The News Tribune ran an Associated Press story Thursday about how sales of Spam and other lower-cost foods have increased as folks deal with tighter budgets. Alas, the price of Spam is also up – about 7 percent from this time last year. An average 12-ounce can costs $2.62.

I suspect this much-mocked lunchmeat has many more fans than one might suspect. It’s very popular, for instance, among Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders. In Hawaii, Spam is on McDonald’s breakfast menu. And at L&I Hawaiian Barbecue (a chain with locations in Lakewood and Federal Way), you can order spam musubi (think sushi that uses a slice of Spam instead of raw fish) and saimin (noodle soup) with grilled Spam.

I’ve had both and they’re very good. But my favorite way to prepare Spam was concocted on a trip up the Eastern seaboard many years ago with college pals. While camping beside a lake in Maine, we made kabobs by alternating chunks of Spam and pineapple, glazed with a mixture of pineapple juice and mustard. Then they were roasted over a campfire. I’ve had a soft spot for Spam ever since.

You can find lots of Spam recipes on the Internet. For a site that includes a recipe for Spam musubi, click here.

Members of Metro Parks' controversial revenue task force will get a chance to defend their work Wednesday at the City Club of Tacoma's monthly dinner.

The evening is billed as an opportunity for the volunteer task force members to weigh in on the uproar over their work to identify revenue-generating opportunities for the parks district.

It's worth remembering that the controversy didn't stem from the task force members' ideas as much as it did the poor job the parks district did in spreading the word. Neighborhood councils didn't hear anything about the task force until after it had completed its work, and even then only by way of rumblings in the community.

Such secrecy, intentional or not, tends to invite suspicion that the fix is in.

Morgan Alexander's letter to the editor last Saturday about the sewage smell on the Ruston Way waterfront got some notice at City Hall. In his weekly report to the council, City Manager Eric Anderson attributed the stink to rotting wood waste from the waterfront's industrial past:

Interim Public Works Director Mike Slevin reports that the North End Treatment Plant is an advanced primary plant and has an odor control system that was installed in 1997. ... Odors are emitted occasionally from the plant premises during the loading of sludge trucks; however, this is fairly minor because the amount of the odor emitting surface area that is exposed to the air is fairly small. Odors can also emanate from the rag bins but these are enclosed and only emit gas to the outside air when the doors to the area are open. This rarely occurs except when the bins are being loaded onto trucks....

Most often odor complaint times match up when Tacoma experiences a low tide. This is because the Mason creek area was once home to at least one large sawmill. Pictures of the area from the early days of Tacoma show sawmills built on piers. At that time, common practice was for sawmills to dump their wood waste (sawdust, bark, etc.) directly into the water. The decomposition of wood waste in salt water, which is a low oxygen environment, creates sulfurous compounds (rotten egg smell).

=> Read more!

One of Hillary Clinton's more plausible-sounding arguments for seating all the delegates from the disqualified Florida primary comes down to: "The Republicans made us do it."

That is, Florida's Republican legislature forced the state Democrats to accept the Jan. 29 primary date that ran afoul of the Democratic National Committee's rules. So don't punish Florida Democrats for something the conniving, vote-stealing, chad-contesting Florida GOP foisted upon them.

But the argument is merely plausible-sounding. It falls apart when you look at the history.

The early primary – designed to upstage Iowa and New Hampshire – was championed by a Democratic state senator, Jeremy Ring. He introduced the bill in the Florida Senate; a Republican introduced it in the House.

Republicans did control the legislature, yes, but the measure passed with overwhelming support from Democratic lawmakers.

After the date was set, Florida Democrats fought their national party for months to keep it. They had the option of ignoring the results of the primary and relying instead on caucuses, as Washington Democrats routinely do.

Instead, the Floridians insisted on selecting their delegates with a primary they knew was breaking the DNC's rules.

Sorry, Hillary. This one won't persuade anyone who's not already on your side.

Saturday
It may come as little comfort to Tacoma parents fighting cutbacks in school music education offerings, but theirs is a fight that's going on all over the country.

Sunday:
1. A little planning could have made all the difference in the Tacoma Mall area, which is now marred by haphazard townhouse development and an appalling lack of playgrounds.

2. After five years of bloodshed, the formidable weight of the U.S. military is barely holding Iraq together. Next door, the United States appears completely out of options in dealing with Iran's apparent drive for a nuclear arsenal.

Monday:
Nothing else works like citizens patrols to keep a lid on crime and prevent troublemakers from taking over a neighborhood.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Jonah Goldberg, whom some of you may remember as a columnist we recently dropped, opened his new rant about Scott McClellan with this gem of a lead:

Not since America’s most revered feckless crapweasel, former Vermont Sen. James Jeffords, switched parties have Beltway Republicans been more eager to sew a half-starved ferret into someone’s body cavity.

If Goldberg had come up with a sentence like that more than once a year, we never would have dropped him.

Anyway, he got me going on the word "crapweasel," which I'd never run into before. (To what subculture have I just proven myself a clueless fool?)

I had to turn to the ever-helpful Urban Dictionary, the great wiki of slang, for definitions of crapweasel. Here are three of its definitions:

1. Crapweasel
One who challenges novices to games he has mastered, and beats them, showing no mercy.
"Why did you make me play that game with you?"
"I knew I'd win."
"YOU CRAPWEASEL!"

2. Crapweasel
A person who uses “brick and mortar” stores to try on clothing, check out fit, and get help from store employees with no intention of buying anything there, and then goes online and buys the item cheaper.

3. Crapweasel
A derogatory term used to verbally abuse other motorists who cut you up. Something that helps you maintain the upper hand as you didn't have to resort to blatant swear wordage.
"Yo buddy are you a crapweasel or what?"

Other words you may have missed in your journey through life: "craptacular," "crapulate," "craptastic," "craptasm," "craptaculicious" and so on. Check the dictionary. I don't think they count in Scrabble.

It was kind of funny a year and a half ago when 9-year-old Semaj Booker bluffed his way past Sea-Tac Airport security, then sneaked on, not one, but two Southwest flights all the way to Dallas.

On his second attempt, Tuesday, it wasn't funny anymore. This is looking less like derring-do than a pint-sized punk getting an early start on a career of petty crime.

Maybe the appearances on "Inside Edition" and "The Dr. Phil Show" went to his head. After that, maybe being just another 10-year-old seemed a little dull.

Whatever. Semaj got his 15 minutes of fame last year. Now he may be headed back to juvy and a lot more than 15 minutes in a place where the studio lights don't shine.

Contrary to a posting here Saturday, Deputy Prosecutor Mark Lindquist's campaign for Pierce County prosecutor does not have the endorsement of the current prosecutor, Gerry Horne.

Lindquist does have Horne's good will, though. Here's what Horne has to say:

I read your "blog" in yesterday's paper about Mark L. He is a tremendous talent and I try to be and am supportive of him. On the other hand, I am supportive of all my senior deputies who do so much for this community.

I told my staff that I would not choose one deputy prosecutor (DPA) over another DPA who is equally effective and outstanding. We are blessed with several unusually dedicated and capable public prosecutors. I have committed to eventually supporting the DPA who has earned the support and respect of his co-workers - one that the DPAs perceive and want as their leader. (The flyer for a fund raiser for the Demo Party may be misleading in inferring that I have supported Mark over my other DPAs.)

A few DPAs have sought my support. For what it's worth, I have told them that I would not tolerate any DPA making negative comments about another DPA, nor placing supposed DPA competitors for prosecutor in a negative light. The ones who have expressed interest are in leadership positions, and I would not hesitate to transfer them if they were to "undercut" a colleague.

I am blessed with an outstanding staff. We have a rich culture of self-sacrifice and service as public prosecutors. I hope and expect that one of my staff members will succeed me, and bring a new vibrance and fresh leadership to the office.

It’s in the best interests of Pierce County residents and businesses to prolong the life of the privately owned landfill near Graham that takes their garbage. That’s the primary motivation behind the county’s proposal for a new long-term contract with incentives for sharply reducing the amount of waste sent to the dump.

The federal government’s big immigration raid at an Iowa meat-packing operation raises the question: What about the employer who knowingly hired so many illegal aliens?

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Is "full-blooded American" code for racism? I think it is. But syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker is either oblivious to it or willing to play word games.

The TNT, which carries Parker's column, didn't publish her May 13 offering. Editorial writer Kim Bradford, who was choosing the columns that week, found it offensive. Good call, but worth a discussion here.

I only found out about it today when Romenesko, a newspaper-industry blog, noted that many Chicago Tribune readers objected to the column's thinly veiled racism. In a column about the flap, the Tribune's ombudsman criticized Parker but argued that it was better to run the column to get the race issue out in the open and confront it.

That's a fair point. But I would have killed the column, too. I'm half-tempted to drop Parker's column given what it says about her way of thinking, but Bradford thinks that's going too far. I'll let Kim weigh in here if she has more to add.

You can read the Parker column in question here.

Editorial writer Cheryl Tucker adds:

According to my DNA test, I’m 17 percent American Indian....guess I’m not full-blooded American.

