The public needs extremes.
I’m probably like a lot of people this week, spending a few spare minutes each night, tuning into the Olympics.
A friend of mine was driving past a cemetery with his 4-year-old daughter one day and noticed her looking closely at it. “Do you know what that place is?” the dad asked. “Oh sure,” she answered casually. “That’s where the dead guys live.”
When the Highway 520 floating bridge opened in 1963, travelers had to stop at a toll booth on the east side of the bridge and fork over 35 cents (close to $3 today). So much money came in that the toll was lowered to a quarter, and the tolls ended in 1979 after the bridge was paid for.
The phone call came in during the early morning hours. “Cashman, it’s me,” said the voice on the other end. “I’ve got to cancel our lunch today.” It was my old friend D.W. Clark, whose name – for the purposes of maintaining his anonymity here – I will change to D.W. Flark.
Judicial elections are different from all other elections in Washington State. First, if one of the candidates gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, he or she automatically wins the race and it won’t appear on the November ballot. And second, most people don’t learn as much about the candidates as they want to know. But don’t worry. Heres who you should vote for in the Aug. 19 primary and why:
Next week’s primary isn’t exactly a barn-burner as many races only have two candidates, at best. Most candidates will move on to the general election. Still there is an issue on the ballot that deserves attention.
Elections in August?
This usually is the time of year when columnists don’t write about politics because nothing is really going on.
But not this year. Washington’s primary elections, which have been held the third week in September for generations, are now scheduled for the third Tuesday in August. And when you enter the voting booth, things will be different.
Like many of you, I am sad and concerned about the rash of dog attacks lately. Everywhere we turn, we hear about another person – or, God forbid, a child – attacked by someone’s dog. These attacks are often blamed on “pit bulls,” but instead the blame needs to be shifted to their irresponsible, idiotic owners.
A few years ago, I put my daughter on an airplane to Europe. I didn’t want her to fly, but train travel would have been difficult.
The article in April started this way: “...[Aberdeen] was hemorrhaging jobs. Mother Jones tells it like this: ‘Families were break-ing up and moving out. There were suicides. It was really a hard time.’” The author goes on to note that “Grays Harbor and four other Washington counties are exemplifying another new trend in small-town America: life expectancy is declining among the rural poor.”
I do actually read obituaries – not because I’m getting to the age where I feel I should make some notes on my own behalf, but because I like to see how people sum up their lives when they reach the end.
I’m not going to lie to you —this town is much bigger than I thought it was.
Last month, Kenneth Demone Sims, a convicted sex offender from Renton, was charged with three counts of rape.
When he was about 11 years old, my brother Dan walked in the door one day after school wearing a New York Yankees ball cap.
The Bush administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been called “ground zero for the ideological wars in this country,” and a new HHS proposal leaked earlier this month proves why. In a spectacular act of complicity with extremists on the right, HHS is proposing to allow any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman’s access to contraception.
Let me ask you an important question: When is the last time you did something hard to support a good cause?
While the world changes at breakneck speed and our needs for a skilled workforce continue to increase, our public education system remains stuck in the past.
On behalf of the City of Kent, I’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to the Kent Lions Club for another fantastic Cornucopia Days Festival. Cornucopia Days is the largest family festival in South King County and is organized and run entirely by volunteers! Plus, proceeds from the festival benefit more than 250 non-profit and charitable organizations in our area!
While recorded history stretches pretty far back, it doesn’t go back far enough to tell us the name of the person who invented the yard sale. Perhaps it was an early caveman named Og Yard. Maybe Og had decided to unload a bunch of spears and clubs he didn’t need any more by staging a cave sale – or maybe he called it a “spring cave-cleaning sale.”
