901 12th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122 View map Free Event
At Seattle University’s second annual Feast Fest, we will celebrate the life and works of the founder of the Society of Jesus. Join us for Mass in the Chapel of St. Ignatius and enjoy a carnival centered around community, joy, and FUN! Carnival activities include:
Classic carnival games
A 24′ inflatable slide
Bounce house
Axe throwing
Beer garden
Lawn games
All-ages craft activity
Tasty concessions
*NEW* Watch our fearless university leaders make a splash—literally—in the dunk tank!
Eduardo Peñalver, Seattle University President
Anne Moran, Chief of Staff
Luke Lavin, Assistant Vice President of University Ministry
This family-friendly event is open and welcome to all.
Schedule of Events
3:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Community Carnival on The Union Green
5:00 p.m. Mass at the Chapel of St. Ignatius Celebrant: to be announced
Parking for this event is complimentary. Guests are encouraged to park in the Broadway Garage. Guests with limited mobility may utilize the Visitor Lot beside Lee Center for the Arts on E Marion St. For a map of campus, please visit https://www.seattleu.edu/map/.
Posted inIn the Neighborhood|Comments Off on Celebrate the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola!
Ed note: You can download the MeidasTouch podcast from the app store. In April 2025, it continued its dominance with 107.3 million listens/downloads, surpassing major shows like Joe Rogan, Candace Owens, and Ben Shapiro.
Posted inCrime, Sport|Comments Off on Perfecting cheating at golf – among other things
from Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper (thanks to Bob P.)
They say if you want to quiet your mind, get into nature. For me, this has always meant hiking Mt. Sanitas.
If you ever hike Mt. Sanitas in Boulder, Colorado, you’ll quickly discover it’s not just a mountain. Sure, the trail is steep in some sections, and walking up to the summit will get your heart pounding. But it also has a quiet magic to it—something unnamable that pulls you out of your head and into the moment.
At the height of the pandemic, I needed a little magic. My business was stretched to its limit. I was also going through one of the hardest personal chapters of my life. Mt. Sanitas became my lifeline. I’d hike to the top, take in the view, and remind myself of something my geologist dad might’ve said to me: This mountain will still be here in ten thousand years. The pain I’m feeling? It won’t matter then. So why let it matter so much now?
After the pandemic, I took a hike on Blacketts Ridge in Tucson, Arizona, where I saw someone wearing a great cap embroidered with the name of the trail. I asked him where he got it. After buying one for myself from him, I thought: Mt. Sanitas needs a hat like this. But not to sell—to give away.
When I got back home, I worked with the hat company, Fractel, to design something special: a breathable cap with “Mt. Sanitas Boulder, Colorado” on the front and its elevation, “6,863 feet” stitched on the side. I ordered 25 and planned to carry them in my backpack and hand them out to friends I had made on my beloved Mt. Sanitas trail.
The first time I gave one away, I met a woman and her friend coming down the trail. Her friend took the hat, stared at it, and said with teary eyes, “No one has ever randomly given me something this nice for free. It feels like Christmas in the summer.”
I quickly ordered another 25 hats. Then 50. And after a delay because of the tariffs, 400.
At first, giving out these caps was just a kind gesture; I didn’t expect much. What I’ve come to realize is this: This Mt. Sanitas Mad Hatter Project of mine isn’t about the hat. It’s about the brief moments of human connection in a world that’s incredibly complicated and often moves too fast. It’s a reminder that kindness is the best of what humans can be.
I’ve given away hundreds of hats now, and every time I do, I’m reminded that most of us are walking around carrying something heavy. A breakup. A job loss. An identity shift. A world that doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve met stressed-out college students, people going through divorces, and so many at the end of something hard or on the edge of something new.
After the recent act of violence against peaceful protesters in Boulder, I handed two women hats at the trailhead. One of them welled up immediately. “I’m a member of the Jewish community here,” she said. “You have no idea what this means to me.” I still don’t know exactly what it meant to her—but I know I had a tear running down my cheek as I headed to my car after the day’s hike.
All of us meet on the trail, talk for a minute, and sometimes the moment opens something for both of us. What I’ve learned is that this small gesture—simply giving someone a hat—often carries something much bigger with it: connection, kindness, hope.
That’s why I do it. In a time when anger and division feel louder than ever, I think small acts of generosity matter more than we realize. Holding the door open for someone. Letting an aggressive driver merge in ahead of you. Smiling at a stranger. Buying groceries for someone obviously in need. Any of these little acts of kindness can create a massive shift.