For that matter, you could argue that American Indians are the true "full-blooded Americans." But fewer of them are "full-blooded" these days. When it comes to DNA, America truly is a melting pot.

Reading eulogies for Fort Lewis soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan reminded me of my first visit to Arlington National Cemetery years ago.

My idea was to see some of the famous landmarks: the Iwo Jima Monument, the Tomb of the Unknowns, the USS Maine Memorial, Robert E. Lee's mansion, etc.

As my little tour bus plodded from one memorial to the other, my focus gradually shifted to what we were passing through: the ocean of small, white gravestones.

The cemetery holds the remains of 300,000 servicemen and women, three-fifths the population of Seattle. The gravestones go on and on and on. The impact is cumulative.

I started thinking about the individual loss behind each stone. Then, as the bus kept cresting the gentle, grave-covered slopes, and new fields of the dead kept coming into view, I was gradually overwhelmed by the immensity of the collective sacrifice. I was weeping long before the tour was over.

On Friday, reading the accounts of so many young widows and children left behind by Fort Lewis soldiers, I choked up again. Words seem wholly insufficient to honor these dead and their loved ones. Tears begin to do them justice.

The skyrocketing price of gas was topic No. 1 all last week as it approached the shudder-inducing $4-a-gallon mark in the South Sound.

Here’s something else to make you shudder: Arjun N. Murti, the Wall Street analyst nobody believed a few years ago when he predicted oil would hit $100 a barrel, now predicts it will hit $200 a barrel.

The New York Times says gasoline would – yikes! – hit $6 a gallon if that happens.

Oil hit a record $136 a barrel last week. Politicians, including Washington’s U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, made hay by blasting “greedy” oil companies. But the causes of the spike in oil prices are more complex.

Rising global demand for oil is certainly a factor. But not many unhappy motorists, for example, realize that about half the runup in gas prices over the past five years is attributable to the falling value of the dollar in relation to the euro. When the dollar is worth less, oil sellers demand more dollars for their product.

Conservative economists and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page blame the Federal Reserve for lowering interest rates too much and letting the value of the dollar fall. But the Fed lowered interest rates because it was worried about the economy falling into recession.

We just have to pick our poison, I guess.

King’s Books on Tacoma’s St. Helens Avenue is an unlikely venue for a political fundraiser. But it’s a logical place for one starring Pierce County deputy prosecutor and thriller writer Mark Lindquist.

Lindquist, an all-but-announced candidate to succeed retiring Prosecutor Gerry Horne in two years, will read from his latest novel, “The King of Methlehem,” at 7 p.m. May 29. “A discussion of literature, politics and Pierce County will follow,” the invitation says. Perhaps Lindquist will share meth recipes.

The fundraiser is for the county Democratic Party, not for Lindquist. U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, former governor and county executive Booth Gardner and Horne are billed as hosts.

Lindquist is the party favorite for the prosecutor’s race, and having Horne’s backing is a major advantage. I asked Lindquist how “Methelehem” fared with the reviewers:

Reviews for "King of Methlehem" have been good (Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Seattle Times etc), overblown (The Weekly Volcano, God bless the local press, called me a "literary genius,") and blah (New York Times Book Review was boring, but you can't really complain about being reviewed in the NYTBR). You can see some reviews here

Reviews for "Never Mind Nirvana" (an earlier novel) were more numerous and often more enthusiastic, probably because of the subject matter. Rock and roll apparently entices more book review editors than meth.

Important thing is that the hardback did well enough that Simon & Schuster is putting out a trade paperback this month. Here's an interesting reference to "King of Methlehem" in an msnbc article, "Pop Culture is Getting an Injection of Meth

The cover of the paperback is cooler than the hardback, so that should count for something

.

And here’s a capsule review from the Los Angeles Times:

=> Read more!

TNT reporter Nikki Sullivan’s front-page story today on an inappropriate mix of religion and political fundraising in Fircrest for GOP gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi came up at the ed board’s daily topic meeting.

We decided it didn’t call for an editorial; the article was embarrassment enough.

But we all agreed it looked bad for the head of a non-profit Christian businessman’s group to be caught fibbing about what happened. And it looked bad when the group and the Rossi camp decided beforehand to exclude the press.

Dwight Mason, president of the Christian Businessmen’s Connection local chapter, may have trouble explaining to a Sunday School class why he told Sullivan “no funds were solicted” for Rossi at the luncheon.

Unfortunately for Mason, he was caught on tape doing exactly that. That’s a no-no. Non-profit groups are forbidden by IRS rules to raise money for candidates.

That was cheesy. But just as cheesy was the state Democratic Party’s attempt to make the incident into a major scandal. “Rossi Brings Extreme Social Agenda to Religious Non-Profit,” blared the headline on a party news release today.

Subhead: “Rossi: Anti-choice, anti-science Bush Republican mixes religion and politics in violation of the law.” The release went on to accuse Rossi of espousing “an extreme social agenda” and accusing him of following “the lead of George Bush” in mixing religion and public policy.

Well, of course the Democrats want to do everything they can to link Rossi with one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. Just about every Republican candidate this year has that problem.

But “extreme social agenda?” C’mon. I happen to disagree with Rossi and many positions of the Religious Right. But this sort of blather mocks the religious convictions of a large segment of Washington’s population. Calling Rossi’s views “far outside the mainstream in Washington state” is gratuitously offensive, not to mention arrogant, to many people of faith.

What’s so ironic is that on the national level, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been doing everything they can to portray themselves as faithful churchgoers and Christians.

The governor would be smart to tell her party PR machine to tamp it down.

The relentless attacks on the Airbus tanker contract by Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell are making some folks in California nervous.

Ronald Sugar, the chairman and chief executive officer of Northrop Grumman Corp., just published the piece below in the Los Angeles Times.

Northrup Grumman is Airbus' American partner in the huge Air Force tanker contract, which our home-state senators say wuz robbed from Boeing.

Note how defensive Sugar is in describing "the North American subidiary of EADS, parent of Airbus" as merely "one of Northrop Grumman’s partners" in the project. He points out that the Boeing tanker would have "included parts made in Japan, Italy, Britain and Canada."

Somebody's obviously got this guy's goat.

The Best Tanker Wins

After a lengthy competition between Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co., the U.S. Air Force has selected Northrop Grumman to build 179 aerial refueling tankers. This program is long overdue, as the Air Force urgently needs to replace its fleet of Eisenhower-era tankers.

=> Read more!

A Wall Street Journal article I spotted this week makes Tacoma's decision a decade ago to go into the broadband cable business look especially prescient.

Some 60 towns and small cities, including Bristol, Va., Barnsville, Minn., and Sallisaw, Okla., have built state-of-the-art fiber networks, capable of speeds many times faster than most existing connections from cable and telecom companies. An additional two dozen municipalities, including Chattanooga, have launched or are considering similar initiatives

The efforts highlight a battle over Internet policy in the U.S. Once the undisputed leader in the technological revolution, the U.S. now lags a growing number of countries in the speed, cost and availability of high-speed Internet. While cable and telecom companies are spending billions to upgrade their service, they're focusing their efforts mostly on larger U.S. cities for now.

Smaller ones such as Chattanooga say they need to fill the vacuum themselves or risk falling further behind and losing highly-paid jobs. Chattanooga's city-owned electric utility began offering ultrafast Internet service to downtown business customers five years ago.

Now it plans to roll out a fiber network to deliver TV, high-speed Internet and phone service to some 170,000 customers. The city has no choice but to foot the bill itself for a high-speed network -- expected to cost $230 million -- if it wants to remain competitive in today's global economy, says Harold DePriest, the utility's chief executive officer.

This fear of being left behind in the broadband revolution is precisely what city leaders feared when the City Council authorized Tacoma Power to build an $80 million, high-speed fiber-optic network and go into the cable TV business with its Click! Network.

Click! is a done deal and holding its own in competition with cable giant Comcast. But elsewhere, Comcast and other big cable companies fighting municipal cable plans with lawsuits – including one aimed at stopping Chattanooga, a city about the size of Tacoma.

The benefits to Tacoma: Good broadband capacity for businesses, lower rates for cable TV due to competition, a wider choice of broadband Internet service providers and a "smart grid" electrical network for Tacoma Power.

Side note: Our publisher in 1996, the late Kelso Gillenwater, was convinced the city was getting in over its head in a telecom business it didn't understand. But the rest of the TNT editorial board favored the move. Gillenwater gumpily decided to go along.

Gillenwater was a very smart guy. But this was one case when he turned out to be wrong. I'm not sure he ever admitted it, though.

Saturday:

The nighttime seatbelt patrol coordinated by the region’s law enforcement agencies is a great idea. Too many drivers think cover of darkness is a good excuse to dispense with using their seat belts.

Sunday:

We hail the U.S.-Canada harvest agreement that will finally address the issue of overfishing of chinook salmon that migrate northward from Puget Sound. It’s been a long time coming.

