Archive for the ‘News Items’ Category

No, Not Those Olympics

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) is very protective of the “Olympics” brand in this country.  Of course they are, as they spend a lot of money on marketing themselves and the international sports festival that they participate in.  I have no issue with the organization protecting themselves from businesses who want to get a [...]

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Spontaneous Demonstrations for Healthcare Reform

I have been thinking a lot about the health care “debate” that has been going on in this country lately.  The most significant part of the debate is not IF we need health care reform, but how to do it, and just how soon it can happen. In my opinion, this is one of the [...]

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Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

We have seen a number of public figures pass away lately.  Some hold a higher stature and get more news coverage than others.  Walter Cronkite, though he was ling retired, is one of those people deserving of a note in passing. The television was not a central focus at our house growing up, but I [...]

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Fixing the Newspaper Websites

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.

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Presumed Guilty on 82nd Avenue

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 [...]

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The Suicide Solution

This past Sunday, US Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) suggested that the executives fron AIG, the insurance company that has received $160 billion in bailout funds from the US Government, either resign or commit suicide.  In his comments to WMT radio in Iowa, “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards [...]

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The Plight of Sam Adams

In the US, we are fascinated with the private lives of our elected officials.  It is probably healthy that we have a curiosity in such matters.  When this curiosity becomes the means with which we try to drive those officials out of office, it becomes a serious problem.  This problem has come up again, this [...]

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Going With the Tunnel

Finally.  Finally we have a decision on what will be built to replace Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct.  The 1953 monstrosity will be replaced with a tunnel. According to the Seattle P-I and other sources, the government entities who are involved with the decision will be announcing on Tuesday that they are choosing a 4-lane tunnel [...]

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It’s in the P-I

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I contemplate the rumored sale of one of Seattle’s two daily newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  While the newspaper’s owners claim that the paper has not made a profit in decades, it is truly important for a city or a region to have as many reliable news [...]

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Emergency Preparedness in our Region

A couple of weeks ago, there was an unusually large amount of snow on the ground all over Cascadia.  That in itself is not news.  We were all inconvenienced, but we all collectively made it through without too much damage.  A few weeks later, we are all doing just fine and the big accumulation of [...]

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