If all goes as planned, Vancouver teacher-astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger will be on board Space Shuttle Discovery when it lifts off next March 10. It may be the last time she flies in space because the current shuttle flights end in 2010. The replacement orbiter, the Constellation, may not fly until 2014 at the earliest.
As kids across King County head back to school, parents, teachers and law enforcement are all thinking about ways to keep them safe at school. For years, we’ve emphasized the risks of narcotics and we’ve made great headway against methamphetamine. With those successes, however, some students are turning to the medicine cabinet.
Last weekend my wife and I saw Crosby, Stills, and Nash at the Puyallup fair, a fun memory. As a former police detective and commander of a homicide task force, I’ve seen things I’d like to forget. As a lawmaker, and chair of the House committee that deals with crime and public safety, I can’t imagine why it’d make sense for mental hospitals to take a criminally insane murderer on a field trip to the fair.
Every year for the past half decade or so, a holiday controversy has turned the Puget Sound area into a national laughingstock.
In 2005, the giving tree at Medina elementary school was taken down because some people speculated that other people might be offended by a Christmas tree in a public school.
After walking out of your doctor’s office with a prescription many believe it is the end of the process to determine the treatment a patient receives. These days, unfortunately, the doctor’s decision is only the beginning of that process.
Sometimes you can step into controversy while trying to avoid it. This happened a couple weeks ago when the Bellevue School District opted not to carry President Obama’s speech to school kids, and instead made a video available to teachers on request. Rather than irritate the few, the district angered the many.
Aristotle once said, “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
Harvesting that fruit will require some hard work. Especially as our school administrators and teachers try to do more with less.
All this discussion we’ve been having around the office lately about hair (see Dennis Box’s Sept. 3 Our Corner) got me thinking about my own hair dilemma.
Last year was the single worst season in Seattle sports history. The University of Washington Huskies, a dynasty under Don…
Over the past couple of months I’ve written two columns about health care reforms that actually hold down costs while improving people’s health care.
On the eve of the Kent teachers’ strike, I attended the Kent School Board Meeting. The discussion was charged with emotion. Parents, educators, classified staff and students spoke passionately to school board members. Every person in that room wanted a resolution to the impending strike, but the Board’s response was to tell the audience to contact their state legislators for additional dollars.
I am going to reveal a few shocking secrets in this column.
There are people around here who think I do not understand hair lingo when it comes to… women (more commonly known to men as the unknowable ones).
Have you ever gazed at Mount Rainier on a cloudless day and wondered what it would take to climb it?
Talk of naming babies had been a subject around the office lately because certain pregnant reporter who shall remain anonymous, we will call her Kris Hill, has a naming contest on her blog, Baby Babble.
Let me tell you something about naming babies. Naming the first child is when men finally discover their place in the world.
Blogging about the pregnancy has saved my sanity, at least to an extent.
During the past few weeks I’ve been posting to my new blog, Baby Babble, on The Reporter Web site, blogs.covingtonreporter.com/babybabble.
One of the great things about call-in radio is that you get to hear ordinary people connect reality to public policy.
Take health care. Last week a caller on KOMO Newsradio told of his mother being diagnosed by three different physicians that an ache in her upper chest wasn’t serious. A fourth doctor caught it: cancer. She was instantly admitted for surgery, which was successful.
The caller’s point is that in a world with Obamacare, four different opinions on a medical diagnosis would be out of the question, especially for an elderly patient. That is why he ardently opposes the health care legislation in Congress.
The other day I wrote about pralines on my blog, Slow Simmer, which can be found at The Reporter Web site.
I’ve been obsessed with making the perfect praline for some time.
When I had a life in the dim past, I loved praline ice cream, usually at midnight. I would sneak into the kitchen and attack a half gallon with a spoon the size of a table.
Baseball season traditionally opens in early April. The National Football League season starts in mid-September. And Washington’s political season traditionally begins on Labor Day weekend, about two weeks in front of the September primary. That tradition has changed in three ways.
I bought a new bed for my dog, Yodie the Yorkie from the underworld. I only call her a (dog)…
Columnists love feedback. It means their work is likely encouraging conversation in the community. A few times a year, starting today, I’m going to share some responses sent to me or The Reporter editor from listeners who took the time to sit down and tell me what they did or didn’t like.