A Justice Department investigation vindicates the FBI agents who sounded the alarm about abusive interrogation tactics employed against terror suspects at Guantanamo – and stands as a harsh rebuke to an administration that has no qualms about stooping to torture.

Monday:

We observe Memorial Day with a remembrance of some of the Fort Lewis soldiers who have been killed abroad in the past year.

Tuesday:

Letting the MLK overnight shelter for homeless people close is not an option for Tacoma city officials. Both compassion and common sense dictate that a way to keep the shelter operating be found now that the MLK Housing Development Association has decided to get out of the shelter business.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

You get what you pay for. That's as true in the air as it is on the ground.

Air travelers are raising a fuss about American Airlines' announcement that it will begin charging $15 for the first piece of checked baggage, which was previously a freebie.

This isn't profiteering on American's part, and it won't be profiteering when its competitors adopt similar policies. They are simply passing on enormous increases in the price of jet fuel, just as service stations are passing on the rising prices of wholesale gasoline.

In 2004, the airlines were spending $22.7 billion on fuel. This year, they are projected to spend $59.5 billion. No industry can take a hit like that without cutting expenses or raising prices; the airlines are doing both.

If they don't, they go broke. In fact, American's major U.S. competitors have all more or less gone broke in recent years, surviving only after getting their finances overhauled in bankruptcy court. This is a perpetually staggering industry that lurches from loss to loss, barely holding on with its intermittent profitable years. According to the Wall Street Journal, some analysts are projecting losses of at least $7 billion in 2008.

=> Read more!

Today's lead editorial noted how professional initiative promoter Tim Eyman is trying to intimidate local officials around the state who might be considering local car license fees to pay for street improvements.

Here's a sample of Eyman's charm offensive. This from an all-points email aimed today at Kitsap County and City of Bainbridge officials:

I want to know the following:

Who amongst you will sponsor/co-sponsor/support the ordinance that tries to unilaterally increase vehicle fees without a vote of the people?
Who amongst you will oppose any increase without a vote of the people?
When will you bring it up for a public hearing (time-date-location)? I want to be notified because I want to come and testify.
When will your Council vote on it?

You may choose to disregard your constituents' right to have the final say on this tax increase. You may choose to ignore their ballot box decisions on I-695, I-722, I-747, I-776, Kitsap County's Prop 1, I-900, and last year's I-960 and both Proposition 1's. There's nothing anyone can do
to stop you.

But the voters in Kitsap County have a right to know when you plan to take away their $30 tabs. They deserve to know that you are trying to take away their right to vote. And I'm going to do my dead level best to make sure the voters of Kitsap County know about your upcoming tax increase every step of the way.

I ask each of you to respond to the above questions. That way in my upcoming press releases and emails, I can target only the anti-taxpayer, anti-voter-approval representatives on your councils.

Yes, Eyman fancies himself the taxpayers' friend. But he's no friend of drivers putting up with bad roads and streets that can't be fixed because previous Eyman initiatives have decimated local road funds. Call him Mr. Pothole.

Passengers are furious about American Airlines’ $15 charge for the first bag of luggage, but no amount of outrage can change the inexorable laws of economics: Airlines can’t stay in business if they lose too much money, and they’re losing tons of it now as result of higher fuel costs. We didn’t expect to see it this soon, but this is what life will be like when the world’s oil supply truly begins to run out.

Maj. Margaret Witt, a highly decorated flight nurse from McChord who was discharged for being gay, won a key appeals court rulling this week that tilts the legal odds in her favor. This case is likely to go up to the U.S. Supreme Court, but we’re rooting for Witt: It’s stupid for the military to discharge outstanding officers like Witt when there is no evidence that their homosexuality is causing any problems in their work.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Well, where else would a former commander of the battleship USS Iowa want to kick off his legislative re-election campaign?

Rep. Larry Seaquist, D-Gig Harbor, will launch his 26th District legislative campaign June 9 aboard the USS Turner Joy, a mothballed Navy destroyer now serving as a museum ship in Bremerton.

Seaquist has to be one of the most intellectually interesting members of the Legislature. If you check out his personal website, you’ll find he has worked on military strategy and policy at the highest levels in the Pentagon.

In civilian life, he served as a technical adviser for “The Grid,” a cable-TV series about British and American counter-terrorism agents fighting a cell of foreign terrorists. Seaquist also heads an international conflict-resolution group.

He and his wife, Carla, a playwright and writer, have joined West Sound residents in forming a new group called Refreshing Democracy – an effort to move beyond partisanship in seeking solutions to today’s social and political issues.

Mentioning the Turner Joy reminds me that the ship’s fans originally tried to get Tacoma to take the newly mothballed ship as a floating museum but didn’t get much serious interest. It’s just as well, because a few years later Bremerton lost its pride and joy, the USS Missouri, the legendary “Mighty Mo.”

A reader from Steilacoom wrote this letter to the editor about the Bonney Lake "bikini barista" issue (which we're editorializing about Thursday).

It was tempting to see how readers would react to it, but ultimately we deemed it too offensive to appear in print. Anybody disagree?

Ladies, you continue to "whine" about the bikini barista coffee huts that your boyfriends and husbands frequent and how supposedly inappropriate they are.

News flash: Just stop driving by and looking if you disapprove. Or better yet, drop some of your extra pounds and don some pasties of your own and maybe your men will decide to have their coffee at home for a change.

Meanwhile, do not attempt to deny any adult their individual right to choose based on your own personal opinions, insecurities or idiosyncrasies.

If the point of stimulus checks was to be sure the money gets spent to goose the economy, why were college students left out?

Mark Casey wants to know. The young freelance writer is pitching a self-syndicated column aimed at under-35 readers. Excerpt from a sample column:

College students are often lampooned by society and chastised by their parents as reckless – irresponsible with their money and their free time. They’re mass hyper-consumers of the highest order.

But do you know who loves these traits? Business owners, that’s who. Just like everything else in college-land, businesses are definitelystimulated by bright, young, eager students.

In fact, according to the Department of Labor’s Consumer Expenditure
Survey, Americans under the age of 25 spend 96% of their income annually, compared with only around 75% among all other age groups . . .

And leaving America’s most notorious spenders out of the loop was big
mistake if politicians were actually trying to help our limping economy . . .

Nice try, but no sale – on both the idea and the column.

It was good to see former governor Booth Gardner at the TNT today, although the purpose of his visit was somber.

Gardner, who is battling Parkinson's disease, is serving as the poster child for the death-with-dignity initiative heading for the November ballot. In that capacity he joined Robb Miller and Arlene Hinckley, of Compassion & Choices Washington in an editorial board meeting on Initiative 1000.

Miller and Hinckley did most of the talking, but Gardner's passion for the measure was obvious. Ironically, he would not be eligible for aid-in-dying, as the proponents prefer to call it, because Parkinson's is not considered a terminal disease. But Gardner, who turns 72 in August, said he believes he should have "control" of his own death.

Gardner favors loose-fitting sweaters and pullovers now because he has difficulty with buttons. He said he was unable to drive before he had successful "deep brain" surgery last year; now he's happy to be driving again.

Is that risky? I asked him. "Well, I don't try to read the newspaper or anything when I'm driving," he joked.

The former governor walks with a choppy, stumbling gait – a common Parkinson's trait that often results in falls and injuries. Another thing Gardner regained after the surgery was his smile – something that had disappeared as the result of stiff facial muscles.

Partly because of that smile and an impish sense of humor, Gardner was a likable, popular governor who could have had a third term if he wanted it. He's still an endearing figure. It's hard to disagree when Gardner looks you in the eyes and says he should have the right to decide when to go.

Details on the initiative are available at the campaign website.

Initiative 1000, the "Death with Dignity" petition drive, has a curious agenda for the English language.

It doesn't propose merely to let doctors help dying people end their lives. It proposes to outlaw the use of the word "suicide" or "assisted suicide" to describe the practice. State agencies would be barred from using those terms; instead, they would be required to use "obtaining and self-administering life-ending medication."

Leave aside the word "medication," which is also debatable in this context. "Suicide" is what really puts the proponents on edge. Three of them – including former Gov. Booth Gardner – came by today to promote the initiative, and they made it clear that we mustn't describe "self-administering life-ending medication" as an act of suicide.

In fact, they left a seven-page press kit, titled "Language Matters," that suggests that "assisted suicide" is "inaccurate, biased and pejorative." Touchy, touchy. The much preferred term: "aid in dying."

Language does matter. The problem is, "aid in dying" is vague – deliberately so. Several of my own loved ones have died, and I, among others, provided aid to them. But that aid did not include "life-ending medication." So "aid in dying" doesn't describe much of anything – it's euphemistic legerdemain designed to avert the gaze. Similarly, my loved ones all died with dignity, but they didn't take the hemlock. "Death with dignity" isn't descriptive, either.

=> Read more!

You know we wouldn't run salacious photos just to jack up our page views.
Wouldn't deam of such a thing. This here is what we call public service journalism.