I’m not trying to fix the world. I’m just trying to do my part. And if I’ve learned anything—especially during my years running my business—it’s that overwhelming tasks become manageable when you take them one small, mindful step at a time. This is one of mine.
If I could bottle up what this mountain has given me and pass it out to every person climbing it, I would. But I can’t, so I hand out hats instead.
So, if you find yourself on Mt. Sanitas one day and someone offers you a hat, say hi. Tell him what the mountain means to you. Know that the hat comes with gratitude—for the trail, for the moment, for you. I hope it reminds you that kindness still matters and always will. And if you feel moved to pay it forward in whatever way you feel inspired, even better.
Curtis Jones co-founded and ran Botanical Interests Seed Company. Since retiring, he’s been involved with the Pima County Extension Service and Tucson Village Farm.
Posted inKindness|Comments Off on Meet the Man on a Quiet Mission of Kindness
Mr. Pressman served as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary from 2022 to 2025.
As the most recent U.S. ambassador to Viktor Orban’s Hungary, I’m often asked if the Trump administration’s tactics and policies feel familiar. The short answer is yes. But the more important — and unsettling — question is this: Does the way Americans are responding feel familiar, too?
After years watching Hungary suffocate under the weight of its democratic collapse, I came to understand that the real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence.
Take the judiciary. I met leaders of Hungary’s sole independent judicial body in October 2022 to discuss their work. For months afterward, their faces (and mine) were plastered in the papers, branded as traitors and foreign agents, just because they had raised concerns about the rule of law in Hungary. The response from other powerful judges? Silence.
Or take the private sector. Since Mr. Orban became prime minister in 2010, the state has awarded billions in public contracts to his son-in-law and childhood friend, a former plumber named Lorinc Meszaros. What have Hungarian business leaders said? Nothing.
Last year, when Mr. Orban’s close associates reportedly told a multinational retailer to give the prime minister’s family a cut of its business, did other multinational companies speak up? They did not.
Hungarians with little power or privilege to lose would occasionally protest. But those with power remained reliably, pliably silent.
The American officials and academics who, like me, lived in Hungary during this period would often tell ourselves stories to explain this submissiveness: that docility is rooted in Hungary’s oppressive Communist past, that its democracy was simply too young to withstand a strongman. (continued on Page 2 or here)
Forget the stereotype of the frail old woman who needs help carrying groceries – fitness mavens like Joan MacDonald show you can strength train at any age
Joan MacDonald is an influencer. There’s no other word for it, though she winces a little when she says it. But she is an influencer, and an extremely successful one. The fitness maven has been on the covers of magazines such as Women’s Health, modeled as part of lucrative brand deals and launched her own fitness app, Train With Joan. On Instagram, where she has more than 2 million followers, she shares pictures of herself posing in bikinis in picturesque locales and training at the gym in color-coordinated workout sets.
But there’s one small difference between MacDonald and many other social media starlets. She is 79.
“I was 70 when I started [working out],” MacDonald says on a video call from her home in Ontario, white hair elegantly coiffed. “I keep thinking I’m in my 30s.”
MacDonald’s workouts are intense, whether you’re 30 or 70. She does deadlifts, weighted planks and kettlebell swings, and casually lifts dumbbells the size of fire extinguishers over her head. Her arm muscles could put professional rugby players to shame.
She is arguably the most famous older woman lifting heavy, but she’s far from the only one. There’s Ernestine Shepherd, 89, who has more than 101,000 Instagram followers and calls herself “the world’s oldest living female competitive bodybuilder”. Nora Langdon, in her 80s, recently shared a video of herself deadlifting 225 pounds. And earlier this year, the New Yorker published a documentary about Catherine Kuehn, who broke multiple world records for deadlifting in her 90s.
Many of these lifters seem to delight in bucking the stereotype of the frail old woman who needs help carrying her groceries.
“Once you reach a certain age, it’s like you can’t do anything any more,” MacDonald says. “Trainers and coaches dumb down everything for older people, but old people are capable of more than they think.” (continued on Page 2 or here)
US President Donald Trump, the man heading the world’s biggest economy and one of the most powerful militaries, arrived in Scotland for a four-day trip on Friday, July 25, 2025. During the visit, he will hold trade talks with British PM Keir Starmer and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and he will also visit his golf courses.
