February 2011

The "Sealth to State" warmup T-shirts with "We Are Family" on the back continued to be prophetic at the Auburn High School gym on Friday, Feb. 25.

For the No. 10 Chief Sealth Seahawks boys' basketball team, the road to the Tacoma Dome got one game shorter after its 68-46 Class 3A loser-out state regional victory against Foss.

Keon Lewis (21) and D'Nique Harris-Welch (19) combined for 40 points to lead the acrobatic Seahawk scorers.

"The flow didn't show much in the first quarter," said Sealth head coach Colin Slingsby. "I was pleased with our first half. A couple of guys stepped up. the defensive effort was good. They (the Falcons) were aggressive, so we had to match their level of intensity. This is what we've been playing for all year."

The teams fought competitively with the Seahawks (20-8) holding a 15-11 edge after one quarter.
Charlie Smith's three-pointer had Chief Sealth in front 20-13 early in the second quarter.

As Lewis and Harris-Welch soared high and wide, the Sealth "high flyers" gained a 31-18 dominance with 3:15 remaining in the half following a Harris-Welch put back basket.

UPDATE & SLIDESHOW. Click on photo for slideshow

Hanging on the wall of Denny Middle School US History teacher Amiee Backlund's classroom is a copy of an Oct. 6, 1999 West Seattle Herald article about The Mural Project, an art exchange activity between her 7th graders and young Tibetan refugee students in India. Students from Ms. Backlund's class sketched crayon renditions of familiar things in their lives including the Space Needle, their cat, school bus, on a long scroll of butcher paper hand delivered to the kids in India, and they responded with drawings then brought back here.

The Mural project was the idea of West Seattle photojournalist,Vicki Shaw, who started working overseas in 1996. Shaw returned to Denny School Tuesday, March 1, this time involving Tanzanian kids. She travels to schools throughout King County. She also happens to be the lucky traveler who gets to deliver the scrolls between America and India, Africa, and Asia, photographing and videotaping the students' reactions as they unfurl the artwork from another land.

On Sunday, the 27th of February, my wife and I were onboard our boat at Shilshole Bay Marina, when at 11 a.m. we heard the first of a long, series of sirens. Twenty minutes later there were a total of, at least, 17 response vehicles: seven that seemed to be lieutenants or chiefs, four medic vans, and six fire trucks, some of which even had ladders.
They were on-scene at a 30-ft boat from which smoke was escaping. Where there is smoke there is fire, but not in this case. The boat was for sale and had no one on board. As a captain and a trained firefighter, I know that marina fires are nothing to take lightly. But when the first, second or even the third crew on scene had to have reported the situation under control and no lives at stake, I would call this excessive! The other response vehicles should have turned around.
So I ask, why were fifty men and thousands of dollars used to confirm the situation...just a slow day? Hog wash! Right now during this great depression is not the time to waste money on any level of government. If they want to waste money lets waste money on our schools!

Captain Joseph Mactavish

Discovery Shop
4535 California Ave. S.W.
206-937-7169
Half off all red or white or blue clothing on Presidents’ Day, Monday, 2/21.
Antiques & Collectibles Fundraiser begins on Monday, 2/21. See our ad in the Herald!
Yellow-tagged items: $1 from Tuesday, 2/22, thru Monday, 2/28.The Shop is open on Sundays (except 2/20), 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. All other days the Shop is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m

African Dinner
St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church
Parish Hall
3050 California Ave. S.W.
Saturday, March 5, 5-9 p.m. Join us to raise money to build a School in Mulundi, Kenya. Suggested donation is $5. For info 206-932-2973 or rasaadeh@quidnunc.net.

West Seattle Art Walk at The Kenney
7125 Fauntleroy Way S.W.
Thursday, March 10, 6-9 p.m. West Seattle native, Guy Peck, works in acrylics and mixed media to create imaginative paintings. Delores Peck of Lella Rae Designs lovingly handcrafts one-of-a-kind purses and jewelry. Preview at www.LellaRaeDesigns.etsy.com. Live entertainment in the Community Room by The Folk Voice Band. Appetizers will be provided by The Kenney Catering Team.