Tonight the Bonney Lake City Council will have a hot potato – or a hot latte, we should say – on its hands. Some citizens want the council to do something about those scantily-clad baristas who serve up peekaboo views as well as steaming espresso drinks at a local drive-through.

Apparently another coffee stand offering similar service – like "apron-only days" – is scheduled to open soon. I thought about driving out to Bonney Lake to do on-the-scene research. But I can't afford the gas. Bonney Lake is waaay out there.

So we'll make do with this outtake photo of Jessi Favors at work in in a Spanaway coffee stand last fall. Shows what all the fuss is about.

A slightly more sedate photo accompanied this Your Voice article Favors wrote defending "bikini baristas."

Charlie Wiggins wants you to know he isn't running for the state Supreme Court.

An earlier posting listed Wiggins, a Bainbridge Island attorney, as having filed as a candidate with the Public Disclosure Commission, but he didn't specify which seat he was after.

Wiggins explains:

You correctly noted on your blog that I did file with the PDC for the Supreme Court. But I want to let you know that I filed only because I had spent some funds exploring a possible campaign, but by the time I filed had decided not to run.

Nonetheless, I am glad to have this chance to write to you. I have worked with Paul Fjelstad, the webmaster of www.votingforjudges.org, the award winning web site bringing together information about judicial elections throughout Washington State.

Paul and I would be happy to meet with you or with the Editorial Board of the TNT to make a presentation about the web site and how it can help voters (and yes, even editorial boards) made decisions about judicial candidates.

We made a date for early June. Stay tuned.

The news of Ted Kennedy's brain tumor had a big impact in D.C. Love him or hate him, the Massachusetts senator is a political institution. Some of that is reflected in U.S. Sen. Patty Murray's statement today about her fellow Democrat:

"Ted Kennedy is a passionate advocate for equality and has worked to lift up all of America's families throughout his distinguished career in public service. He is a personal mentor to me and a tremendous partner on issues from education to workers' rights to health care.

"Senator Kennedy approaches every obstacle with tremendous courage, poise and resolve. And I know his tremendous heart and spirit will prevail now.

"My thoughts and prayers, and those of all Americans, are with him and his family at this difficult time."

The "Friends O' Flannigan" email list is a big one, and state Rep. Dennis Flannigan (D-Tacoma) can use it to political advantage when he needs to.

But more often he uses it to promote a small new restaurant or a good cause. That will be the case June 4 when Flannigan turns a campaign kickoff party into a fundraiser for earthquake victiims in China.

It's typical Flannigan. Here's his invite. Even Republicans are welcome. I should also note that Flannigan has a lock on re-election in his solidly liberal 27th District.

Friends,
Often I'm late -- late with filing, PDC reports, campaigning, thank you notes and returning phone calls. However, as aftershocks rock Szechuan Province in China, I feel compelled to ask your help. Only this time, instead of seeking campaign donations, please contribute to assist victims of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake. I'm turning my kick-off over to raising money for relief.

On Wednesday, June 4, please join me for Chinese appetizers, tasty wines and the glow of giving to make a difference. No-host bar.

Every dime heads to the city of Jiang You in Szechauan Province, China. My friends, the three sisters-owners of Tacoma Szechuan (Min, Mingin, and Minjie Xie, and chef, Wie Zhong), all are from Jiang You.

On June 4th, they will prepare a variety of Chinese appetizers. I'll offer wry comments. You, I hope will bring a generous check to help these hundreds of thousands left homeless. Join Ilse and me, Wednesday, June 4, 5:30 – 8:00 p.m., Tacoma Szechuan Restaurant, 9601 South Tacoma Way, Ste. 102, in Lakewood's Pal-Do shopping center. Call for directions if you get lost.

Remember, instead of a small contribution to my campaign, just write a generous check to: University Place Sister Cities Association – China Relief. Bring it to the kick-off, or mail, c/o, Friends O' Flannigan, Post Office Box 1742, Tacoma, WA 98401-1742. All donations are tax-deductible. See you on the 4th.

Sincerely,
Dennis
Rep. Dennis Flannigan, 27th District, Pos. 1 (D)
Friends O' Flannigan

PS If you have questions, or wish to help in other ways, contact Ron Chow (UP Sister Cities board member) at 253-640-7601.

Checks made payable to: University Place Sister Cities Association – China Relief, and contributions are accepted at any Wells Fargo Bank branch in the account name of University Place Sister Cities Association for China Earthquake Relief Fund.

If an “issues” campaign looks and acts like an opposition campaign, as with Human Life and its campaign against Washington’s Death with Dignity initiative, it logically should be treated as such under the state’s public disclosure laws. We don’t know what the courts will say, but we believe voters have a right to know the sources of campaign funding.

Charles Waters is asking for too much when he refuses to accept a new plea deal to resolve an old murder conviction for which he has already served time. The fact remains that he killed a man, and expecting to have that removed from the record is too much. Don’t blame prosecutors for picking on him; he chose to bring up the issue himself.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Yesterday's post about gas prices heading for the $4 barrier prompted a note from blog reader Jamie Paulson, who belonged to the now-defunct Tacoma Biodiesel Co-op.

A couple years ago the group was buying commercially made biodiesel in bulk and selling it to members. When a commercial biodiesel station opened in Fife, the co-op folded, Paulson told me.

Paulson is excited about a new option: homebrewing diesel. He's hoping enough people will get together to form a homebrewing co-op, either making their own converters from a kit or buying one. Used frying oil from restaurants can be a good source of feedstock.

I have to be careful about giving commercial plugs here, so heads up: Paulson is not in it for the money, but Paulson has recruited a fellow who knows all about making homebrew biodiesel to hold a workshop in Tacoma on Sunday, June 8. The class isn't free. And the instructor sells a system he claims will make biodiesel for about $1 a gallon.

You can contact Paulson at info@tacomabiodiesel.org. After that, you're on your own. But if gas prices stay at 4 bucks a gallon very long, I imagine homebrewers will soon be elbowing each other at the back door of every Asian and fast-food restaurant in town.

Update and clarification from Paulson:

I was waiting for some more info from Lyle about this, but I can make
at least 1 quick clarification.

While he does sell the BioPro units for making biodiesel, the primary
focus of the class will involve what is called the "Appleseed"
processor, which is a homemade unit that can be constructed using an
old hot water heater and various other things... I believe that
these can be built for well under $1000, with none of this money
going to Lyle beyond the class fee. And either way the approx. $1
price point shouldn't change. (I think the main thing with the
BioPro, which obviously costs quite a bit, is that it makes things
"easier".)

My understanding of the class, and I hope I'm right on this, is that
Lyle will only briefly talk BioPro, more as a sidebar, and will focus
primarily on the more open-source Appleseed processor, which will be
used for the hands-on portion of the class.

Oh, boy. Here it comes: “Obama’s Communist Connections to be Revealed,” the headline on this press release says.

The lead:

WASHINGTON, DC-Two veterans of investigations into Communist influence on the U.S. political process will hold a briefing on Thursday to release new explosive reports on Barack Obama's ties with extreme anti-American elements, including agents of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA.

Some of the dirt, or mud, rather:

The reports will allege:
Barack Obama has been influenced, surrounded and backed by communists, socialists, and those sympathetic to the Arab/Palestinian cause in the Middle East.
Obama has been in the middle of two international communist networks – one in Hawaii and one in Chicago.

Sounds like a classic guilt-by-association smear to me. But we’ll see how substantial those purported "ties" turn out to be.

Many years ago, my seventh-grade brother and another 12-year-old found a box of abandoned dynamite near a construction site. They had a grand time setting off explosions in the woods.

Disobedient boy? Not exactly. My parents had never told us, "Don't play with dynamite." The necessity had probably never occurred to them.

The memory came to mind when I read of the U.S. soldier who'd used the Quran for target practice. In Iraq, smack in the middle of the Islamic world, where desecration of the Quran is taken quite seriously.

Somehow I doubt there is a military regulation that says, "When deployed in Baghdad, don't use the Quran for target practice."

Did he break an actual rule? Who knows. The problem is, the people who make the rules tend to be adults, and no adult can outguess the schemes of a dedicated juvenile troublemaker.

This particular juvenile was reportedly whisked out of Iraq and is now at an undisclosed location. I hope there are no construction sites nearby, and I hope he's not anywhere near Fort Lewis.

The rough-and-tumble election for the state Supreme Court in 2006 has inspired the formation of a non-partisan committee to promote clean judicial campaigns this fall.

That's my guess, anyway. The newly formed Washington Committee for Ethical Judicial Campaigns announced it will ask candidates for the Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals to sign a "fair conduct" pledge.

. The 12-member panel is chaired by former Division 1 Court of Appeals Judge William Baker of Everett. Another panel member, former Puyallup city manager and former state budget chief Dick Thompson, asked today for an ed board meeting on behalf of the group. From a press release:

The pledge will commit candidates to conduct their campaigns in a manner that will support a fair, impartial, open-minded and independent judiciary. The pledge will also require candidates to publicly disavow advertising that impugns the dignity, integrity or independence of a candidate and to refrain from making false or misleading statements regarding pending court cases. Candidates are encouraged to respond to general inquires regarding experience, judicial philosophy or other general topics.

