Citizen Leadership

When you get a copy of the Seattle Arts Commission’s Directory of Public Art, you will see listings of statues to Christopher Columbus, Leif Erikson and Dr. Jose Rizal, the hero of the Philippines. But we barely manage one statue and a copper bust of Chief Seattle and a mere artistic “silhouette” for the local pioneers Arthur Denny and David Read More ›

“May Cause Abdominal Cramping and Loose Stools.” That’s only part of the delightful warning label the Food and Drug Administration insists that Procter & Gamble place prominently on potato chip and tortilla chip products prepared with its new fat-substitute, Olean. The FDA did not accede to the Center for Science in the Public Interest this winter when the Naderite group Read More ›

If you follow polls, you may have noticed how voters increasingly seem to resist attempts to stick them firmly into any camp–conservative, liberal or even moderate. Or, rather, they feel free to jump from camp to camp, depending on the issue and how the pollster presents it to them. There are three possible explanation: 1) voters are becoming more fickle; Read More ›

Expect to hear more and more about tourism as a “high-touch” complement to “high-tech: in the Seattle area’s economic strategy. In contrast to the specialized skills typically required in the computer and software fields, tourism provides jobs at many skill levels. This part of our future is found in such projects as the Bell Harbor International Conference Center that opens Read More ›

Passover and Easter coincide this week and up to half the population of the United States may well appear in synagogue or church. Seventy-two percent of Americans surveyed by USA Today say they find God in prayer each day. His healing hand is experienced in hospitals, his hope in hospices. Victims of accidents and heroes of conflict praise his name. Read More ›

The Census Bureau projected recently that by the middle of the 21st century “non-Hispanic whites” will constitute only 52.8 percent of the U.S. population, Hispanics will have doubled to 24.5 percent, blacks increased slightly to 13.6 percent and Asians almost trebled to 8.2 percent. Supposedly, the news is that high birth rates among Hispanics and immigration among Asians are changing Read More ›

There are at least four “school reform” constituencies in Seattle, as well as the hard-core body of voters who habitually vote against any tax measure, including special levies. Unless three of the groups of reform voters combine, the special levy for regular maintenance and operation swill fail next Tuesday. How the levy goes, moreover, will affect the future of all Read More ›

Washington State’s population is growing fast enough that the state seems likely to warrant another Congressional seat (our tenth) when the U.S. Census is taken in April, 2000–only four years from now. But the outcome is sufficiently uncertain that it may depend on what kind of Census the government holds. Will Congress fund a traditional Census that counts each person? Read More ›

The prevailing mood of the Republican presidential nominating process is still one of irritated reluctance, like that of singers being awakened to go on stage at 5 a.m.–and an audience being forced to attend the performance. This show started too early. We also are witnessing the infamous law of unintended consequences as it snaps back in the faces of the Read More ›

Seattle’s future as a sports town could brighten in the next few months, and everyone–not just fans–will benefit. Fascinated disgust with the saga of the migrating Seahawks has tended to obscure this area’s bids for two of the most exciting sports events anywhere–the World Track and Field Championships in 1999 and the Olympic Games of 2008. Getting either one would Read More ›

Where was Nicholas Eberstadt when I needed him? In 1984, the Urban Institute produced a study that purported to show how poverty had grown during the Reagan years. The trouble was, the Urban Institute used an improper base for its analysis: 1980 to 1984. It sounded plausible enough; at least no one in the press challenged it. Ronald Reagan was Read More ›

Test yourself: who was he? In most ways he was a self-made man, a well-to-do farmer from Missouri who assisted other frontiersmen on the Oregon Trail. Most noteworthy, he was the determinative leader of the first pioneer settlement in Puget Sound country in 1845. His homesteading helped the United States establish the future national identity of this whole region. One Read More ›