Cascadia Journal

Yes, it’s getting close to Summertime here in beautiful Cascadia.  It’s that time of year when we start saying that it’s hot, even though people in some parts of the world would consider today’s mid-80’s temperatures to be fairly mild and just getting started.

So predictably, about this time every year, the lovely lady Katt tells me that she is Hot!  Of course, when I tell her that I agree and that she is hot, I get the funny look and a “No, I don’t mean hot like that”.  Well, I did.

Anyway, I have to confess that every time she tells me that she is hot, the following song goes through my mind:

Well, it does…….

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On Tuesday, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the November referendum that took the right to marry away from California gays and lesbians.  As a small consolation, they did not invalidate the legal marriages of around 11,000 couples that were already married.

Proponents had based their support of the taking of rights from their fellow citizens by stating that their own religious beliefs did not condone gay marriage.  Those against the measure believe, as I do, that any adult should to be able to marry any other adult that they love and want to spend their lives with.

One major argument for upholding this ill-passed measure was that it was the “will of the people” that some adults should be prohibited from marrying other adult that they choose to be their mate.  Yes, we have established that the measure did pass a vote of over half the voters.  I would like to share some other examples of how a majority of the people denied the rights of a smaller group of people, in the name of “the will of the people.”  Among them:

• White people in Oregon were not permitted to marry Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, or Native Hawaiians until 1951.  In the timeline of history, this is fairly recent.  White Californians could not marry Blacks, Asians, or Filipinos until 1948.  It was “the will of the people.”
• In 1963, California Proposition 14 passed a constitutional amendment that restored the right of a landlord or home seller to refuse to rent or sell a home to “colored” customers.  This was passed in response to a recently passed law to stop racial discrimination.  Although the amendment was invalidated by the US Supreme Court in 1967, the passage of the original proposition was “the will of the people.”
• In Oregon, The original State Constitution prohibited blacks from living, voting, or owning property in the state.  This provision was not repealed until 1926.  Until the 1960’s, African Americans could only live in certain neighborhoods in Portland.  Why?  It was “the will of the people.”
• In 1922, with the backing of the Ku Klux Klan and the Masons, Oregonians passed a ballot measure that required children to attend public schools, and specifically prohibited their attending Catholic schools.  The anti-Catholic groups wanted to eliminate Catholic education.  It was passed by a majority of voters that year.  Although the US Supreme Court nullified the new measure in 1925, clearly this discrimination was “the will of the people.”

There are of course plenty of examples all over the country where a majority of voters have voted for discrimination.  This is all too recent history.  I am sure that in the relatively near future, cooler heads (and likely the courts) will see this as simply another form of discrimination.  Eventually, we will have equal rights for all.  Eventually, right will win over wrong.

In the meantime, I am ashamed for us that we do not learn from our history and that times never seem to change.  Forgive me if I am not easily swayed when someone argues that some new law is “the will of the people.”  Sometimes, the people are mistaken.

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I have commented before here on the plight of the Columbia River sea lions.  Despite the fact that they are a natural part of the wildlife that appears on the Columbia River, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife has found it necessary to kill some of the sea lions around Bonneville Dam because they are eating an endangered species of fish.  I find it appalling that ODFW, the agency responsible for protecting our state’s fish and wildlife, is resorting to killing the animals for doing what they do naturally.  They are eating dinner.

I do understand that we need to take steps to protect the salmon and sturgeon in the Columbia River.  But, depending upon the study quoted, the sea lions are eating between 0.2% and 4.2% of the fish going upstream.  W can compare this to the fishing by humans on the river that take many times that number of fish, despite the elimination of much commercial fishing on the river.  We can also compare this to the statistic that Bonneville Dam itself claims as many as half the fish that are swimming upstream.

I am certainly not advocating removing the major dams from the Columbia River at this time, although that might be a worthy long term goal.  However, I believe that blaming the problems of dwindling salmon runs on the natural presence of sea lions is the wrong move.  Certainly, it is not right to kill those sea lions that eat their natural food.  This action is akin to simply deciding to kill off all the sea lions.

Our state governments are trying to get this issue past us by claiming that they are only killing a few of the “worst offending” individual sea lions.  they claim to kill only those few who are consuming the greatest number of fish.  In reality, their actions have not matched these words.  Observers have seen ODFW capturing and killing many sea lions on a continuing basis.  At least one of these was killed for eating as few as two fish.  I am certain that this is not what any of us have in mind.

