July 2008

At 30th and Graham, a nine-year-old boy was dared to yell "F*!& Iraq" around the park and specifically in front of a park visitor who was originally from that country. The man chased the boy, grabbed him by the arm (some said he grabbed him by the ear) and said he was going to take him to meet with his parents. A 12-year-old girl ran home to tell her father and by the time officers arrived several adults were involved. The man admitted he went after the child but denied assaulting him. He says he is constantly being harassed by the kids in the park.

Tamela Thomas from West Seattle was named the female under black belt grand champion in the 2008 Tang Soo Do World Championships held on July 11th and 12th 2008. 11 martial arts students from West Seattle traveled to Orlando, FL to compete in the event. The students ranged in age from 9 years old to 48 years old. The students, who train at Evergreen Tang Soo Do Academy in West Seattle, were lead by their instructor Master Steven Elmore, a 4th Degree Black Belt in the art of Tang Soo Do.

Elizabeth held her mother's hand as she gazed across the harbor to the warships that sailed into Elliott Bay.

President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, on a world tour, arrived in Seattle on May 23, 1908 and more than 400,000 citizens attended the gala.

If it were not for a doctor's order, Elizabeth might not have seen it at all.

Elizabeth DeGroote, nee Gambee, was born Oct.

Librarians come alive

By Shannon Schinagl

Sensible shoes. Hair in a bun. Glasses perched on the tip of a nose. Tweed suits. Do you recognize the occupation? Shhhhh! Whisper the answer! You're in the library!

Yes, librarians have been battling this stereotype for years. Thankfully, books are helping us change our image.

While some books work subtly to show librarians in a different light, others make it their mission. There are books about librarians in every genre, and for readers of every age.

Romance in the library? Yes, indeed.

'The Love Guru' misses Myers' insight

Directed by Marco Schnabel

Rated PG-13

(Two stars)

By Bruce Bulloch

After seeing a really funny movie trailer have you ever run out to see the film only to realize 90 minutes later that the entire movie produced just enough laughs to fill that trailer and nothing more?

A million years of history

By Lesley Guest

Why do we study history?

Of course, we want to know about the people who walked the Earth yesterday, and as a mother, my son's questions about my past and his grandparents' past make sense: he's probably curious about how we viewed life in the past, and what came before him. I do my best to answer his questions, and always recommend that he ask others as well for many viewpoints.

History is - in its very essence - a story. It's history, or as the feminists like to say, her-story.

Hybrids or Gas?

With no relief in sight to ever

increasing gas prices, everyone

is looking for ways to save at the

pump. Everyone got excited about

the promise of saving money with

a hybrid, but the question is; will

a hybrid really save you money?

After researching the prices of a

hybrid, my excitement started to

I recently wrote expressing our concerns about Dow Constantine's three quarter page of press in the Herald spelling out all the problems regarding "Public Safety Cuts: (June 16th, 2006). We were admittedly dissatisfied with the entire column of "problems", as he understood them, with no proposed solutions.

As I mentioned, your collective constituents already have a stomach ache, sir, and our question is what are we doing about it?

Mr. Constantine's response is "Mr.

As an atheist and Social Security survivor, lamentably, I had to forgo some of the happenings the Tribune reported last week. Which was to skip the once-a-week Shilshole Bay Beach Club offering of an $11 Beach Burger, with lettuce and tomato, and an $8 "beach special" drink. Nor did I rush over (shortness of breath, no car, non-existent public transportation) to the Golden Gardens Bath House to get baptized by the new cult (Mars Hill Church) in town.

Her troll collection is slowly replacing the gnomes; the gnomes first displaced the fairies. When I first met Carri Andersen she was herself a fairy princess with long ringlet hair, flowing skirts, perfect skin and probably wings. Just 19 years old then she worked at my daughter's pre-school on Queen Anne. Trained in classical ballet she was the Sugar Plum Fairy but in layers of clothing.

My daughter was at Northwest Center for Child Development for five years; so was Carri. My daughter "graduated" to kindergarten and Small Faces and I lost track of her longtime teacher and sometime babysitter for 11 years. Then last winter I spotted Carri at a Save Mannings/Denny's meeting at Abraxus Books. Her clothes were more fitted, hair not as flowing. I worried that the free spirited flower child I'd known had shed her magic wings. I shouldn't have worried. Carri now flies officially as an aerialist.

I always knew that Carri had strong connections to Ballard. Her grandfather was a Danish Merchant Marine who jumped ship in America - Ballard was his entry point. He married Henrietta, a Dane by way of Iowa, and they raised their family at NW 77th and Jones.