Never see the Space Needle between those downtown buildings? I suspect that it is possible only from the balconies in the -04 stack.
Here’s a telephoto of it:
Of course, you used to see a lot more of the Space Needle back in 2012.
Look around to find the two ships passing in the night….
| A DATE WORTH CELEBRATING!!
On July 1, 2017, a new Chapter of the Revised Code of Washington comes into effect. Entitled “Continuing Care Retirement Communities”, this new law provides protections for residents of CCRCs in Washington State. 4:00 pm at Skyline on Friday on July 12th – learn about this new law While this is a WACCRA sponsored event, all residents are invited. So, if you are a WACCRA Member, plan to attend and bring a friend who is not a WACCRA Member.
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Looking down on the 43-story twisted 5th & Columbia Building from the highest downtown building, Columbia Tower. In the diagonal slot is the gray built-in crane for window-washing. The orange crane and its platform will be the next to disappear. In the background is the yellow tower crane attached to the side of the 5th & Madison building of 34 stories.
It is the 43-story 5th & Columbia Building we see immediately west of Skyline. The picture was taken several months ago as the sun rose in the east.
The most conservative Islamic States like Saudi Arabia operate under a strict interpretation of Shariah law. But many Muslim majority countries have adopted a more moderate European model. The USA is certainly in no danger of having Shariah law adopted here yet the anti-Shariah rallies would have us believe that our American legal system is under attack.
“The premise of these rallies was the opposition of Shariah, a set of Islamic ethical guidelines whose most extreme interpretations violate human rights. The ACT event was cast as a march for women’s rights, which participants say are curtailed by Shariah. Yet while demonstrators at the rally derided female genital mutilation and honor killings, no other traditionally feminist issues were apparent” (source Crosscut)
“I think it’s shrewd on the part of Brigitte Gabriel (founder of ACT for America) to point to the extreme views on women that the more conservative elements of Islam hold,” says Fred Clarkson, a senior fellow at the Massachusetts-based progressive think-tank Political Research Associates and the author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. “But it’s an empty gesture. Nobody is trying to impose Shariah law (in the U.S.)…This kind of stoking of paranoia and taking a stand against a problem that doesn’t exist — it’s political theater.”
Ed note: We lived in Saudi for a year. Indeed the rights of women were suppressed and the punishments were quick and severe. It does raise the issue of comparability with Western human rights. But Sharia law as practiced there, is no excuse for the Islamophobia rallies occurring here.
Father’s day was first popularized in Spokane, Washington, by the efforts of Mrs Sonora Smart Dodd.
From the Farmer’s Almanac: “Her story began as she sat listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Mrs. Dodd thought that it might be nice to honor fathers as well. Her father, William Smart, had raised his SIX children alone on his farm in Washington after his wife died giving birth to their sixth child.
Mrs. Dodd proposed to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA that they celebrate a “father’s day.” She chose the 5th of June because it was her father’s birthday.
The idea received strong support, but the good ministers of Spokane asked that the day be changed to give them extra time to prepare sermons on the unexplored subject of fathers.
The first Father’s Day in Spokane, Washington, was observed on June 19, 1910 (the third Sunday in June), and became an annual event there. Soon, other towns had their own celebrations.
In spite of widespread support, Father’s Day did not become a permanent national holiday for many years. The first bill was introduced in Congress in 1913, but in spite of encouragement by President Woodrow Wilson, it did not pass. In 1966, Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation designating the third Sunday in June to honor fathers.
Finally, in 1972, when President Richard Nixon was president, Father’s Day was signed a law declaring that it be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June. It has been an official, permanent national holiday ever since.”
But do we really need a separate Father’s Day? As Native American leader Dennis Banks said, “I have Father’s Day every day.”
The Seattle times today has an Op-ed piece titled Don’t call baby boomers ‘elderly’ — try ‘late middle age.’ I guess labels do mean something, but we are all on a slope with an often blind trajectory. It’s probably a good thing that we don’t really know whether we’re late middle age, early elderly, elderly, or simply over-the-hill! All in all, worry about this seems like a silly attempt to prove that we are still not as old as those really old folks.