Before we go out and continue this new policy of eradicating one species to allegedly save another, it might be prudent to see what the problems might be with killing these sea lions.  Certainly they are also an important part of nature.

I lived in Astoria for several years.  I know that the sea lions are numerous in the Columbia River.  I have heard their voices on quiet mornings and evenings, and know that all is well with them.  Yes, I also know that they are a nuisance at times on assorted fishing and boating docks in the area.  Generally, the people have managed to find ways to work around them without causing undue harm and, notably, without killing them. I would like to think that, after hundreds of years of humans living together with the wildlife of the Columbia River, that we can somehow get by and save the fish without killing off another species of animal.  There must be a middle ground.

I would encourage you to take an interest in this issue.  I recently found a website that shows the efforts of one group, the Sea Lion Defense Brigade, to organize efforts toward stopping the killings of these beautiful animals.  On their site, you will find lists of the affected sea lions, summaries of the issues revolving around the sea lions and the fish runs, links to other resources on the issue, and a call to do what you can to help with the problem.  Their site is worth a few minutes of your time if you care at all about these animals.

Currently, the capturing and killing efforts have moved away from Bonneville Dam and are about to be ramped up in Astoria.  I’m certain that the tourists who visit the Lower Columbia region would be horrified to find out that these animals are being killed by the state.

Yes, the ODFW now has approval from the courts to kill some of these animals.  That still does not mean that it is something that should be done.  There are better solutions.  Let’s not treat the majestic sea lions the same way we treat rats and other vermin.

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We have all heard the discussions about the demise of the printed newspaper.  In fact, in this world where we are doing most everything online and the “paperless office” is becoming the norm, the newspaper will indeed become just another thing that is going to be delivered to us through electronic means.  Thus, we have the emergence of the newspaper website.

I have found most of the newspaper websites, both within Cascadia and around the country, to be sorely lacking.  Somewhere along the line, the publishers on the newspapers seem to be treating the website as a poor second cousin to the print version of the newspaper.  Yes, under the current system, the newspaper company is deriving much less revenue from the website than they do from the printed edition of the paper.  However, this is going to prove to be a temporary situation.  For a number of reasons, the days of the printed newspaper are numbered, for the same reasons that we read  other articles online, or the reasons that we pay our bills online now.

I have given a lot of thought to the online newspaper of the future.  We are purchasing a product.  That product is journalism. I expect that journalism to be of a certain quality, no matter on which medium that journalism is presented to me.  I am looking for information.  That information is important to me.  It matters not whether the journalism and information are presented on paper or online.  It is the content that I want to pay for.

If the newspaper of the future wants me to take them seriously, there are a number of things they must do for me.  Among them:

• They must present me a large amount of local content.  I can get national content from the wire services from almost everywhere.  There are two things, though, that I cannot effective get from there.  One is news of how the national news will affect me locally.  (”How will Obama’s decision affect the residents of Cascadia?  Or the residents of Southwest Portland?)  The other is actual local news.  I will pay to receive my local news online the day that the local paper commits to providing me consistent, quality local coverage.  They are not now doing that.
• To reinforce what I want for local news, let me explain.  I want news of my city and county governments.  I want the news of my state and region.  I want to know about the people running for my local School Board.  (Last week, you had to look hard and deep into The Oregonian’s website to even discover that a School Board election was coming up.)  If someone can provide me all of that local information, it is worth the price of a newspaper subscription to me every month.
• I want news of local events.  If my local newspaper can’t be bothered to tell me when the Rose Festival or Seafair events are coming up, then who will?  To a certain extent, I want my newspapers to serve as a cheerleader for their communities.  We all stand to gain from this.
• It is nice that online newspapers allow reader comments on their news stories.  What is not good is that every single one is published, whether they are “on topic” or not.  It is good to encourage a wide discussion on the issues.  It is not good when every news discussion somehow degenerates into potshots on immigration or the lifestyle of Portland’s mayor.  One function of a newspaper used to be to edit copy.  The newspaper never tried to print every single letter to the editor.  Nor should they try to publish every comment made online.  If the editors wold actually “edit” then the online publication would be much better for it.

