At work, I get a lot of phone calls from sales representatives. They’re always trying to sell stuff of course, but lately they always ask, “So, how’s business?”
Fine, I say. Sales are steady, profits are slightly up. What do you hear from your other customers? “Oh, most of them are not doing that great. You know, Macy’s and Amazon are doing all right, but most of the little guys are struggling.”
The AT&T plan to purchase T-Mobile for a cool $39 billion has been hot news the past week.
I am hoping this means I will no longer need to stand in the street and wait for a cement truck to nearly run me over before I finally get those funny little connection bars.
Sleepy voters, it’s time to wake up again. The school levy machine is gearing up in the Tahoma school district and school officials are looking for $125 million to construct new schools and remodel others. That sounds like a lot, until you learn that Kent just passed a school levy last year that will collect around $240 million and that’s just to keep the schools operating.
After attending the town hall meeting in Maple Valley this past Saturday morning, I had planned to write about “citizen apathy” this week.
That’s because only about twelve people showed up to hear Rep. Jay Rodne and Rep. Glenn Anderson talk about what’s happening in Olympia. Plus, half of those were either connected to the paper, the building we were in, or work with the representatives themselves.
On March 20, Sound Transit will officially inaugurate service at its new Mountlake Terrace highway station at 236th Street Southwest in Snohomish County. The new station, which sits in the Interstate 5 median, is one of the last capital projects planned as part of Sound Move – the regional transit system approved by voters in November 1996. It includes several bus bays, platforms for riders with weather shielding, and glass walls to reduce noise pollution. It also features a covered pedestrian bridge, built to connect the station to the third floor of the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center.
Our First Amendment got a major test last week, when the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s reversal of a multi-million dollar judgment against the Westboro Baptist Church. If you don’t already know, the father of a fallen Marine sued the church leaders for “intentional infliction of emotional distress, intrusion upon seclusion, and civil conspiracy” after seven church members protested his son’s military funeral. The protestors’ signs included, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Hates You.”
In December 2010, the Washington Supreme Court adopted a landmark rule that ensures all people have access to the justice system regardless of their ability to pay court fees necessary to obtain judicial relief. We applaud the action of the court and call on all courts to make it easier for people to access justice.
General Rule 34 establishes standards and procedures for obtaining fee waivers that have previously varied between counties and even different judges within a county. These local fees and surcharges force low-income people to either pay from scarce resources used for basic needs or forego judicial relief.
So as anyone who’s ever read a comic book will tell you, every major metropolitan newsroom must contain at least one superhero, or, more specifically, the secret identity of said superhero.
It’s one of the by laws that govern the cabal – I mean, secret society- I mean, uh, public service organization commonly referred to as the “Media Elite.”
The sweet science.
The term is usually associated with boxing. An equally entertaining ballet of the ring is politics, and if you listen carefully, the first whispers of the political system have begun.
From hospital boards to city councils to state races the moves are being made early and quietly.
If you’ve ever been to a local government meeting of any kind you already know how incredibly boring they can be. Attendance at these meetings is always low, unless there is some issue at hand that directly affects someone, and they’ll stay just long enough to hear about their issue. I don’t blame them.
Last week I sat in on a meeting about the new strategic alliance that’s being vetted between Valley Medical Center and the University of Washington School of Medicine.
If you haven’t heard about this concept yet, you should – and over the next few months, unless you have been living under a rock, you probably will.
I’m looking for a small sign from above.
Nothing too fancy. I’m not asking for an omen with a bird flying backwards. Just something simple telling me what in the heck I should do with all the pokey things attacking me in my yard and explaining why my stupid grass is growing in the middle of winter.
“I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.”
So said Ken Jennings, the second place finisher to IBM’s “Watson” supercomputer in last week’s Jeopardy game show contest. This win was more significant than the 1997 defeat of the world chess champion by a different IBM supercomputer, because the format of Jeopardy requires the contestant to understand weird nuances of the English language.
Years from now, we might remember this week as “The Battle of Donut Hole.” Or not.
It’s hard to predict, since Maple Valley is still in the middle of a tense standoff with King County over the 156-acre Donut Hole property, and it likely won’t be resolved before the ink has dried on this paper. The final showdown of this three-year, three-way chess match could happen this Sunday.
Not long after Jason and I moved to Las Vegas in 2000 did I discover what it’s like to be the victim of a “smash and grab.”
We grew up in Bellevue. I never drove a nice car — my first was a pre-dented 1968 Dodge Dart with a backseat that wasn’t bolted down — and never left anything of worth in my cars to inspire someone to break into them.
About a month ago, the 2011 regular session of the Legislature convened in Olympia. As this session is taking place in an odd-year, the principal item of business will be to come up with a budget for the next biennium.
To be a gambler or to be a risk taker, that is the question.
The horses have returned to Emerald Downs, and that means I begin my yearly delusion of believing I am a winner. This is the mark of a gambler, the religious belief I will win the big one, while the sin of losing hangs over me like a cloud.
“There are rules on the books that are needlessly stifling job creation and economic growth, we will fix them.”
President Obama said this in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce this week, and even the IRS agreed with him on one particular rule in last year’s health care law. It requires all businesses that spend $600 or more with an individual or company during the year to fill out a 1099 tax form.
Need, desire and change – it is the stuff of our dreams and nightmares.
This happy subject came to me the other day while I was watching the 1935 film Anna Karenina from Leo Tolstoy’s novel staring Greta Garbo and Fredric March, directed by Clarence Brown. If you ever wondered what those boys in the ‘30s could have seen in Greta Garbo, watch this picture and you will see the reason.
If you missed Monday night’s trail safety meeting at the Lake Wilderness Lodge, I’m happy to give you the executive summary: the trails are safe, gangs haven’t taken root in the area, and we have a minor heroin problem.
