February 2008

J.P. Patches made history in Des Moines Feb. 13 when he appeared out-of-costume and without makeup for one of the few times in his career.

Dressed in casual street clothes for this Des Moines Historical Society sponsored event, Chris Wedes (pronounced We-dus) was still the lovable J.P. to a standing-room-only gathering of "Patches Pals" of all ages - and their children.

Julius Pierpont Patches, aka Mayor of Seattle's city dump and better known as J.P.

The lion will lay down with the lamb, it's a fact -

When the lamb's in the lion's digestive tract.

John Sine

Writer and political blogger

In his response to my most recent column last week, Eric Mathison wrote: "We should decide what government can and should do then monitor it closely."

I couldn't agree more. But the devil, as they say, is in the details, and we will find little common ground in defining the proper role of government.

As a kid I had a lot of good old-fashioned fun. Lucky for me, my Dad has always been a creative guy and back when we were little, he worked hard at including us in all manner of interesting projects, not all of them fully meeting the definition of "fun".

During the spring we did yard clean up together, in the winter it was firewood gathering, but in the summer we built floats for the White Center Jubilee Days Parade.

If you aren't familiar with what a parade float is, it begins usually with a theme and a few volunteers.

Denny/Sealth

I just listened to Mr. Munoz and Ms. Santorno in the small video clip (on the Herald Web site).

Once again Ms. Santorno fishes for any data she may be able to find after the fact rather than letting the data drive the decision.

She is full of philosophy rather than data.

To the no longer very esteemed Seattle school board, concerning the Denny Middle School "rebuild."

Why did you throw common sense out the window?

Many, many years ago it was determined best to separate young kids from older ones in schools.

Now some ninnies have a "New Idea" and want to save a little money and throw all the kids together. Wake up! There are too many bullies already and you want to give them a bigger age range to terrorize. Shame on your ineptitude.

What was not clear in this report is this:

Part of the $10 million extra from Sealth will come from the infrastructure fund. That fund, under the bond measure language, is for air/water quality and resurfacing fields. According to Rebekah Schilperoort, the district answer is to resurface the fields but put air/water quality projects at Salmon Bay and Summit on hold.

Resurfacing playfields is more important than air/water quality at a K-8 and a K-12?

Even though I'm in Arizona for the winter I still enjoy getting and reading the West Seattle Herald. The Feb. 13 issue had a rather drastic editorial, "Ferry Disaster."

I've been around Puget Sound now for almost 89 years and I have ridden them all. My first ferry ride was from Point Defiance to Gig Harbor on the old open air Tacoma YMCA bus to get to Camp Seymour. I guess that was in 1927, what a thrill for a little 8-year-old boy.

On my wedding day, March 7, 1942 I had two ferry rides to get from Port Townsend (Ft. Worden) to Tacoma.

I am going to send a copy of this to the governor and to the mayor of Seattle; will they do what needs to be done? I wrote them a few years back and no one cared. I am going to try again.

Most of the people here now come from other states, but this has been my state for 75 years. I've been here in the bad times and all the good times. People are now feeling the hard times starting.

But to get back to what I was writing about, our ferries. This is a problem that is easy to take care of.

Now that we have heard all the rhetoric, guess what? Here comes all the hoopla.

Some seven years past and we are no closer to an Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement than we were after the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. According to the hoopla our city will lose the mobility through Seattle on State Route 99. With the city's $8.1 million spending of taxpayers money and the governor's rhetoric and her tough talk comments, an elevated replacement will not be completed and the cities surface street option will take its place.

This is an amazing way to connect a diverse community through literature (Books on kites now Sanislo reading plan, Feb. 13).

Good for you Maryann Horsley, Drachen Foundation, and Seattle Public Library for providing great books to children, connecting a community and encouraging the timeless art of reading to learn and learning to read sparking curiosity and their imagination.

Marie-Anne Harkness

Seattle