January 2007

I am trying to figure out how I can become a refugee. I could live in a $1,000 apartment for a pittance, get medical coupons and food stamps, have a big-screen TV and drive a new car. I could wear a lot of gold and dress the babies in the latest of fashion.

I could complain about your holidays and make you take down all of your trimmings and you would have to say, "merry Anything" and "Happy Whatever."

But I don't think I would enjoy it.

The latest ploy by the Democrats in Olympia to grab more of our hard earned dollars to support their ever-expanding bureaucracy involves enacting a state sales tax on all Internet sales.

The state claims that they are missing out on $600 million in sales tax on "non taxed" Internet sales. This is assertion is about as false as I've ever heard for several reasons:

1. Most states, Washington included, are collecting the sales tax on Internet sales now under the reciprocal agreement between the states and sending that to Washington.

2.

We as drivers of automobiles should be very concerned by the way we fail not only to observe but to fail to obey driving laws posted, such as speeding, running red lights, and the many other infractions we commit.

The automobile is a dangerous weapon. The huge number of fatalities that occur daily, over 43,000 yearly deaths in the USA, plus the untold personal injury accidents suffered should be conclusive proof of the seriousness of the problem.

A recent trip driving from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay area and returning over the Holidays was a scaring experience.

So 2007 came in like 2006 left us, with power outages and weather extremes. There is a bright spot for this New Year. In my humble opinion it is the Highline Times. We are blessed to have them!

Operating a local weekly newspaper is challenge enough. (Talk about multi-tasking!) Today with rising costs, The Robinson Newspapers are providing a much needed service. And with the continued demise of many dailies, it is an even greater challenge.

As a child every time it snowed my family built snowmen to memorialize the great event. We could enjoy them for hours, or days, depending on the weather. Now an adult, my family does the same thing. Only this year, both times the boys made snowmen they were destroyed by neighborhood bullies.

Last November, they just walked into the yard and pushed them all over. Last week when it snowed, around 11:30 p.m. two boys on a 4-wheel quad tore into my yard and plowed my children's snowmen down.

This town by the Sound is peppered with "Proposed Land Use" signs while developers are hauling in lumber, cement and nails faster than we can count noses.

Curiosity causes me to pull up Miss Katrina's leash, adjust my bifocals and read every blessed word, wondering what the heck this sign says is happening?

"Official Notice" language may be crystal clear to contractors, but not me. Give me plain pretty pictures and simple project plans and I'm happy as a clam at high tide.

Since I'm wondering, you must be, too.

With ... faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Aug. 28, 1963

This past Monday we honored the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., who led the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century that transformed life in America.

But just as the sacred meaning of Christmas too often is removed from public celebrations of that holiday, so observances of Dr.

Now how about Mayor Nickels' insistence on replacing the Viaduct with a tunnel? He thinks the only solution to the noisy, earthquake-threatened elevated waterfront roadway is a tunnel.

He is possibly right if we wish to make the waterfront someday look like Miami Beach.

And to do that he thinks he can get five or six billion to do it from tolls, and city and state taxes.

Viaduct politics are starting to resemble the perfect storm.

Governor Gregoire surprised everyone by throwing down the gauntlet: have a vote or else. She declared the tunnel funding plan insufficient and infeasible, sort of a political death certificate for that option. And the chances for the elevated plan look nearly as low.

The West Seattle Design Review Board told architects of Fauntleroy Place they should rework the design to make the building's focal point more prominent because the new development will stand at one of West Seattle's busiest, most conspicuous intersections.

The new development will be built on the northwest corner of the intersection of Alaska Street, 39th Avenue and Fauntleroy Way Southwest. The building that currently houses Schuck's Auto Supply and Hancock Fabrics is to be demolished.

The anchor retail tenant of Fauntleroy Place will be a Whole Foods grocery store.