Our local news is moving from a paper presentation to an online one whether we like it or not.  If the newspaper companies can step up the quality of the information and journalism that they offer, then they will have a saleable product.  If not, they will go the way of the dinosaurs.  I hope that they survive, only as a means to provide our region with the quality journalism and information that it deserves.

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I have been giving a lot of thought about my last two blog entries:  One being the story of a state that wants to put GPS tracking in my vehicle in the interest of taxing me bu how far I drive and where, and the other the story of an overzealous police department that questions everyone who walks down a particular street just in case they might be committing a crime by being there.  At issue is the fear I have of being accused of a crime that I did not commit.

You see, the police are questioning ladies who are frequently walking down 82nd Avenue, just to check and make sure that they are not practicing prostitution.  Recently, all it takes to get accused of this crime is to be seen on the sidewalks of that street, even doing something as innocent as catching a bus.  I presume that if they do that, it would not be too much of a stretch for them to stop all of the men driving down the same street of trying to purchase the services of a prostitute.

Now, I don’t really worry about such things.  After all, I have no interest in picking up a lady on the street and buying anything from her.  You never know what you might catch!  In any case, since that is the case, I also don’t worry about my occasional appearance near that street.  Perhaps I should be more concerned.

The State of Oregon, especially in the proposal by its governor, would like to put a GPS tracker in my car.  This device would, of course, be intended to see how many miles I drive in the State of Oregon so that I can pay the proposed “by the mile” tax that would replace fuel taxes.  Fuel taxes and odometer readings are not good enough, the state wants to be able to track me.  While I am not one to attach myself to conspiracy theories, it really doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch that if law enforcement suspected someone of a crime, then it wouldn’t be too hard for the police to get their hands on the records of where I have driven.

So, do I need to worry?  Well, do I hang out on 82nd Avenue.  No, not for any illicit purpose.  My favorite Chinese restaurant is a few blocks from the place where police interrogated the woman in my last blog post.  There are several retail stores on that street where I shop occasionally.  I have purchased vehicles on 82nd.  My business takes me to points along 82nd Avenue almost every day.  If you looked closely, I am probably stopping in that area many times in a given week.  It is certainly not too much of a stretch to think that someone could become suspicious of me, if the threshold of crime is to simply be walking or driving in the area.

I do understand that our police officers have a difficult job.  I also understand that perhaps they would like to stop problems before they happen.  I am, however, truly opposed to anything that allows police to stop and question us simply because we are present in a particular area or walking down a particular street.  I had always thought that our US Constitution prohibited such things.

Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

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According to a recent news story in the Oregonian, a 36-year-old PCC writing instructor, Ann Marie Selby, was detained by police for suspicion of prostitution.  She has claimed that she was on the street, well known as a place to pick up a street walker, because she was catching a bus.  She was booked by police, but prosecutors quickly dropped the case.  Selby sued the city, and last week she settled after the city agreed to pay her $5,000.

While there certainly are prostitutes all over the place on 82nd Avenue, and it certainly is the place of the Police Bureau to keep this from happening, I have recently observed that police seem to be approaching people first and asking questions later.  It seems apparent that they are stopping not only those actually plying the trade of the “world’s oldest profession”, but are also questioning a great many folks who happen to be present on the street at the wrong time.

According to the facts presented in the article, Ms Selby’s crimes seems to include wearing of a hooded sweatshirt, standing near a bus stop on 82nd Avenue, and looking at cars as they go by, coming from the same direction that her bus would be coming from.  Selby indicated that she had just come from a trip to a spa, and was on her way home by bus.  Evidence she held that corroborated her version of events was taken by the officer and destroyed.  In other words, if the police officer thinks you look like a whore, then they will treat you like a whore.

No, I am not in favor of allowing people to openly sell sex on our city’s thoroughfares.  I would hope that our police can take the time to keep some of our society’s more unseemly participants out of sight and under control.  I simply hope that this can be accomplished without accusing every woman who chooses to walk down the street with a crime.

It would be nice if this area could be made so that all could feel safe walking down its streets.  One way to do that would indeed be to challenge those who are observed participating openly in the drug trade and in selling sex openly on the street.  On the other hand, I fail to see where we can feel safe when we are stopping people for the crime of being a woman wearing a sweatshirt and standing in the wrong place.  Yes, I don’t know this particular woman from anyone else.  But who is to say that one of our daughters will not be the next to be stopped by law enforcement.  I don’t wish this type of treatment on anyone.