The Scottish newspaper The National published a front-page story on July 25, 2025, making a pointed announcement regarding the arrival of the US president. The headline reads, “Convicted US Felon to Arrive in Scotland,” with Trump’s intense gaze from his new presidential portrait appearing above the caption.
Posted inCrime, Government|Comments Off on Convicted felon arrives in Scotland
Citing positive feedback, increased foot traffic and a need for more research, Seattle’s Pike Place Market is extending its car-free experiment through next spring.
Market leaders aren’t yet ready to pull the trigger on permanently restricting cars, but a return to the days of vehicular free-for-all — when tourist vehicles would awkwardly inch through summer crowds — is looking increasingly unlikely.
Pike Place Market car ban extended amid uptick in foot traffic
After decades of urging from pedestrian advocates, the Market started testing a car ban in late April. They launched a “limited vehicle access pilot” to restrict cars from driving through during daytime hours, with exceptions for delivery, pickup and emergency vehicles and cars with disabled parking passes.
The pilot project was originally tied to street repair work and slated to last through August. But as construction nears completion, Market leaders are now extending the pilot so they can study how vehicle restrictions play out during the Market’s quieter winter months.
“We need more time on it,” said Madison Douglas, a spokesperson for the Pike Place Market Preservation and Public Development Authority. “We’re realizing that we really need to continue to test and learn and see how the street is used in different times of the year.”
Pedestrians at the corner of Pike Street and Pike Place at Pike Place Market. The Market is extending a pilot program to make the streets more pedestrian-friendly by banning some cars from the streets. (Scott Brauer for Cascade PBS)
The extended pilot car restriction doesn’t have an specific end date. Sometime next spring, the Market plans to use what they’ve learned and adopt a “comprehensive street management plan” that can go into effect before the FIFA World Cup begins in June. It’s unclear exactly what that plan will look like, but it will likely include some sort of restriction on some types of cars.
“We’ve been hearing really good feedback,” Douglas said.
A 2021 poll by Seattle Neighborhood Greenways and the Northwest Progressive Institute found broad support for restricting cars in Pike Place.
The idea faced initial opposition from some vendors who worried that fewer people would shop at the Market if they couldn’t drive there. But the car restriction seems to have had the opposite effect. (continued on Page 2 or here)
Ed note: Brandon Auerbach, MD MPH told us about the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate yesterday in his lecture here. He also mentioned the sugar substitute Allulose which appears to be a nearly ideal choice. It can be purchased on Amazon if you want to give it a try.
My interest in allulose dates back to 2015, when I began using it as a replacement to sugar. At the time, it was almost impossible to acquire, as there was basically no market for it outside of Japan. But I knew someone who knew someone who knew someone at Tate & Lyle, the main US importer of allulose, so I had a pretty good stash of 1 kilo bags of unmarked white powder in my pantry. Not making this up. It hasn’t received as much press as other commonly-used sugar-alternative sweeteners for which we have the most available evidence. I am talking about sweeteners such as acesulfame K (Sunnett, Sweet One), aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet’N Low), steviol glycosides (Stevia), and sucralose (Splenda). In my opinion, allulose is a well-kept secret that should be shared. It deserves to be in the limelight. But before I get into what it is and why I prefer it to all other alternative sweeteners—let’s start by revisiting why we would want to replace that thing called sugar in the first place. After all, the market for substitutes wouldn’t exist if sugar had not become, in recent decades, inextricably linked to metabolic dysfunction and disease. And if it didn’t taste so damn good.
Let’s take a moment and think about the way we refer to sugars. Sugar is often delineated by “natural” sugars found in fruit and vegetables as opposed to “artificial” sugars that are added to food products like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). But these categories are not the most useful way to think about sugar and its effects. Here’s why: by the time any type of sweetener leaves the stomach, it’s basically a series of monomers of glucose and fructose. The intestines and liver don’t care if these molecules were originally present in the food that was eaten or added later.
But if the various sugars are really the same molecule—some combination of fructose and glucose—why do they have such different effects? It’s a question of density and volume, which both contribute to dose. It’s also a function of the rate at which the molecule moves through the upper digestive tract and, specifically, the speed with which they arrive at your liver (velocity).
Consider a bag of dried mango. This may seem like a healthy choice because it’s all natural with no added sugar, but it’s nonetheless a very high-sugar snack. One of those Trader Joe’s packages (which I can easily finish in one sitting) contain 90 grams of “natural” sugar (i.e., none was added to the food). Similarly, compare eating plums with their dried-out version, prunes. Density says that when you consider the dried out version of the fruit, the density of sugar contained within it is higher so you’ve got the same amount of sugar at a lower volume. As a result, prunes have about 5 times as many calories as plums. Prunes also contain less water volume so the likelihood of eating a larger quantity is greater (the dose makes the poison).
