Weekly News Roundup 1/25/09
Another week has gone by — it’s time to go over a few of the stories that made it more colorful:
Supporters of the University of Washington Football Team are behind a plan to spend $300 million on renovating the 88-year-old Husky Stadium. Half of the money would be raised by the University from among it’s football supporters, and the other half would come from — Ahem — the Washington Legislature. A lot of people think that amount is pretty excessive for a facility that hosts around six home football games per year. Of course, if the UW gets that kind of money for a sports facility, there are other colleges around the state who will be lining up for their share, too. A couple of groups of Washington State University supporters think that their cross-state rivals at the U-Dub don’t need the money, or that Wazzu needs a similar amount for their stadium. Cooler heads might wonder why, since there are so few games played there, that perhaps they could make a deal with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks to share their new state-of-the-art stadium, Qwest Field. I think that would be a great idea — but the UW supporters would just discount my opinion since I went to WSU.
Winners:
Glenn Proctor, 21, of Federal Way was freed from the King County Jail after being held for 11 months for a crime he did not commit. He was present at a transit center when someone tried to shoot another person there. Since the video surveillance camera didn’t clearly show who did it, they went ahead and arrested the young black guy. Surprisingly, Proctor said he was not angry over his arrest. “Acting angry is real negative,” he said. “I’m trying to add positive things to my life, not take away.” More power to him as he tries to get on with his interrupted life.
Somebody in the Seattle area, after a large cache of weapons was found in a Bellevue storage locker. In four searches in Bellevue and Spokane, agents seized 37 machine guns, 12 silencers, two grenade launchers, more than 60 high-explosive grenades, several pounds of military-grade C-4 plastic explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition. It’s a good thing that they didn’t get used for anything serious. Probably just enough to do a little hunting, though.
Losers:
The citizens of Portland. The mayor of Portland, Sam Adams, has admitted to lying about his personal life before the recent election. This either meens six more weeks of Winter, or it means that the city’s business will not get done while his enemies try to evict him from office.
Passengers returning from vacations in Mexico this week. The plane was headed to Seattle, but couldn’t land there because of the fog. So the plane was diverted to Portland, a place that claims to have an International Airport. Upon arrival at PDX, the passengers spent 4 hours waiting for US Customs & Immigration agents to arrive. They never arrived, because the plane and its pilot had the audacity to land there at an inconvenient tome for them. The solution for passengers who had just endured a six-hour flight followed by four hours on the ground and had run out of food? The plane was told to return to Mexico City. Passengers finally got another flight to Seattle the next day, but I’m quite sure the airport and federal authorities could have come up with a better plan.
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