I have seen several instances of police making their stops on 82nd Avenue to question people who are walking there.  In some cases, the manner of their stopping and questioning have appeared to be something less than polite.  No, I don’t know the circumstances of every police stop that I see.  But in what I have seen, I do not doubt the harshness with which Ms Selby might have been treated.

It seems that some people see a woman walking down 82nd Avenue and can only see a prostitute.  Yes, you can find prostitution on that street.  You will also find the Tri-Met “frequent service” bus route with the greatest number of daily passengers of any route in the Portland area.  I would like to see a person walking down the street and presume that they are simply living their daily life.  At the very least, I would like to see them presumed to be innocent until they are actually observed to be committing a crime.

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It is happening again in the Oregon Legislature. Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski wants more than anything to start a system of automobile taxation that is based upon the number of miles driven. The latest version of this idea is designed only for motorists in the Portland area, but it is a glimpse of what is to come.

In the current proposed legislation, we are developing a framework upon which future decisions will be made.  In other words, there really is no plan for taxing us by the mile right now, but the legislature is being asked to approve a plan to allow a by-the-mile tax just as soon as local governments decide they want to do it.  They are being asked to sign a blank check and fill in the blanks later.  This is no way for a government to raise funds for any purpose.

I agree that there is some merit in a plan that taxes motorists by the amount that they use the roads.  There is also merit in a plan that would charge more for using the roadways during busy times.  Our Oregon’s governor says that he is interested in getting away from a model where the gas tax pays for much of the highway maintenance.  That is where  the error in the plan comes in.

It is so simple to keep the gas tax in place.  In fact, it might be good to allow local governments to collect fuel taxes to support local maintenance projects.  It is so simple.  You drive more, you use more fuel, thus you pay more tax.

The gas tax has an extra added benefit.  The tax actually rewards fuel conservation and promotes less use of gasoline.  Thus it is good for the environment.  A vehicle that uses more fuel pays more in taxes for the same amount of driving than a more fuel efficient vehicle.  What could be easier?

The governor thinks it will be easier to place a device in every car that will measure how far that car has been driven, as well as where and when the vehicle has been driven.  Besides the fact that this all seems just a bit too Orwellian for my tastes, some government agency is going to be all of a sudden doing a lot of bookkeeping to track these expenses.  If there really is a compelling need to tax based upon mileage that the vehicle is driven, we might find that all vehicles are already equipped with a rather unobtrusive meter to track mileage.  We call it the odometer.  We could check it when we register our vehicles.

One concern of continuing reliance on the gas tax is the fact that, as we switch to fuel efficient or alternative fuel vehicles, we are going to collect less tax revenue to pay for highway maintenance.  After all, an electric or hybrid vehicle uses less gas, but should be expected to make some contribution to fund highways.  I do not disagree.  To make this work, we will need to raise the statre gas tax.

My “no tax increase” friends will now look away and say that I just want to see taxes raised again.  Actually, this is not entirely true.  I would propose that if total tax revenue goes down because of vehicles using less fuel, that we simply raise the fuel tax enough to offset this loss in revenue.  For example, we might know that we need X number of dollars per year to fund road maintenance.  Due to fuel efficiency, we collect 20% less in taxes.  It seems quite reasonable that we would increase the tax per gallon by 20% to make up for this shortfall.  Yes, the price per gallon goes up, but the total tax that the driver pays would stay the same.

Sadly, it looks like Kulongoski and his followers will continue to look for the complicated solution when the simple solution will be cheaper.

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We have had some time to get used to the fact that Seattle is now a one newspaper town.  We have found that so far,  the world has not yet ended as we know it, nor has the level of journalism in the city’s other newspaper changed radically.  Of course, change has been happening all along, so there will be no immediate, obvious effects.

We have now had the opportunity to see the Post-Intelligencer’s insight into the paperless newspaper of the future.  I can say that, so far, I am much less than impressed by the results.  It is obvious that the amount of original content emanating from the P-I Newsroom is a shadow of its former self.  That is obvious and just as we expected.  Sadly, the website has become not much more than a fancy news aggregator site.  That doesn’t sound like much of a vision to me.  Of course, I will continue to hold my breath waiting for the great new medium to appear.

