October 2006

I'd like to explain something to the woman I saw at the pool this summer as I was needing my son's attention but he was across the pool. I snapped my fingers repeatedly. When he didn't turn, I whistled our family whistle. His head immediately swiveled and he ran toward me.

The woman looked shocked that this was how I communicate with my kids.

What she doesn't know is that it was all part of survival in the Summer of Silence.

I lost my voice a few months ago. Now, this is awkward for anyone.

We are proud of Irene Stewart for finding the way to end the madness of the school merger and closure catastrophe last week.

She did the political job of actually counting votes - talking to her fellow board members - figuring out there were not enough votes to approved the attempt to shove Pathfinder and Cooper together along with a similar action in Northeast Seattle and problems in the Rainier Valley.

"I didn't see anything changing minds," she said (See Story, Page One). "I thought, we don't need to continue this."

Absolutely correct, Irene.

This letter is in reply to the letter in the Oct. 18th edition of this paper from Dr. Victor J. Barry.

As a personal acquaintance of Dr. Barry, I feel that he mistakenly inhaled some of the laughing gas that he would normally give to his dental patients and it has caused him to misstate facts and use a form of fuzzy math. There were several points made in his letter that I think folks in my neighborhood would wholeheartedly disagree with. Some of these facts have been reported in this very paper.

Dr.

Tom Shafer and I may be on opposite sides of the political debate ("Ideology clogs dialogue," Oct. 18), but we can certainly agree that there needs to be more civility in how we treat others who don't share our views.

Tom stated that he's a Republican and votes his values. I'm a Democrat and vote my values too - affordable health care for all; a clean environment; equal rights for gays and lesbians; an end to the war in Iraq; and the right for a woman to have a safe and legal abortion - to name just a few. Clearly Tom and I would disagree on many points.

Is the Seattle Department of Transportation serious when they didn't see anything amiss?

I suspect they've never had to negotiate either of those crosswalks during rush hour and the one at 49th can be worse because after the curve at 47th, cars speed up going down hill and it's hard to see people waiting to cross going south with the vegetation. It's particularly difficult once it gets dark.

I had the pleasure of almost being hit by a car that hit the brakes at the last moment on slippery pavement as the car came barreling towards me out of control.

King County Proposition 1 disturbs me for its attempt to rush it for the Nov. 7 general election. What bothers me?

I, and many other voters, just knew about this proposition when we received our voter's pamphlet. I just got mine (last week).

This proposition proposes to sell or exchange public land that is owned by the county since 1910. We all know that the county is hurting financially, but when public land is gone, it is gone. Some of the parcels of land are on South Lake Union, in the Duwamish, and one is a park.

There is a key piece of information missing from the story (Oct. 18). Assuming Chief Pritchard gets a pension, and the pension is based on his actual salary at retirement, then this raise is not a few months cost to taxpayers, it's a lifetime cost. At the very least, the question should have been asked. The commission does not appear to be serving the interests of residents and taxpayers very well.

Mary Schroeder

Admiral

How can any good Republican in Washington state continue to support a national party that over the course of the Bush Administration has rejected virtually every promise ever made to voters?

Instead of being at peace, and spending money on restructuring and improving the readiness of our military, we are now stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East, and the recent National Intelligence report revealed that the amount of terrorist activity has increased around the world as a result.

Instead of the surplus left by President Clinton, we are suffering under an enormous deficit

Thanks for an excellent article by Steve Clark in the Oct. 11 edition. His clarity regarding the viaduct was appreciated, as were the points he raised.

Indeed the issue has many layers and nuances, and can seem impossible to think about with any intelligence; but he managed to help sort it out.

I'm gratefully yours.

Judy Pigott

Admiral

The fact that City Hall would come to the voters (Seattle Proposition No. 1) for additional dollars to fund a most basic service while they spend large sums on lesser priorities - some not priorities at all - is disturbing.

Politicians' standard line is "it will only cost, in this case, $169 per year for the average home." But the average Seattle family already pays 44 percent of their income, or $37,000 per year not including the cost of regulations.