The commission will public report which candidates have agreed to the pledge, and which have not.

=> Read more!

I had my first sighting of $4-a-gallon gasoline Saturday – in Oakland, Calif. Haven't seen it here yet, but it's on the way.

The sign in Oakland showed regular at $4.02 a gallon. Got back to Tacoma today to find the AP reporting another record – at $3.86 a gallon – for the average price for a gallon in Washington.

Here are more dismal numbers from the AP report:

That’s up 24 cents in the past month and 42 cents in the past year. It’s seven cents higher than the national average.

The AAA survey today found that the average price of a gallon of diesel in the state is $4.69. That’s up 29 cents in the past month and $1.61 in the past year.

The AAA says the highest gas prices in the state are at Bellingham at $3.93 and the lowest in Spokane at $3.70. Prices in some other cities, according to the AAA: Olympia $3.89; Seattle $3.88; Tacoma $3.87; Vancouver $3.84; Tri-Cities $3.83; Yakima $3.84.

Everyone admires people who charge into burning houses for a living. But the Tacoma Fire Department has gone wacko about telling the public about it – or rather, not telling the public about it.

Consider this line from a story Friday about firefighters pulling a man from his burning house:

Citing federal privacy laws, the Fire Department wouldn't release any information about the man, his injuries or even whether he was rescued.

(The italics are mine.)

The rescue happened in broad daylight. The neighbors saw it. Everyone knew the victim's name. But fire officials felt they couldn't acknowledge that their own personnel had saved the man's life!

The culprit here is undoubtedly a lawyer who's told the TFD that the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act won't let any organization release any information about anyone who's had any kind of medical problem. Even if nothing about the medical problem itself is disclosed.

It's a wild misunderstanding of HIPAA's actual privacy requirements. But the TFD has gone so overboard with it that it won't share details that might possibly – one chance in a zillion, in an alternate universe – let someone figure out who they've helped.

For example, our news staff once asked a TFD dispatcher to merely confirm that something we'd heard about had happened. The response, in so many words: "I can confirm that there was an incident somewhere in the state."

Insane!

I had a similar experience last July when the nursing staff at a hospital decided they couldn't tell me anything about my daughter's condition as she gave birth during a day-and-a-half-long, worrisome labor. Even though she'd given them permission to keep me informed! (The hospital graciously apologized afterward.)

But I haven't heard of any outfit that takes its misunderstanding of HIPAA to the absurd lengths the TFD does.

Saturday:
Frustrated with Puget Sound’s congested traffic? Soar above it all with the one-man helicopter and one-man jet wing recently in the news! The pioneer of traffic reduction has been in front of us all along: George Jetson.

Sunday:
1. If they were administered a dose of truth serum, the two Washington senators and five representatives who voted for the new, overstuffed, money-wasting farm bill would admit that the $307 billion monstrosity deserves the presidential veto that awaits it.

2. The Washington Education Association’s fixation on controlling teacher salaries cost the state a $13.2 million grant to bolster math and science education.

Monday:
Today’s Iraq and Afghanistan veterans – like their predecessors from Vietnam, Korea and World War II – deserve a G.I. Bill that can actually get them through college.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

A little bird in the Calvin Goings for County Executive campaign – one named Calvin, I think – tips us that his Democratic rival for the job is really lagging in the fundraising totals. This update went to supporters this week:

Here are the latest numbers from PDC:

Goings cash on hand, $127K
McCarthy cash on hand, $17K (including a $2K loan from herself)
Bunney cash on hand, $154K (including a $4K loan from himself)

This is excellent news, thank you for your help and support!

But Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy is working on it. Several leaders in the downtown Tacoma merchants community are throwing a fundraiser for her next week at Leroy’s Jewelry. Store owners Steph Farber and Phyllis Harrison, along with Embellish Salon owner Patricia Lecy-Davis and Stadium Video owner Marty Campbell are the hosts.

A look at Goings’ campaign website shows he has a lot of prominent Pierce County Democrats and union endorsements in his corner. But notable Democrats Julie Anderson, a Tacoma City Council member, and incumbent county executive John Ladenburg are backing McCarthy. UPDATE: We just got a call from David Sawyer, Ladenburg's campaign manager, who says Ladenburg is not endorsing anyone for county executive.

McCarthy sent around an email today touting her endorsement by the Pierce County Prosecutors Guild and making a “16 days to go!” pitch.
That’s about trying hit a fundraising goal of $25,000 in May. See her campaign website here.

The leading fundraiser in the exec's race is County Councilman Shawn Bunney, the lone Republican candidate. I don't have the cash on hand number for Mike Lonergan, the Tacoma City Councilman who formed an "Executive Excellence Party" rather than run as an independent.

But Lonergan's April 30 PDC report shows he has received $26,460 in contributions. Although he promised to let me know, no word yet from Lonergan about his choice of party symbol. I'm thinking a briefcase, maybe.

.

The loss of a $13.2 million grant intended to bolster math and science education in Washington has us concerned, especially since it appears that the state's rigid collective bargaining laws are to blame.

We often check with folks with whom we disagree in case there is information we haven't considered. Today I e-mailed Rich Wood, spokesman for the state teachers union, who is in Spokane at the annual convention where members are gearing up for a no-confidence vote in state schools chief Terry Bergeson.

Here was his response:

I think the criticism is misguided and inaccurate. NMSI was unwilling to compromise on the teacher pay issue and pulled the money. It wasn't that our locals "rejected" the grant program. Our teachers in Seattle, Spokane and elsewhere worked hard to make it work. They spent a lot of time and effort. It's inaccurate when people suggest otherwise. They really tried to collaborate, despite the way it's being portrayed. Everyone needs to work together to improve student achievement. But flexibility is needed.

=> Read more!

We have a correction for last week's post about a new "Train to Trek" excursion ride that will carry visitors from Tacoma to the Northwet Trek wildlife park near Eatonville.

Gary Geddes, the Metro Parks administrator who oversees Trek and the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, said each train trip is expected to net about $2,000 for Trek. Geddes mistakenly told the park board in a memo that the net would be about $4,000.

Bike to Work Week is especially timely this year, with painful gas prices and deepening concerns about global warming. How about making our streets more friendly to cyclists?

All hogs are pigs. All pigs are not necessarily hogs. It took an ungodly amount of professional talent and court time to adjudicate that momentous issue in Tacoma.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

No one ever accused John Edwards of not being an artful lawyer. Look how he finessed his endorsement of Barack Obama today without giving undue offense to Hillary Clinton:

“The reason that I am here tonight is because the Democratic voters in America have made their choice, and so have I,” Edwards said, appearing with Obama in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“There is one man who knows and understands that this is a time for bold leadership. There is one man that knows how to create the change, the lasting change, that you have to build from the ground up.”

One man. That doesn't preclude the possibility there might also be one woman. It's just that the woman didn't happen to get Edwards' very valuable endorsement.

John McCain’s spirited advocacy of serious global warming remedies during his visit to Washington was a welcome contrast to the Bush administration’s agnosticism on the issue. It’s clear that whoever is elected president will take this seriously. McCain’s goals are not as aggressive as Obama’s, but may be more achievable, especially in light of his advocacy of carbon-free nuclear power.

Pierce County Fire District 3 clearly violated the state’s Open Meetings Act by conferring privately to whittle the pool of candidates for fire chief.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Gov. Chris Gregoire will be an honored guest speaker at the Washington Education Association's annual meeting this week.

But the state's top school official, former WEA president Terry Bergeson, won't get any love from the teachers. This foreboding line stands out in the WEA's announcement:

Delegates also will consider a vote regarding Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson’s job performance.

Looks like a vote of no confidence in Bergeson, who is seeking a fourth term this fall. The WEA has already endorsed Richland school superintendent Rich Semler for the post.

The powerful teachers union has grown disenchanted over her staunch backing of the WASL and her failure to win better state funding for schools. Four years ago, the WEA backed former WEA president and former SPI chief Judy Billings in a bid to unseat Bergeson.

It didn't help Bergeson any that the Seattle Times ran an editorial today plainly suggesting that everyone and anybody who could beat Bergeson jump in the race. Three terms in the job is long enough, the Times strongly implied, noting a "leadership vacuum" and a need for "fresh or re-energized leadership" in improving education.

The term "re-energized" might be a loophole giving the Times room to endorse Bergeson anyway if her challengers disappoint and she mounts an "energized" campaign.

My thoughts? Three terms should be enough for anybody in that job. I was surprised Bergeson decided to run again, considering all the grief she's been getting over the WASL. But so far I don't see anybody in the race who looks like a standout.

Semler and former Pierce County educator and legislator Randy Dorn, who heads a state school employees association, are credible candidates. But neither carries real political heft.

If Semler or Dorn wins, though, it would finally prove that one does not have to be a former WEA president to hold the state's top school post. Between them, Billings and Bergeson have ruled OSPI for 20 years.

