seems solid to the people in Sims' office, according to Triplett. "We're all excited by the concept."
All Hallows' Eve, more familiar to us as Halloween, is here. This night of tricks and treats is meant to welcome the spirits of the departed back from the netherworld and comes before the comparatively somber religious observance of All Saints' Day on November 1. Mexicans, however, set aside a special Day of the Dead on November 2 just for this purpose. They welcome spirits of their loved ones with fun and festivity. Since pre-colonial time, the indigenous Aztec culture honored the goddess Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Dead, during the month named for her which corresponded to July and August on the Roman calendar. More recent times have given us the ironically comic etchings of calaveras, or skeletons, decked out in outlandish costumes and hats with large plumes done by late nineteenth-century artist Jose Guadalupe Posada.While the Mexicans considered the celebration of spirits one of mirth and welcome, the medieval European church view was decidedly less conciliatory. Those whose lives had been sufficiently righteous would gain purchase in eternal glory and thus be remembered on All Saints' Day. But those not so fortunate would, by virtue of sins committed in life, be bound for purgatory. These then were the unfortunates for whom the faithful offered up prayers the next day, All Souls' Day.Conquerors from Spain superimposed the Christian observance of All Souls' Day onto the indigenous celebration, crudely moving the Aztec commemoration to follow All Saint's Day on November 1. This was part of the Spanish attempt to assimilate the natives into the Spanish-colonial culture of the 1600s. Thus the Mexican observance of the Day of the Dead, El Dia de los Muertos, bears the mark of both cultures.
Officers and Seattle Fire Department personnel were dispatched at 3:06 a.m. on Saturday Oct. 21 to the 1100 block of Crestwood Drive South in response to a report of an assault victim with a gunshot wound, according to the South Precinct incident report. When the investigating officer arrived, the victim, a 26-year-old man, was being treated at the scene by paramedics for his facial and forearm wounds. The family was alerted to the assault after the victim's mother heard a faint knocking at her front door. When she opened it, her son fell through the door and onto the floor. Incoherent from loss of blood and shock by the time the police officers arrived, the victim's brother and mother said he had been shot somewhere else and managed to drive himself home.At first, the victim's family thought the man had been in an accident, which was partially true. Investigating officers found the victim's car had crashed into his mother's car at a low rate of speed before rolling partially up onto the curb. Both the front driver's and passenger windows of the victim's car were shattered, and glass lay scattered across the ground 15 feet from where the car came to a rest. Inside the vehicle, officers found a substantial amount of blood around the driver's seat and on the ground just outside the door.
The Kimball Elementary Lion dance Team parade in front of the recently completed mural on Oct. 26 at Kimball Elementary School on Beacon Hill. School students, officials and supporters joined with the neighboring community to honor the large-scale, community wide project that created a mosaic aimed at reflecting the richness, joy and diversity of the school and its neighboring community. An Oct. 26 ceremony featured Artists Julie Maher and Aaliyah Gupta, who are also parents of children at the school, conceived the mural as a public art and community building project. There is no dedicated art program at Kimball because of budget limitations, and Maher and Gupta saw the mural as an opportunity to expose students to the creative process, from design to implementation. The year-long effort involved every student and staff member in the school, along with more than 75 parent and community volunteers. The sign project was funded by the Department of Neighborhoods and the Kimball PTSA. Materials were donated by Stewart Lumber. The sign's roof was donated by Jorve Roofing.
I recently shared my five favorite books of the year, out of 52 read. I said then that the picks were only my favorites, not necessarily the best five books I read in the past 365 days. The same goes for my picks among the 240 movies I watched in the past 12 months, only more so.There are at least two people closely associated with this newspaper who know a lot more about film than I do. I do have some familiarity with literary criticism, having earned two degrees in literature at a pretty good Midwestern state university two decades and change ago. But movies started for me as an escape from serious literature, and it's only in the past couple of years, under the tutelage of a well-known Northwestern writer, that I have in any way deepened my approach to film.Now that all those quibbles are behind me, here are the five movies I loved in the past year. If you haven't already seen any or all of them, I heartily recommend a trip to Scarecrow - don't cheat yourself out of the enjoyment these movies will give ya.