A few critical points I would like to make:

• If the P-I example is the future of newspaper reporting, then the system will come crashing down upon itself in due time.  The paper has a fraction of it’s previous original content, reflecting the professional staffing levels that are a fraction of their former selves.  The remainder of the publication’s news content is an aggregation of stories from other news sources.  Certainly we expect to see national stories from the wire services.  That has become business as usual.  The P-I also regularly includes stories taken from the online sites of many of the area’s newspapers, from the Seattle Times to the Kitsap Sun and the Everett Herald.  There is also representation from the Seattle television stations.  My main concern here is that every newspaper went this route, there would soon be no other news sources to quote from.  Frankly, since I follow the news of Snohomish County, the Herald is on my reading list anyway.
• The P-I has increased the number of personal blogs that they host on their site ,and they call that news reporting.  Even though I have a blog, I still somehow equate the stories written by professional journalists to be somehow a step above the writings of most bloggers. I am of the opinion that some blogs do a fine job, in some cases better than newspapers themselves, at breaking investigative stories.  The consistency of some of these blogs is still being developed.  However, I expect the P-I to be producing at a level higher than some of my blog news sources.
• The opinion pages are also lacking in the new P-I.  While Joel Connelly and David Horsey are fine writers, we seem to be limited to these two opinions for now.  Yes, there are quite a number of celebrity guest columnists, but that was a feature of the old paper P-I also.
• On the subject of opinion, we need to look at letters to the editor.  The Letters section was always useful as a way to expose amny different opinions to the reader.  They are an important read, in that we can see what the feelings of others are.  It helps us to understand what “the other side” is thinking, and helps us to develop our own opinions.  In the current medium online, there is the opportunity to publish all of the letters.  In doing this, it forces us to wade through all of the pablum to get to the best comments and the most representative comments.  The letters section is the voice of the readers.  The act of editing this section helps the readers as much as editing the news sections.  (I am not suggesting that we keep people from voicing their opinions.  But back in the printed paper, it was not uncommon to print a few letters stating both sides of a story, then mentioning that they had received some number of similar letters for or against an issue.)

My pet peeve in the new format, however, is the lack of control in the “Comments” section that appears after most articles.  While often there are some fine opinions stated in these comments, and sometimes some clarifications or isdeas that I had not considered, these discussions quickly go off topic.  These comments might be a valuable resource — opinion right there after the article discussing the issue.  But all too often they go off in directions that have nothing to do with the article.

Does it really do any good to suggest that we throw any politician out of office because they made a decision we didn’t agree with today?  Does it really make sense to argue that we need more roads and transit should be cut every time we discuss any issue related to transit?  Is it really necessary to discuss the race of a participant in a story and question the immigration status of anyone with a Hispanic surname?  We all see that these are the common themes in the comments sections of our online newspapers, but we are not demanding that our editors actually do their job and edit them.

Would it have really been appropriate to print the comments “Just throw them out of office then” and “Just send them back to where they belong” after every story in the printed paper.  Would it have been appropriate to discuss the types of cruel and unusual punishment that criminals or the merely accused “deserve” after every crime report in the printed paper?  No.  And this nonsense has no place in the online publication, either.

The online format offers a unique and wonderful opportunity to explore and discuss the issues of the day among the citizens of the city, region, state, and nation.  If a news outlet can present this information in an informative and appropriate manner, this would be a valued (and valuable) asset to the community.  But the free-for-alls that most papers publish now on their websites do not represent the quality that we need from the city’s premier publication.  that is the case whether that publication is printed on paper or presented in electronic form.

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Currently, the Washington Legislature is working on a long-range plan for Washington State Ferries for the next 25 years.  The state ferry system acts as the primary means for commuters, residents, and commercial traffic to cross Puget Sound from the quarter of the state that comprises the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas to the Greater Seattle area.

One of the current plans includes the building of up to four 64-car capacity vessels and a smaller number of 144-vehicle craft.  For some shortsighted reasons, we need at least two shallower vessels to serve the growing Port Townsend to Keystone run.  But the Puget Sound area has been experiencing wild growth for decades.  To believe that the current service levels will be sufficient for the next 25 years is folly.  We don’t really have enough capacity now.  We need ferries that carry 100 of more cars per trip, and we need them soon.  We are, unfortunately, destined to make the same mistakes of our past over and over again.