Of course, the first thing you think when you hear that the Nisqually Tribe has bought 31 acres of prime development property in Hawks Prairie near I-5 is "casino."

But the tribe took pains to to say it "has no plans to develop a casino on the site" in its announcement today. The tribe already owns the Red Wind Casino on its reservation in rural Thurston County.

The latest purchase, two parcels for a total of $17.2 million, adds to 9.6 acres the tribe bought in April. From the announcement:

The Tribe purchased the land to expand its economic diversity and plans to either resell the land or create a joint venture with a developer to develop the property. The Tribe has no plans to develop a casino on the site.

“The Nisqually Tribe is excited to be working with the City of Lacey in developing what will be one of the state’s largest mixed-used developments, the ‘Lacey Gateway,’” said Nisqually Tribe Chairman Cynthia Iyall. “The Nisqually Tribe, the surrounding communities and local businesses will all benefit from the thoughtful development of this strategic property.”

If the Nisquallys do refrain from building a new casino. they'll be an exception to the rule. Both the Tulalips in Snohomish County and the Puyallups in Tacoma own lucrative casinos along Interstate 5. The Cowlitz Tribe is seeking to build a $510 million casino and resort next to the LaCenter exit on Interstate 5 in Cowlitz County.

Unofficial editorial comment: We'd dearly love to see the Nisquallys broaden their economic base without adding more casinos the region doesn't need.

If you sleep with the dogs, expect to get fleas. The friend of our enemy is no friend of ours. Or something like that.

Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, a Democrat gunning for state Attorney General Rob McKenna's job, unloaded on the Republican incumbent today for backing a guy who doesn't like Boeing.

That would be GOP presidential candidate John McCain, whose campaign McKenna is heading in Washington. This, from the Ladenburg campaign's first official campaign blast:

McKenna has been the highest profile state supporter of McCain, despite the Arizona Senator’s pivotal role in directing Air Force tanker assembly away from Boeing to an overseas contractor.

“How Rob McKenna can stand at Boeing Field with the man responsible for the loss of Boeing jobs here in Washington State is beyond me,” said Ladenburg, who as executive has worked to reduce unemployment in Pierce County to historic lows, and Chair of the Puget Sound Economic Development District fought to secure Boeing 787 jobs. “Our Attorney General should be actively opposing shipping our jobs overseas, not cozying up to the guy who fired local workers.”

Aggression, thy name is Ladenburg. McKenna, the Mr. Rogers of Washington politics, is in for a rough ride. Watch for McKenna's upcoming digs about "that elitist golf course at Chambers Bay."

Read on for more Ladenburg digs of McKenna.

=> Read more!

The case of the 80-year-old Gig Harbor grandfather convicted of downloading child porn demonstrates the reach of the global child porn industry — and the dangers of thinking that accesssing it online is risk-free and harmless.

China’s response to its earthquake disaster contrasts dramatically with the way Myanmar’s rulers put their grip on power ahead of the welfare of the victims.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

One of our readers has promised me all the crow I can eat. She has plenty of them in her back yard, and she'll even provide the barbecue sauce.

I've tasted crow before – in the sense of having to eat my words and admit an editorial was off-target for some reason. It's an occupational hazard.

This particular subscriber took offense at the editorial we published last week contending it is time for Hillary Clinton to pack it in for the sake of her party. Remember "Dewey beats Truman," the reader warned us. After a short history lesson, she added:

"Boy, did you (the media) miss the boat then, just as you are doing now! . . . My advice, wanted or not, is that all media should wait for the final voting to end before writing such headlines!!! . . . Yeah, the crows are back this morning, help yourself!

What can I say?

Maritime cargo engineer Bill Casper didn't get much traction in his Tacoma Port Commission campaign last fall by emphasizing the need to step up anti-terrorist security on the docks. He made his point by carrying around a small bag to show how easily a nuclear device could be stowed inside a cargo container.

Casper still stays in touch, though, with advice on things nuclear. His latest note lauded our May 7 editorial on the ethanol boondoggle. He proposed converting Afghanistan's lucrative poppy crop – the feedstock for heroin – to biofuel. And he touted nuclear energy:

To become energy independent we must go with nuclear. Do we start now with gas at $4 per gallon or wait until the price continues up to $10 before we accept the simple laws of physics? In the lead time to implement nuclear the cost of gas is likely to double. OPEC will continue to gain wealth far beyond what they already have . . . Nuclear is safe, cheap, clean, and the only practical way to reduce our demand for oil.

Well, there might be a problem with the "cheap" part. This article in today's Wall Street Journal (available to nonn-subscribers)says big U.S. utilities interested in building new nuclear power plants are stunned by sticker shock: The latest estimates for plants now on the drawing boards range from $5 billion to $9 billion – two to four times previous estimates.

A big Georgia utility plans to spend $6.4 billion for a half-share in two new nuclear plants proposed in that state. The article notes:

Moody's (rating service) worries that continued cost increases, even if offset by billions of dollars worth of federal subsidies, could weaken companies and expose consumers to high energy costs.

When I read Jason Hagey's story about the guy who claimed the ordinance forbidding "hogs" in Tacoma didn't apply to his "pig," I almost laughed out loud.

That man must have the hair-splittingest lawyer this side of Bill Clinton, I thought.

It turns out, however, "Pig-pig" – the Vietnamese pot-belly from the genus Sus (we can all agree on the scientific term) – may be less of a hog than I assumed.

The city attorney insisted that "hog," "pig," and "swine" mean the same thing. But Judson W. Morris and his attorney, Guarav Sharma, actually got a vet to certify that Pig-pig was not a hog because it was a sow, and hogs are castrated male swine.

Darned if the dictionaries, some of them anyway, don't back up Morris, Sharma and the vet.

The Collins Essential English Dictionary's first definition of "hog" is a "castrated male pig." Pig-pig is neither male, nor castrated.

Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary has hog as "a castrated boar." That's a 1913 edition, but Encarta defines hog as "a full-grown domestic pig, especially a castrated male pig."

The history of the word "hog" doesn't help the city ordinance, either. It's apparently a close cousin of the Old Norse "hoggva" – which means "to cut" (as in castrate).

A few pertinent factoids: A "boar" is an uncastrated male pig. A castrated male is not a boar but a "barrow." A female pig isn't a sow until she has "farrowed" a litter of piglets; before then, she's a "gilt."

Got that all straight? Neither does the City of Tacoma.

A reader who identifies himself only as “Ken” writes:

David,
I have subscribed to the TNT for 45 years. Statements such as those underlined below mayt force me to cancel my paper. Please read some of the excellent books that scientifically document the fallacy of alarmist claims of global warming.

Enclosed was a clipping of our May 3 editorial, “Rice shortages here, but a crisis abroad.” Circled in ink was this offending sentence, labeled as a “totally unfounded statement!”

"Because of the effects of global warming, climate experts predict that 40 percent of the world will suffer from severe drought by 2100, compared to 18 percent today."

Global-warming deniers make me crazy. Of course the editorial writer – Cheryl Tucker in this case – didn’t just make it up. The prediction comes from scientists at Britain’s government-funded Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.

Yes, a handful of scientists dispute the prevailing scientific view that human activities are affecting the world’s climate and that the long-term effects could be potentially disastrous, especially for the world’s poorest nations. But they are in a tiny minority, and their views are seized upon by those of a conservative bent opposed to government “interference” with economic activity.

(The scientific consensus can be found in the latest report of the authoritative, United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.)

The best – and highly readable – book I've found on climate change is "The Weather Makers," by Tim Flannery. I recommend it to people who aren't sure whether to take the threat of climate change seriously.

Complaints from Puyallup’s downtown merchants about parking problems associated with the Sounder station in Puyallup should be kept in perspective. Over the long term, the station will be a big asset to Puyallup. Short-term solution would be promoting shuttle bus service, timed to train arrivals, from outlying park and ride lots.

We endorse Central Pierce Fire & Rescue's $36 million bond proposal for upgrading facililties used to protect the lives and property of 160,000 residents.
(The previously scheduled School of the Arts editorial has been postponed.)

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

The Olympian reported Saturday that the Health Care Authority plans to spend another $9 million on a computer project that the Legislature meant to cancel.

The state already has spent $7 million to replace the 30-year-old system that handles public employee health insurance. But in March, budget writers who were trying to scare up extra dollars spied the project and grabbed the $14 million that had been earmarked for it.

As it turns out, that wasn't enough to kill it. Lawmakers missed $9 million left over from the original budget. Now the Health Care Authority is taking a gamble that the Legislature will think better of its decision to call off the project.

The agency plans to sink millions more into a new computer system that lawmakers don't want, despite a warning from Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Bellevue. He opposed canceling the project, but says there is no mistaking that's exactly what the Legislature intended to do.

State bureaucrats might just be borrowing a page from lawmakers' playbook. The same budget that supposedly defunded the health insurance computer system also spent $7.5 million to build computer systems for two programs – paid family leave and working family tax rebates – that might never get off the ground.

Perhaps the state can sell off the spare parts to help cover the $2 billion budget shortfall it will be facing next year.

