In the past year my block has seen several simple, single-family homes and a shoddy, six-plex apartment building fall beneath the scrap-steel buckets of giant yellow excavators. In their place have risen a series of three-story townhome complexes with a veritable parade of dump trucks, backhoes, cement trucks, crane pump trucks, flatbeds and heavy-duty pickups. Although it may feel like a rough ride for some of our neighbors living next door to the construction, it has been an absolute joy for my 2 1/2-year-old boy. He's content standing, at a safe distance, on the sidewalks or sitting on the nearby rock walls with my wife and me in order to watch the men and machines go about their business. Yes, kids love big trucks. It's this simple fact that has helped drive the stop-motion-style, clay-animated children's television program "Bob the Builder" to the upper echelons of the preschool entertainment industry. In fact, the loveable builder and his crew of friendly, talking machines have an international audience.
Valentine's Day is here.This is a holiday reputed to be dreaded by singles forced to listen to the gushing of the happy, or at least the temporarily entwined.Tough times for the unloved and the unofficially loved. But another Valentine's Day problem, which can spill over into that significant other's birthday or anniversary, is most often suffered by men involved romantically, or martially, with a woman, or a romantically inclined male partner.What to get a person who has everything? Including, dare we say, a person who even has you.That's where the Seattle SeaChordsmen come in.The SeaChordsmen are an active Seattle chapter of the national Barbershop Harmony Society. And have been since 1949.
They're bucking the majority of the city council, the Downtown Seattle Association and, of course, the mayor's office.The No Tunnel Alliance is hoping to convince the public that a new elevated structure-instead of the four-lane "Tunnel Lite" plan-is a better, cheaper and quicker way to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct."This is our challenge: To get people to see what's going on," said Greg Buck during an alliance open house on Feb. 8. Among other things going on is something that has received little, if any, press coverage.Based on a plan on a Washington State Department of Transportation Web site, the new elevated structure can be built while traffic continues to use the old viaduct for all but four to six months, according to Buck, a Queen Anne member of the alliance."But the tunnel construction, they think it would close for 39 months," he said of the original six-lane-tunnel version. As for Tunnel Lite, there are no estimates on the amount of time needed to build that, Buck said.
A series of free classes is being offered through the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to help neighborhoods prepare for an unexpected emergency or disaster, with a session scheduled Tuesday, Feb. 20, at the Magnolia Community Center.Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare, or SNAP, is a new program designed to help individuals and neighborhoods plan and prepare for potential emergencies, such as the December windstorms that left many Seattle residents without electricity for more than a week."I think we've learned some really good lessons from our windstorms and snowstorms," said JoAnn Jordan, the city's emergency preparedness education coordinator. "We have a lot of power before a disaster to create a safe environment, to rally together, and this [class] will help you get there."The classes, which will be held throughout the city, are open to the public. Their purpose is to encourage residents to learn about the particular hazards faced in Seattle-and Magnolia-as well as how to be self-sufficient for a minimum of three days. Folks also will learn how to use SNAP as a mechanism to create a team approach to taking care of each other when city services are overwhelmed.
Saaduuts, left, a Haida boat carver from Alaska and artist-in-residence at South Lake Union's Center for Wooden Boats, stands before a smaller, nearly finished version of the traditional style of canoe he will create from a 50-foot piece of timber for a joint educational program sponsored by CWB and Magnolia-based United Indians of All Tribes Foundation. Standing beside Saaduuts at the Feb. 9 opening ceremony are, from left, Blake Shields and Michael Evans. Photo by Bradley Enghaus.