In the last 25 years, the Puget Sound region has doubled in size.  25 years ago, I took Greyhound to get from get from Seattle to Tacoma.  Now there are enough local bus routes that a ride will be available every 15 minutes all day.  The end of the world was in Redmond and Issaquah 30 years ago.  Now the urban landscape continues on for many more miles.  25 years ago, Seattle was a much smaller place. Now, its “suburbs” extend beyond Everett and Tacoma, and into the foothills of the Cascades. Even West of Puget Sound, there was no such place as Silverdale 30 years ago, and Kitsap County as a whole was a much less populated place. There are now people commuting into Seattle daily from as far as Jefferson and Clallam Counties.  There has been great growth and expansion of the Puget Sound city in the last 30 years.  There will be much more in the next 30 years.  We need to plan for it now.

Even if somehow, someway it made sense to have a fleet of 64-car vessels, we (our government) are planning now not for next year but for our needs for the next 25 years. Certainly, the plans that have been considered to date have no resemblance to the rate of growth in our region for the next 25 years.

To think that our state highway system will ever get by without significant additions to it’s ferry fleet, or without larger vessels, is pure folly.  This is the same thinking that is just now getting us around to building a new Sound Link light rail system.  A system that will be swamped to capacity from the day will be completed.

Yes, Virginia, we need more ferries, and we need a fleet of mostly 144’s. Or bigger.

And, frankly, we need to stop thinking that we can restrict growth, it better our lifestyles, or increase or inhibit tourism simply by restricting the size of of the ferries to Port Townsend. It doesn’t work that way.  We need to dredge Keystone Harbor for our future needs.  But I will leave that rant for another day.

Down South here in Portland/Vancouver, we are running into a similar situation as Port Townsend by trying to replace the last drawbridge on an Interstate highway in the US with something a bit more modern than the current 6-lane 92-year-old span. For future growth, we probably need the widest bridge that they can conjure up (like a proposal for a 12-lane bridge with light rail access). One group of folks, though, is advocating for only an 8-lane bridge, saying that something more will just encourage more unchecked growth. Yeah, right.

Whether it be bridges or ferries, we gain nothing by trying to artificially limit the size of the bridge or the size of the ferry. We will not stop the need for more capacity by just wishing it away.

Yeah, maybe a coupe of 64’s will be useful. In the same sort of way that the Hiyu has been useful. But it is time to stock up on vessels that really meet our needs.

I also suppose that, for the most part, I’m just preaching to the choir here anyway, though.

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It has taken me a couple of days to get the courage up to write this.

The day that the Seattle P-I published it’s final newsprint edition forever on Tuesday, I admittedly had a fairly emotional reaction to the whole thing.  In fact, it took me until the next day to actually open it up and read it all.  Then I started to get curious:  Why did I feel that way?

I can (an will in the near future) talk about the future of newsappers and journalism in Cascadia.  My story today is about losing or taking for granted the things that we see every day.

I’m sure that my attachment to the Seattle P-I has a number of sources.  The P-I was the paper that I read and subscribed to while living in the Seattle area.  the P-I is the paper where I have read all of the news stories that shaped my life.  My personal political leanings are better represented by the P-I than my the Seattle Times.  I delivered the P-I to homes in my neighborhood as a youngster, back in the day when the paper was delivered by a kid on a bicycle riding around the neighborhood every morning.  Now, the P-I is gone.

I have always presumed that the P-I (and the Times for that matter) would be there forever.  I presume that The Oregonian (my daily paper today) will also be there forever.

When I look back now, I presume a lot of institutions would last forever.  They have lasted my lifetime, and the lifetimes of those before me:

• There are always ferries in Puget Sound.
• The Pike Place Market is always there.
• Portlanders always shop at Fred Meyer.
• Ivar’s will always sell me fish & chips.  And red chowder.
• We will always have fun at the Seattle Center.

But times are changing, and not just in ways that they would have changed before:

• Department stores The Bon Marche and Meier & Frank have been replaced by Macy’s.
• Newspapers are disappearing.
• TV and radio stations are no longer as much the local face of the city.
• The Sonics have disappeared from the Seattle Center.

Given enough thought, I’m sure the lists could go on and on.  Feel free to add in the comments institutions that will be here forever, or that we thought would be here forever.

The point is that life is ever changing.  Perhaps this is a function of getting old, but I am now seeing things disappear that I thought I would never see gone.  Seattle’s daily newspaper is one of those things.  In a way, part of our life has disappeared.

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