I must admit though that when AARP sent out its first notice to me at age 50 that it was quite a shock. But on quizzing my Dad at age 90, he teased me about still being a baby as I turned 60. Aging is a new progressively weird experience: sight and hearing grow dim, hair falls out or sprouts in strange places, new aches appear, etc. etc. etc. And we find ourselves beginning to look like and act like out parents – something we always said would never happen. My Mom always said that she felt like 18 on the inside – even in her 80’s. Now I believe her.
The article suggests that we are in “late middle age” until we reach 80. On that magic day we finally reach “elderhood.” So what happened on our last day in our 70’s. Did that final wrinkle finally mark us as old?
Labels can be important but the state of mind and body is more so. Personally I think it’s ageism to keep trying to apply labels to us.
My take: let’s just take that next birthday in stride and get on living for the next one.
from Yvonne Powell
“The window has a view of the park”
Fake news of the day
Donald Trump in a swift and unexpected move tweeted that he has fired the North Korean Leader, Kim Jong-Un. The President stated that enough is enough, “He’s a bad dude. It’s very very important that we get rid of this guy who’s very very bad for the United States. Even the Democrats don’t like him.”
Further the President said, “He’s got such a huge ego and is so full of himself. How ridiculous can a guy be! He intimidates the people around him and looks only for adoration from his sycophants*. [Ed Note: we were unaware Mr. Trump knew this noun as he mainly uses adverbs]. He learned his tactics to pull off elections from the pros, believe me he got help from the Russians, I know.”
On inquiry the President’s staff stated that this rumor is false and that an unnamed source hacked his cellphone. An FBI inquiry is underway.
*Sychophant: a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage. Synonyms – yes-man, bootlicker, brown-noser, toady, lickspittle, flatterer, flunky, lackey, spaniel, doormat, stooge, cringer, suck, suck-up
At the recent 4 orchestra SYSO concert, there was a brass performance at intermission!
The following link is to a PDF of the CEG meeting Notes for June 9th.
CEG 6-9-17 Minutes-ws
Maria Popov has a thoughtful literary web site called Brainpickings. She recently published an essay by Joan Didion on the subject of grief. She notes, “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect the shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days….”
Note: For me it has been one memorial service last weekend in Pennsylvania for my lovely sister; another tomorrow in Seattle for a young physician colleague who succumbed to a malignant brain tumor. Didion implies that we spring from nothingness and return there. I simply don’t agree. My own logic prefers Aristotle who reasoned backward that there must be a creative force – one that he called the Unmoved Mover – energy itself, the source of being. Belief in God and an afterlife is an act of faith – but so is not believing. Our own existence is so improbable that it lies beyond our ability to figure it all out. But in our human way, most of us try to put meaning into existence – whether we are secular humanists or have an underlying religious/spiritual belief system. No matter what, grief strikes us all.
The agenda will proceed in the order indicated below. If you find you can’t be there please let Jim Sanders know.
1. William Ruckleshaus presentation at Folio
2. Sound Transit First Hill Association Open house on Property Disposition
(Corner of Madison and Boylston
3. CEG Page on the 725 Blog – asking for comments/questions
4. Monday’s Democracy Voucher Presentation with Wayne Barnett, (Seattle
Ethics and Elections Commission Executive Director and Voter Registration Drive
with King County Elections Staff (June 12)
5. Streaming of Town Hall talk by Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) (June 16)
6. Sound Transit Board Meeting on Property Disposition RFP (June 22)
7. King County Executive Dow Constantine (June 29)
8. Possible activities to take on
9 Outside Guest of a Resident – Senate Health Care Action
10. Internet Neutrality and how to protect it.
Have a good day – see you this afternoon. It would be good if you could sit toward the front of the room to permit quick handoffs of the microphones.
From Carmen: The Find It, Fix It Community Walks are a series of Mayor-led walks that help to improve neighborhoods one block at a time. During these walks, neighbors, police, and City officials walk together to identify physical elements in the neighborhood that make it feel unsafe or poorly maintained.