When the Mr. Lucky club was a hip-hop venue, the club across First Avenue North from KeyArena would be jammed with customers by midnight on weekends. By contrast, on Friday, Oct. 27, there were only two men at the bar around that time, along with a bartender and the owner, a grim-faced Kyriakos Kyrkos. As he's always done with the News, Kyrkos declined to comment.But Liquor Control Board spokeswoman Susan Reams said the club reopened on Monday, Oct. 23, at the end of an emergency six-month suspension of its liquor license following a shooting that wounded three peoples standing in the hallway by the south entrance. And the bar will stay open past the Oct. 31 yearly renewal date for its liquor license, she said. The city and the Liquor Control Board, Reams added, both want the club's license permanently revoked. In addition, Mayor Greg Nickels in a letter to nearby residents has urged them to voice their objections to renewing the license at Mr. Lucky, where two other shooting incidents and one beating death took place in the parking lots surrounding the club.
In the weeks since school started, I've noticed an increase in incidents of bullying and aggression in my role as a mentor at the Magnolia Community Center. Having brought up this topic in the past, I now feel compelled to once again bring this problem to light. Since school started in September, I have witnessed almost every day some form of aggression between students. Some students have disclosed to me things that they have done to other students, as well as what other students have done to them. It is not uncommon to hear among boys such epithets as "bastard," "fag," "gay," "idiot" and "stupid," and "bitch" and "slut" used among girls. These words are being exchanged not just by teens but among kids at elementary-school age.When no adult is present, boys and girls will get into physical fights. I've witnessed these situations brewing and have stepped in before things could go anywhere; there also are times when fights have escalated and I only hear about them later. Some folks will say that there has always been fighting among youth, that this is typical and normal behavior. "Adversity is great, it's how we learn." I agree that adversity is important, but what these kids are going through is not strictly adversity; it is abuse.
Successful Schools in Action (SSIA), a nonprofit coalition of the public schools in Magnolia and Queen Anne, is working again with its seven partner schools this school year. SSIA provides support and programs to students and staff with a focus on collaboration and community partnerships. Highlights of the current term include:* SSIA's World Language program is currently benefiting 98 students from four schools with classes in Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. * The Community Volunteer Tutor program is once again training and placing tutors in every school. This program provides much-needed support for schools that have lost funding for tutors and are facing increasingly large class sizes.
Palmer Stangvik-who taught at Queen Anne's Coe Elementary School from 1968 through 1998-has been honored for achievement of preeminence by his alma mater Ballard High School with notice on the school's "Wall of Recognition."Stangvik was born and raised in Ballard, graduating from Ballard High School in 1954. He went on to graduate from Seattle Pacific University in 1959.He is legendary among his former students for encouraging them in the classroom as well as being generous with his time on the playground, playing outdoor games with students at recess. Stangvik has received numerous honors, including the Washington State PTA Golden Acorn Award; "Top Teacher" honors in 1988 from KING-5 television; as well as being a two-time recipient of the Golden Apple Award from KCTS-9 television and PEMCO Financial Services.
The Lawton Elementary School 16th annual auction will be held on Saturday, Nov. 4, at the Washington Athletic Club, 1325 6th Ave. The theme of this year's fundraiser is "Viva Venezia!" chosen in support of Lawton's World Culture studies, which this year will focus on Europe.The goal is to raise $70,000 to directly benefit students attending the school. "Viva Venezia!" will be the Lawton PTA's largest fundraising event of the year. All proceeds will support programs teaching world cultures and arts and music enrichment, as well as supporing tutoring, equipment and supplies.The evening will kick off with the "Merchants of Venice" silent auction. Dinner and the live auction will follow with items such as a ride in a race car with a professional driver, pieces of art by artists Dot Krause and Chris Jordan and trips from Park City to Santa Fe.