Hat tip to Jason Mercier at the Washington Policy Center. See his blog here.

This won't come as any surprise to working mothers, but the truth is that they have two jobs: one at home, and another in the workplace.

In time for Mother's Day, the conservative Heritage Foundation reports that mothers put in the equivalent of 150 eight-hour work days a year on household and parental responsibilities.

Making meals accounts for 52.5 days, housework for 50.7 days, caring for children 31.5 days and "engaging with children" 22.2 days. I'm not sure how that last one counts as work, but hey, these aren't my numbers.

A couple more Heritage factoids:

Twenty-five years ago, women overtook men in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded each year. A few years later, more women than men also were earning master's degrees. Today, women hold more than half of all professionally related jobs and are closing in on half of the management, business and finance jobs.

On the personal side, though, the marriage rate for women fell 25 percent from 1990 to 2005, analysts for The Heritage Foundation note. By 2004, the proportion of women ages 40 to 44 who were not yet mothers -- 19 percent -- was nearly double the number in 1976.

Not so long ago, the topic of motherhood was a political battleground between conservatives and feminists. Now both sides recognize the issue is more complex for women who want to balance careers and families. This column by Heritage's Jennifer Marshall on moms and careers reflects the more nuanced view that conservative commentators offer these days.

I read government meeting agendas. It's a bad habit, but I learn things.

Like the fact that Tacoma Rail plans to run five excursion trains from Freighthouse Square to Northwest Trek this summer – if Metro Parks Tacoma gives its blessing Monday.

If the park board approves, the all-day excursions will run June 7, July 12, Aug. 9, Sept. 20 and Oct. 11, departing at 9 a.m. and returning to Tacoma at 5:30 p.m.

Trek naturalsits and Tacoma Rail staff will be augmented with local historians and train buffs who will provide narration along the route. Tacoma Rail;s business car will be programmed by Trek staff to provide a unique experience for our younger passengers and their families.

Passengers will be shuttled to the wildlife park by school buses and have three hours for the visit. Ticket prices will be $40 for outh, $55 for seniors and $60 for adults.

Here's what makes my eyebrows shoot up: Staff believes each trip will net $4,000 for Trek.

Sounds pretty optimistic to me. But this will be a good test of the excursion market that Tacoma Rail and city officials hope to tap with a "Train to the Mountain" operation some day.

The biggest hurdle is finding upwards of $20 million to upgrade rail tracks to handle a faster, passenger-speed train. I'm skeptical that there's enough demand for a train on a route that for the most part is not especially scenic and would involve a bus ride from the Elbe area to Paradise at Mount Rainier.

But the dream just won't die . . .

Tacoman Nick Briejer has a big heart and knows how to swing a hammer.

He’s pretty good with words, too, so you’ll enjoy his freelance article about poverty in Haiti on the cover of Sunday’s Insight section (online here beginning Sunday).

Briejer has previously done some opinion articles for us, but it wasn’t until I talked to him about this one (via email) that I realized how much of a humanitarian he is.

Here’s what Briejer told me when I asked to know more about his involvement with Haiti and his life in Tacoma:

It costs about $1500.00 a trip. That includes the flights (eight in total), a bed, a mosquito net, and a hot meal every night.

About that author's description. Heck, I don't know anymore. I used to own a construction company and was an employer and businessman. I did pretty good. My wife is a part-time physician.

When my youngest was born (his sixth birthday was last Friday) I closed down my business to become the "flexible" parent and went back to undergraduate school as a thirty-eight year old college freshman at Evergreen. Graduated with an MFA from Antioch in '04.

I spend about twenty hours a week writing a book about my maternal grandparent's struggle to save Jews in Nazi occupied Holland (supposed to be done in the fall). During this time I also started a home-building program in northwest Haiti.

I locate funding and coordinate the program from here. A Haitian pastor manages the program in Haiti. We have built eighteen homes in the last three years for families who suffer from a lack of adequate shelter (sounds impressive, and it is, but doesn't take much time).

I spend a lot of time raising my two of my three kids (one's away in college)--shopping for food, cooking (not much at cleaning). I spend ample time sitting and thinking and playing too much chess. I have no gainful employment, though I've heard rumors that I will be finding some in the near future. I think I want to teach. So, there it is. I seriously do not know what I am--besides happy.

What everybody wants to know – well, me at least – is when the Metro Parks board is finally going to decide where and how to replace the aging Titlow Pool?

That's what I asked parks commissioner Victoria Woodards when I caught up with her at a community event this week. After all, it's been two years since voters approved an $84 million bond issue that included $6 million for a pool replacement. The longer the board dallies, the less that $6 million will buy due to rising construction costs.

Woodards was braced for the question. In about a month, she said, the board may approve a plan aimed at building both a family play pool and a 50-meter lap pool.

The park district will concentrate on finishing other major bond projects, including new South End Community Center, allowing to time to seek the additional funding – about $4 million to $6 million – that will be needed to build both pools, she said.

Woodard's response suggests the board doesn't want to anger the influential Tacoma Swim Club and fitness swimmers who want a pool suitable for competitive training. Given their druthers, parks administrators probably would rather build a family-style play pool like the district's popular East Side community pool.

I happen to favor the latter option: Kandle Playfield on the West Side is a good, well-located spot for it. But I'm not the one who'd feel the heat from the competitive swimmers. And nearby residents don't want the added traffic and loss of open space.

I know that Commissioner Ryan Mello, for one, doesn't want to locate a new pool complex at Titlow because environmentalists would like to restore the lagoon there for salmon habitat. New regulations might rule out the existing site anyway.

That leaves district-owned property on the hill south of Metro Parks headquarters, near Cheney Stadium, but the topography is challenging and it's probably the most expensive construction option.

If the board pursues a two-pool strategy, it will be banking on getting future appropriations from the Legislature. And next year, lawmakers will face a projected $2.4 billion shortfall.

Strikes me as a risky bet. Bottom line:Taxpayers are already paying for a new pool with an opening date nowhere in sight.

This is the Superdelegate Moment. So why are seven of Washington's Democratic superdelegates still sitting on the fence?

Here's the AP's breakdown of which superdelegate is committed to which candidate:

For Clinton:
Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell, Rep. Norm Dicks, Rep. Jay Inslee, King County Executive Ron Sims

For Obama:
Rep. Adam Smith, Gov. Chris Gregoire, Rep. Brian Baird, Rep. Rick Larsen, Democratic National Committee member Pat Notter

You can really understand where Murray and Cantwell are coming from. They're going to have to live with Clinton in the U.S. Senate for who knows how many years to come.

Now here are the Profiles in Courage, i.e., the Still Undecided:

U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, Former House Speaker Tom Foley, State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz, Vice Chairwoman Eileen Macoll, DNC member Ed Cote, DNC member Sharon Mast, DNC member David McDonald

At this point, you've got to wonder what these Hamlets are holding out for.

More cage-fighting between Obama and Clinton?

More backlash from Hillary's "hardworking Americans, white Americans"?

A steel press to crush what remains of her grasping, steel Terminator skeleton?

A tropical cyclone to tell them which way the wind's blowing?

John McCain's inauguration?

The possible redevelopment of the large swath of land that includes Cheney Stadium, Foss High School, Metro Parks headquarters and Heidelberg Park doesn't appear to be on the fast track that some in the community have feared.

At today's Joint Municipal Action Committee meeting, representatives from Metro Parks and the City of Tacoma asked staff to put the brakes on a plan to hold public brainstorming sessions later this month.

Councilman Jake Fey and parks Commissioner Tim Reid both said they want to wait until a title search is complete so deed restrictions can be part of the public discussion about what's possible at 19th Street and Tyler.

That search should be complete soon. The new plan is to schedule two public meetings in mid- and late June.

Among the JMAC members present, it was Tacoma City Councilwoman Connie Ladenburg who seemed to be most itching to get the project going – not surprising given her husband, Pierce County executive John Ladenburg, first suggested remaking the site. She quizzed city staff about how long it would take to change allowable density and height restrictions to permit construction of a mixed use center that includes retail and housing. (Answer: Two years, one for a comp plan amendment and one for zoning changes).

At one point, when a JMAC member said there is no reason to rush the proposal, Connie replied half-jokingly, "I would disagree because I'm running out of time." (Maybe. She's hoping to get the city to toss council term limits.)

Connie got some ribbing from fellow members for wanting to get going on "Ladenburg Square." Reid, the parks commissioner, suggested she shouldn't be in such a hurry. In Metro Parks' world, no one gets anything named after them until they're dead.

Saturday:

We’ve always strongly supported bans on smoking in restaurants and other public spaces. But we had no idea that one of the side benefits would be a reduction in teen smoking. All the better!

Sunday:

We expect our solidiers in Iraq to face deadly dangers in combat or on patrol. But we don’t expect them to risk death when they take a shower. Authorities should go full bore in investigating the failure of giant U.S. contractor KBR to address complaints about faulty wiring that has killed a number of Gis in base showers. Outrageous is too mild a word for this.