This survey is used to identify community concerns such as overgrown trees, graffiti, street light outages, litter, and damaged sidewalks. Once the elements are identified, the City and community work together to fix the problems.
Click here for the survey: Community Input Survey
Note: Also you can download the Find it Fix it app on your phone and submit a specific request.
Smallpox dates back to the body of Pharaoh Ramses V, who died more than 3000 years ago. He had telltale pockmarks on his mummified skin. There have been horrendous repetitive epidemics over the centuries, for example an epidemic raged in the Roman Empire for 15 years killing an estimated 3 to 7 million people. WHO officially declared the world free of smallpox in 1980. The pictures below show vaccination in progress – and an adult who survived smallpox which left deep pitted scars.
One of the most challenging countries was Afghanistan. There were unmapped remote villages, mistrust of foreigners, and where male health workers could not reach women and children. The answer was to recruit and train female vaccinators.
A few years ago, I met with several Peace Corps volunteers who were personally involved in the elimination of smallpox. One said, “My grasp of the Farsi language was shaky at best in the first days in-country, but there was no mistaking the meaning of the women of a small Turkomen village in northern Afghanistan as they pointed to empty cradles and cried…Their questions for us: ‘Why didn’t you come sooner?’ I could feel a crack in my heart.”
The Peace Corps women often had to negotiate with the village Khan but when the local women found out they were there for them and their children, the PCV’s were welcomed. One by one and village after village, the efforts of these vaccinators helped to produce the modern medical miracle – the elimination of smallpox from the planet!
For the government report click here.
I recently had my Medicare annual checkup. The checks in the checkup turned out to be the boxes on the computer screen carefully completed by my Internist. As she smiled and we chatted, there were a lot of computer screens to complete. “Let’s see,” she said, “any new problems, any change in your meds, do you need refills? Now how about your immunizations? Your weight and BP seem good? One of your lab tests is borderline and we should recheck it? Also Medicare wants everyone to get an HIV test in their lifetime!” What!
The amazing thing about the 30 minute visit is that she never once touched me. I passed the dementia screen and all the check boxes got completed. Medicare quality reviewers will likely be happy. But what about the laying on of hands? Could I have a heart murmur or enlarged liver? Won’t find that out with the computer checks!
Note: Stanford Professor Abraham Verghese (author of Cutting for Stone) has a wonderful TED talk about the importance of the bedside exam. He’s trying to pass his wisdom on to young physicians. Maybe I can get my doctor to watch it:
Do we have to know who’s gay and who’s straight? Can’t we just love everybody and judge them by the car they drive? — Ellen DeGeneres
“At first sign of crisis, the ignorant don’t panic because they don’t know what’s going on, and then later they panic precisely because they don’t know what’s going on.” — Jarod Kintz
“I never met anyone who gets up out of their bed after a night on the town and says, ‘Oh I wish I’d had another drink last night. That would have been a great idea.'”– Arthur Mathews
My guest Newt Gingrich shut down the government during the Clinton administration. I’ll ask him when it’s gonna start working again. –Stephen Colbert
If the problem can be solved why worry? If the problem cannot be solved worrying will do you no good.–Santideva
Knute Berger of Crosscut likens Seattle Center as an old rec room badly in need of updating. There are wonderful venues at the Center to be sure – such as the new KEXP studios and coffee shop, McCaw Hall, the Glass Garden, the venerable Rep, etc. But there is a worn 1960’s look to the place. I remember my first trip to the top of the Space Needle in 1962, a real WOW! But what is the future? What is the city doing for a master plan, the sports arenas, the park, the fountains, the Science Center, the Center House, etc. How does it all fit together? What is the overall concept? Should it be a park, a neighborhood extension, a place for low income housing, or something else? And how do we get there? Transit? Parking?
The following link is to a PDF of the CEG meeting Notes for May 26th.
from Gordon G. Let’s try it in the ODR!