In this context, velocity can be thought of as the speed it takes sugar to hit our system and affect our metabolism. Fiber plays an important role here. Unlike most carbohydrates, fiber is largely not digested by the human body but is metabolized by bacteria in the colon. It slows digestion of other carbs, which is why it’s better to eat sugar with fiber. So, while the origin of a sweetener is not directly relevant, it could have a secondary importance. A sweetener that is purely natural is much more likely to be ingested along with water and fiber. I speak about how I think about sugar metabolism on the upcoming AMA episode (#18). I have yet to see a good model (maybe I’ve missed it) out there that clearly explains the difference between, say, eating an apple and apple juice—both naturally occurring fructose sources—but to me, it comes down to: density, quantity, velocity being the variables that matter.
Just like many other things, it is a question of dose and function. In my interview with Rick Johnson, we discussed how fructose—a natural, sweet sugar commonly found in fruit and a few other foods—is used by animals to store energy. An animal eats fructose to store energy in preparation for hibernation, for example. So there is an evolutionary function to the way our bodies store these broken-down carbohydrate molecules. Relatedly, I get into depth on insulin and insulin resistance as an evolutionary adaptation to survive starvation in my conversation with Dr. Gerald Shulman. In western societies, the most commonly used sweeteners are sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), an artificial product made from corn starch. The problem with the cumulative amount of sugar consumed in most modern societies today is that we effectively make our bodies believe it is wintertime all year round. The reality is that we don’t need to store energy as if we are preparing for a time of food scarcity, as animals do before hibernation. In my conversation with Robert Lustig, we spoke in-depth about issues in the food industry, chronic sugar exposure, and the concomitant rise in obesity. I would acknowledge that while excess sugar is without a doubt bad news, I don’t believe it is the only culprit for obesity. There is a lot I can say on this topic and I wrote about some of it in a previous post. In AMA #18 out soon, I will also revisit other alternatives to sugar (including other non-nutritive and alcohol sugars) as an update to a previous post on the subject, given what we knew at the time. But for now, let’s get back to allulose, accepting the premise that minimizing sucrose, HFCS, and other added sugar intake is a good thing for your health.
Allulose is on the top of my preference list for both objective and subjective reasons. Let’s start with the facts. The molecule has been around for a long time (found naturally in small quantities in some fruits), but it was only in 2014 that it was given a generally regarded as safe (GRAS) food designation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)—indicating the general expert consensus on a substance’s safety. Until recently, it was not commonly used in the US because the FDA did not differentiate it from sucrose or HFCS. In other words, it had to be listed on ingredient labels as an added sugar, turning off any potential customers not fully in the know. Not surprisingly, there was little incentive for food producers to include allulose in their products because the FDA required them to label it exactly as they would label added sucrose or HFCS. (continued on page 2 or here)
On Friday, G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported that “polls show Trump’s position plummeting.” On Friday morning, the average job approval rating for Trump was 42.6% with 53.5% disapproving.
Those numbers break down by policy like this: Gallup polls show that only 35% of Americans approve of Trump’s immigration policy with 62% opposed. A new poll out from CBS News/ YouGov today shows that support for Trump’s deportations has dropped ten points from the start of his term, from 59% to 49%. Fifty-eight percent of Americans oppose the administration’s use of detention facilities. The numbers in a CNN/SSRS poll released today are even more negative for the administration: 59% of Americans oppose deporting undocumented immigrants without a criminal record while only 23% support such deportations, and 57% are opposed to building new detention facilities while only 26% support such a plan.
American approval of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is unlikely to rise as news spreads that last Monday, the government gave ICE unprecedented access to the records of nearly 80 million people on Medicaid, allegedly to enable ICE to find undocumented immigrants. Kimberly Kindy and Amanda Seitz of the Associated Press reported that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security that enables ICE to access Medicaid recipients’ name, ethnicity and race, birthdate, home address, and social security number. (continued on page 2 or here)
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, which created the United States. To celebrate the Declaration’s upcoming 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, Monticello is launching Declaration Book Club, featuring short readings, lively videos, and probing questions to spark discussion of our past, present, and future as one people, created equal. What did Jefferson and his cosigners declare in 1776–and how do you pursue life, liberty, and happiness today?