The Low Income Housing Institute is facing crunch time for the 38-unit Queen Anne Garden Apartments it owns and operates on Queen Anne Hill.The institute needs to come up with big bucks for continued operations and repair work, or the building could end up on the open market, which charges substantially more rent than the mostly senior residents are used to paying, said Sharon Lee, executive director of the institute.The apartment house at 1250 Fifth Ave. N. was built for low-income tenants in 1991, but the tax breaks that made that possible expired in 2005, and the owners put the building on the market, she said."We became very concerned," Lee said, "because of the continuing need for low-income housing." The institute subsequently submitted an offer to the owners, who initially rejected it, she added.A for-profit developer made an offer but backed out of it, Lee said. "So we put in another offer," she said, adding, "We had to go up in price and find money to close [the deal] quickly."
Female sportsmen didn't get a fair look in college until 1972. But since then the girls on the playing field have pulled almost even with - or past - the boys.Longtime Queen Anne residents Jack and Leslie Hamann have documented the stories of three such sportswomen from the University of Washington, plus one interesting, questing male coach, in their documentary "Generation IX," airing on KCTS-9/109 (PBS) tomorrow night, Feb. 15, at 8 p.m.The one-hour show looks closely at the experiences of the first generation of female athletes to grow up in the era of Title IX, the 1972 amendment to the Civil Rights Act that prohibits sex discrimination against students at educational institutions. Its three subjects are members of the UW's cham-pionship women's volleyball team. (The show, made possible by grants from the Denman Family Foundation, Gratia Ainslie Foundation, Susan and John Pohl, Dorothy Simpson, Sally Behnke, Karen Koon and members of the Washington Athletic Club, will be repeated Monday, Feb. 19, at 1 a.m.)
Valentine's Day is upon us.If you are like most folks, V-Day probably forces your mind into channeled thinking about romantic love, past or future.If you are a remarkably well-balanced, happy person, a rarer breed than most conventional thought admits to, you might even be thinking about a current romance this V-Day. More power to you.Myself, a prisoner of predominantly Irish Catholic nuns for the first eight years of my schooling life, always first think of St. Valentine, the day's namesake.The reason a guy who was shot multiple times with arrows because of a religious dispute is linked to love, candies, chocolate and maybe even a little healthy lust is lost in the murk of my middle-aged mind.But the image of good old Val, resembling a human pin cushion but not minding (according to the nuns) because he was on his way to a version of paradise the nuns made sound a lot like Osama bin Laden's happy ending place, is the first picture that pops into my head as I shave and prepare to meet another Feb. 14 head on.After Val concludes his bloody annual visit, snapshots of once-important ladies of my life skitter by my inner eye like discarded wrapping papers in a brisk wintry breeze. Some of the longish-gone ladies bring a smile along with their memory; others bring a frown.
Here's a radically unpopular idea: I think the Seattle School District is doing a pretty good job.At least 70,000 or so of you seem to agree with me, based on the results of last week's special election for extension of the district's operations and capital levies. Both passed with about 70 percent of the vote. Even then, local media seemed to play up the negative, noting a record-low voter turnout and spinning it as disenchantment with the district.A series of challengesThere certainly is a lot of disenchantment afoot - which the dailies and elected officials like Mayor Greg Nickels and state Sen. Ed Murray have done more than their part to encourage. But viewed objectively, the district has done quite a bit to right its ship over the last three or so years, especially financially. That's not to say there aren't still major problems facing Seattle schools. There are. But the same problems - declining enrollment, old physical plants, poor tests scores (especially among non-white students), overtaxed special-needs programs - face nearly every other major urban school district in the country. Seattle is not unique and, in many ways, is doing relatively well.The district has gone from a $30 million budget deficit in 2003 to $20 million in reserves, aging high schools are being rebuilt and test scores are going up.
Once again, Book-It Repertory Theatre has taken an epic novel and reworked it for a tiny stage with amazing success. The company is really good at this, but the feat is especially noteworthy when the novel is "A Tale of Two Cities," Charles Dickens larger-than-life saga about the French Revolution. It's a familiar story, one that has been required reading in secondary schools around the country for decades. And no wonder. In this one work we get a treatise on French history, an overview of European politics in the late 18th century, an exploration of character and values, and dazzling writing. The story touches on the lives of myriad characters both on the peasant and aristocratic sides of the social divide and on the two sides of the English Channel. It's a story that encompasses the contradictions Dickens spells out in the well-known opening lines of the book: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness ... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair...." Book-It's production has it all.