The Alpha Course - alpha.org

After a plea for help at the beginning of the month, Ballard Organics received a great response through customers buying soap or stock but it's not enough, writes owner Ben Busby-Collins in an email.

"In 3 weeks we had the equivalent of 4 months of sales on our online shopping cart and we sold $33,250 in stock bringing the total stock sold to $84,250. The sales were very good but not enough to keep the manufacturing site we're in," he said.

Busby-Collins added that the stock offering did not reach the minimum required by Washington State DFI to use the funds and the money is still in an impound account with US Bank.

"We have until May 15th to reach the minimum but if we do not reach the $150,000 minimum of the offering by that time then those that have invested will get their money back," he said.

At the start of February, Busby-Collins announced that Ballard Organics is in trouble and needed community support to stay open.

Seattle residents don't have much to worry about in the way of earthquakes, do they?
Events like the Nisqually earthquake only occur every 30 years or so, and it just happened... Has it been 10 years already!?
Yep. It may seem like yesterday, but that 6.8 quake shook things up way back on February 28, 2001.

Of course, earthquakes of that variety, deep slab events, aren't usually terribly destructive quakes despite their relative frequency. Fortunately our other, much larger events occur quite a bit less often. For instance, a destructive shaker on the Seattle Fault zone (similar to 2010's Haiti earthquake and the recent 6.3 event in New Zealand) is only expected every 1,000 years or so. Problem is, the last one was 1,100 years ago, according to geologists. And we are also due for a subduction zone "mega quake" like Chile experienced last year as well. They happen here every 300-600 years, and the last one was in the year 1700.

Ten years ago today, on February 28, 2001, the Nisqually Earthquake shook the Puget Sound region. The magnitude 6.8 tremor was one of the largest in Washington state history, and caused extensive damage throughout King County and the Western Washington region.

In the decade since, King County has undertaken a number of projects designed to protect life and property the next time the earth moves.

“I was a State Senator serving in Olympia when the Nisqually quake struck, and it sounded like the capitol building dome was going to collapse on top of us,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine as he remembered where he was during the 2001 quake.

“Particularly after that experience, I take emergency preparation very seriously. I am pleased to see the progress we have made in the past decade to make us better able to withstand the next substantial earthquake in our region.”

UPDATE, Museum of Flight Press Release:

Space Shuttle Announcement Expected April 12

SEATTLE, March 4, 2011--NASA Administrator Charles Bolden revealed at a House committee hearing this week that a decision regarding placement for the retiring space shuttle orbiters will be announced Tuesday, April 12. The Museum of Flight in Seattle is one of 27 institutions that are vying for one of the retiring orbiters and its new 15,500-sq.-ft. space gallery -- potentially the home of an orbiter -- will be completed in July 2011.

The April 12 date is significant in that it marks the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch and the 50th anniversary of the first human in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

"We believe that our mission to be the foremost educational air and space museum in the country, along with Washington state's extensive contributions to aerospace innovation, make us uniquely qualified to be the final home for one of the shuttles," said Museum of Flight President and CEO Douglas King. "We are eager to hear NASA's decision."

When the Seattle Times last week came out with an editorial endorsing the decriminalization of the use and possession of marijuana, I squirmed a bit. I wanted to see their view as enlightened and had I not been a reader of that paper for about 50 years, might have been able view the endorsement that way.

But after mulling their support for the legislation sponsored by our own Mary Lou Dickerson, I began to wonder where was the courage when it mattered, in 1970 and after and long before hundreds of thousands of kids got tossed in jail for having a baggie of weed under the car seat.

A limp me-too piece by the Times.

We have lived long enough to see the way our peers and their offspring have dealt with the availability of marijuana. And we have come to view it as on a par with booze. Some people can handle it. Some cannot.

Photographer Kurt Howard captured these images of Kennedy's 64-78 loss to Holy Names on February 25.

SLIDESHOW: CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO PLAY SLIDESHOW.