Ed note: We are bombarded with what’s good or bad for us to eat or drink. Doctor’s are not taught much about nutrition in medical school so how do we find a reliable resource? The speaker is an internist with a strong background in nutrition science. Hope you can come and get your questions answered.
Brandon Auerbach, MD MPH, is a board-certified internal medicine physician specializing in primary care, nutrition and adult weight management. He practices as part of the Virginia Mason Concierge Medicine program. He is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and had his residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He then had his MPH training in epidemiology and nutrition at the University of Washington School of Public Health.
Dr. Auerbach has written over a dozen scientific publications and is particularly interested in nutrition science.
When not busy practicing medicine, Dr. Auerbach enjoys tennis, rock climbing, and Lego building with his son.
Posted inFood, nutrition|Comments Off on Wednesday, July 23 at 10:30 AM – Healthcare Lecture: The Obesity Epidemic: Advice About Nutrition for Older Adults
As the sun sets over a forest stream, a beaver family gets to work. For millions of years, these large rodents—known for their bright orange teeth and flat paddle-shaped tails—have been reshaping landscapes. Their craftily constructed dams slow flowing water and create ponds where they build their lodge homes. Chomping through the night, they drag aspen and willow branches through the water, stack them with precision, and seal the gaps with mud and plants. Thanks to their impressive building skills, these industrious animals, which are found across most of North America, are a keystone species—an animal whose activities support its entire habitat, including the other species that it lives alongside.
Many wetlands started as beaver-dammed streams. As the beaver pond grows, it provides for an increasing number of plants and animals. Frogs splash at the edges, fish dart beneath the surface, and many species of birds find refuge in these lush habitats. But there’s an invisible benefit too – these waterlogged areas are amazing at trapping air pollution. Studies show beaver-made wetlands contribute to clean air and water worth, providing services worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Though to the beavers, it’s all in a day’s work.
During a heavy rainstorm, some streams and rivers overflow their banks, but a beaver-engineered stream system handles floodwaters with ease. Their dams work like aquatic speed bumps, creating winding paths that slow rushing water. This prevents soil washing away and allows rich nutrients to settle to the bottom. Over time, this activity gradually raises the stream beds and reconnects them to surrounding land that used to flood naturally. And during dry spells, beaver dams release stored water slowly, keeping streams flowing when they might otherwise dry up. Perhaps most impressively, these structures function like a free water treatment plant, cleaning water by trapping dirt and filtering out pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus.
Recent studies have also found that areas with beaver activity burn much less severely during wildfires – suffering only one-third the damage compared to similar areas without beavers. In the western United States, where landscapes are subject to drought and wildfires, fires often burn everything except areas surrounding beaver complexes. There, even during dry spells, water continues to soak into the ground, refilling underground water supplies and keeping plants moist.
Putting this ingenuity into practice, World Wildlife Fund is working with ranchers in the Northern Great Plains to recreate beaver habitat by constructing dams—Beaver Dam Analogs—that mimic the crafty rodent’s water management systems to store water, a particularly precious resource in this arid habitat. Some landowners are even seeing beaver return thanks to the more favorable conditions provided by these human-made dams.
By protecting beaver families and welcoming them back to our waterways, we can benefit from their natural building skills to create landscapes that better withstand severe weather, support wildlife, and suppress wildfire, one carefully laid stick at a time.
World Wildlife Fund’s new “Stories of Hope and Wonder” is an ongoing series that connects us to the wonder of nature and hope for a future benefiting both people and wildlife. Each month, Stories of Hope and Wonder will feature a different species overcoming some of nature’s toughest obstacles to ensure their survival. To read past editions of Stories of Hope and Wonder visit www.worldwildlife.org/hopeandwonder.
Posted inAnimals, environment|Comments Off on Beavers: The ultimate ecosystem engineers
Our state has taken a multi-pronged approach to resisting the constant chaos and confusion created by the Trump administration’s harmful actions: deportations without due process, federal layoffs, cuts to education and health care, and relentless attempts to undermine the U.S. Constitution with illegal executive orders.
Over the last several years, including during President Trump’s first term, the Legislature has passed dozens of bills to protect the progress we have made here in Washington on a wide range of issues. Below are some highlights of this work. I will continue to fight every day to protect Washingtonians from the reckless and cruel federal administration, and we will return to this work when the Legislature reconvenes in January 2026.
© Bruce D Taubert
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