Tanya Barfield's thought-provoking but often-predictable drama "Blue Door" invites the audience to spend the night inside an African-American man's psyche.An odd blend of elements from "A Christmas Carol" and "Roots," Barfield's play raises the same issue of legacy-versus-future that August Wilson so often explored, but without the large cast of actors or lush lyrical dialogue so prevalent in Wilson's work.The simplicity with which Leigh Silverman directs this production is both an asset and a liability. An asset in achieving an intimacy with the characters onstage, but a liability because their continuous testimonials with minimal action are not enough to hold our attention captive.In her 90-minute drama, Lewis, a childless, middle-aged African-American mathematics professor faces a psychological dilemma - an equation, of sorts. His white wife of 25 years has just walked out on him because he refuses to go to the Million Man March ... and because he won't commit to doing housework. So she says. But the real reason has more to do with Lewis' detachment from his existence and ethnicity - and subsequently, his own soul.
Seattle Police detectives are looking for two burglars who struck an apartment-building parking garage in the 4400 block of Fremont Avenue North on Feb. 12. Both suspects' images were captured during the burglaries as they looked into the camera while trying to pry it free from its housing. However, they have yet to be identified.The suspects are both Caucasian and in their 20s to early 30s.Anyone recognizing the thieves is encouraged to call Detective Bruce Larsen, of the North Precinct Burglary Unit, at 684-5723.
This time of year, paper seems to play a starring role in our lives as we prepare for another tax season. Often, people fear tossing paper - or going through the Great Pile - because they literally don't know what's in there. Last week's mail gets mingled with magazines, fliers, notices, ticket stubs, birthday reminders, school projects and whatever else lands on the kitchen counter. Easy stepsThe first step in reducing the paper strain is to literally reduce the amount of paper coming into your home. If you have access to the Internet, do a Google search for "reduce junk mail," and you will get several excellent, free resources. If you prefer the old-fashioned approach, send a letter stating, "Please register my name and address with the Mail Preference Service." Remember to include your name and address, of course, and include a $1 check or money order to Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Association, P.O. Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512. Once you've stemmed the tide, further manage the paper flow by distinguishing between active papers and papers to be filed (also called "reference").
A series of free classes are being offered through the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to help neighborhood prepare for an unexpected emergency or disaster, with a session scheduled Saturday, Feb. 24, from 10 to 11:30 a.m., at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N. Seattle Neighborhoods Actively Prepare (SNAP) is a new program designed to help individuals and neighborhoods plan and prepare for potential emergencies, such as the January windstorms that left many Seattle residents without electricity for more than a week."I think we've learned some really good lessons from our windstorms and snowstorms," said JoAnn Jordan, the city's emergency-preparedness education coordinator. "We have a lot of power before a disaster to create a safe environment, to rally together, and this [class] will help you get there."Individual preparednessThe classes, which will take place throughout the city, are open to the public and encourage residents to learn about the particular hazards faced in Seattle, as well as how to be self-sufficient for a minimum of three days. Folks also will learn how to use SNAP as a mechanism to create a team approach to taking care of each other when city services are overwhelmed.Jordan - who has been involved in emergency management and preparedness education for the last 18 years - said the class will provide the basics of surviving a disaster situation, starting with individual readiness and building to community involvement and cooperation.
It's Oscar season again, when we all get ready to celebrate the amazing creativity of the American movie industry. But Oscar Night is about more than just golden statues. It is also about the lifestyle of Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. From designer gowns to million-dollar jewelry, few of us will ever equal the glamour of the rich and famous on the red carpet. But thanks to an insurance salesman named Harry Baker, there is a way that we can enjoy the true flavor of Hollywood right at home.Yes, I said an insurance salesman. But to understand the whole story we have to go back to Hollywood in the 1920s.