We’re just tickled that one of Washington’s trophy wildlife species, the rare giant Palouse earthworm, may not be so rare after all, according to scientists. This critter grows up to three feet long, but it’s almost as elusive as the Sasquatch. Who knew such wonders lurked under our state’s soil?

Monday:

The WSU football team will be penalized eight scholarships due to poor academic progress among players during the tenure of retired WSU coach Bill Doba. It’s not hard to conclude – and Doba all but admits – that the program lowered standards for the sake of winning.
Being the only Pac-10 football team thus penalized is nothing to brag about.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Democrat Darcy Burner's chronic campaign to unseat Rep. Dave Reichert in the Eighth Congressional District has come up with an ingenious appeal for donations.

Burner isn't asking for money to fill an all-purpose war chest to pay for generic campaign expenses. In a hypertexted e-mail, she gives you a choice of which particular expense you'd prefer to cover.

E.g.:

Click here to help us purchase 1 night of dinner for our volunteers for $27

Click here to help us purchase 1 case of recycled paper for $39

Click here to help us purchase 20 cases of bottled water for $71

Click here to help us purchase 500 stamps for $210

The inspiration here has to be those charities that advertise a winsome-but-hungry-looking Guatamalan girl named Maria, or equally winsome Malaysian girl named Nurul, or whatever, and ask if you are willing to let the waif starve when you could sustain her life for $32 a year.

Your donation, of course, goes into the charity's general operating fund, where it probably belongs.

Question for the Burner campaign: What if too many donors want to buy pizzas for the volunteers and too few want to buy boxes of mailing labels? Do the volunteers get fat and the mailers not go out?

Not that I wouldn't trust Burner to earmark my $39 strictly for that case of recycled paper. But to keep all the donations straight, she's going to have to add another donation opportunity:

Click here for a small army of accountants

One of the arguments U.S. Sen. Patty Murray has raised against allowing Airbus/Northrop Grumman to build Air Force refueling tankers is that it will put sensitive U.S. military technology in foreign hands.

Let's see if she raises a similar stink about an Italian company's plans to buy DRS Technologies, a U.S. company that is a major technology supplier to the U.S. military.

Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Finmeccanica SpA, an Italian aerospace and defense firm, is negotiating to purchase DRS, which supplies advanced technology for the Aegis destroyer and the Abrams tank, among other things. The Journal notes:

The deal would be the latest strategic move by European aerospace and defense companies maneuving for better footholds in the world's biggest defense maret. It also would be a test for U.S. regulators, given the Italian government's roughly one-third ownership of Finmeccanica.

Elsewhere, the Journal also notes that U.S. defense contractors are going after lucrative contracts to provide border-security technology to foreign nations.
Raytheon Co. last fall beat out a British bidder for a $1.5 billion contract to build a new computer screening system designed to watch for terrorists and smugglers at British borders.

My point: Our defense companies want to sell to the world. Foreign defense companies want to sell to the U.S. It's a two-way street.

If you’re planning to attend the re-opening celebration for Tacoma’s spiffed-up Wright Park Saturday, you might bring your laptop.

Turns out Metro Parks has already turned the century-old park into a giant free hotspot for wireless Internet service. Now you can commune with nature and do your email or spreadsheets at the same time.

I saw a “wireless pilot program” mentioned in an invitation to the re-opening event, which starts at 1 p.m. Metro Parks spokeswoman Nancy Johnson explained:

We’re conducting the wireless pilot project, in response to expressed community interest for expanded wifi access points throughout the city and our desire to help draw folks out of their homes and back into the outdoors.

We chose Wright Park for the pilot for a number of reasons – potential value for downtown business people, convention attendees and nearby students from Stadium and UPS campus.

We’ve been contemplating ways to combat the impact that technology seems to be having on the amount of time folks spend outdoors. Commissioner (Ryan) Mello initially brought the idea forward, so he may have more to add to that.

The tag line we came up with for the service is Parks, Where People Connect…intended obviously as a double entendre not only to mean connecting to the internet, but also connecting with nature, each other, etc.

=> Read more!

Is the junta in Myanmar really so depraved that it would prevent or hinder relief from getting to a nation devastated by a cyclone?
It looks that way.

Lakewood’s plans to make over Ponders Corner is a big step forward in the city’s effort to shore up its most troubled neighborhoods.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Want to party with Mike Lonergan? Here's your chance.

Running for Pierce County executive as the standard bearer of the "Executive Excellence Party," the current Tacoma City Council member will hold his nominating convention at 10 a.m. Saturday at Oscar's Restaurant, 8820 S. Hosmer St., Tacoma.

Breakfast with Lonergan and friends starts at 9 a.m. He didn't say whether it's free.

His announcement also says it's a "photo opportunity." That was probably a hint for us media types, but he surely wouldn't mind if the party faithful or even the merely curious want to take a few snaps.

Lonergan decided to run as a minor-party candidate after his bid to run as a Republican was rejected by the county GOP. He says:

Now we'll find out whether or not it's going to be politics as ususal in 2008. I predict voters from both parties will get behind an executive with actual leadership experience, so we can take Pierce County government to a higher level.

If Dems have the donkey and the Republicans have the elephant, what should be the symbol of the Executive Excellence Party? A Blackberry? An expensive fountain pen? That's a hard one . . . Mike, do you have the answer?

The outcome of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in North Carolina and Indiana was what the Democratic Party needed: A clear signal that Hillary Clinton has no good reason to prolong the debilitating battle with Obama. A graceful concession would enhance her stature and leave her well-positioned for the future.

The state Public Disclosure Commission has shamefully ignored blatant election fraud by gambling interests in Tacoma’s vote on casinos.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to david.seago@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Washington's U.S. Sen. Patty Murray took to the Senate floor again today to argue that Boeing's proposed version of aerial refueling tanker is the one the Air Force should have chosen.

This time Murray focused on the Boeing model's superior "survivability" – its ability to perform and protect its crew in combat situations. And she effectively cited the view of a former Air Force chief of staff who said he was surprised the Air Force didn't pick the Boeing plane for that reason.

Murray said:

Mr. President, let me take a moment now to explain what I’m talking about when I say that Boeing’s plane was more survivable. Survivability refers to the ability to keep the warfighter safe. According to Ronald Fogleman, a former Air Force chief of staff and retired general, the more survivable tanker would have the systems to identify and defeat threats, avoid threats, and protect the crew in the event of an attack.

General Fogleman said he was surprised that the Air Force selected Airbus’s tanker, even though it ranked lower in all of these areas. He said, “When I saw the Air Force’s assessment of both candidate aircraft in the survivability area, I was struck by the fact that they clearly saw the KC-767 as the more survivable tanker.”

And he added that he believes the KC-767 is better for the warfighter – and for the military. This is how he put it. He said: “The KC-767 has a superior survivability rating and will have greater operational utility to the joint commander – and provide better protection to air crews that must face real-world threats.”

Listen to Murray's speech here.

Spiritual descendants of legendary Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky visited with the TNT ed board today. They went away frustrated.

Not because editorial writer Kim Bradford and I were unreceptive to their broad goals – which are entirely laudable – but because we felt they didn’t have enough specifics for us to promise a supportive editorial. Their efforts may make news, however if they start getting traction.

Our visitors, which included the presidents of the teacher unions in the Bethel and Tacoma school districts, a local Teamsters leader, a Tacoma church representative and two trained community organizers, are part of an activist coalition called the Sound Alliance.

The alliance plans a “founding assembly” June 1 at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center. (Registration here). Organizers hope at least 2,000 people will turn out to hear an “Agenda for the Common Good” presented to government and business leaders.

Our visitors told us “specific action strategies” will be outlined at the Tacoma event. House Speaker Frank Chopp and other legislators, they said, have promised to attend, and they’ve invited the governor. They hope the invited leaders will publicly commit to the action items.

The Sound Alliance is a project of the Industrial Areas Foundation Northwest, an affiliate of the Chicago-based IAF founded by Alinsky in 1940. Alinsky’s trademark was forming community-based coalitions of labor groups and working-class people to “work inside the system” for justice and social change.

Viewed by critics as a radical leftist, Alinsky was actually a great believer in democracy – a view our visitors emphasized as well. Sound Alliance, they told us, wants to break down social isolation and “give people a voice in this democracy.”

One Sound Alliance priority is promoting more career training for the majority of high schools who don’t go on to earn a college degree. The alliance is working with several Pierce County school districts to make students aware of apprenticeships and job opportunities in the construction trades.

TNT education reporter Debby Abe wrote this article in February that cited the alliance’s Opportunity Works NW collaboration with the schools.

Here's an honor I'd like to see a Tacoma school superintendent win some day: A statewide "most effective administrator" award.

That's a title University Place School District Superintendent Patti Banks now claims. She and a school official from Everett were named today as recipients, in the large-district category, of the 2008 Robert J. Handy Most Effective Administrator Award.

The award by the Washington Association of School Administrators goes to administrators whose districts most exemplify nine characteristics of high-performing schools identified by the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Banks, head of UP schools since 1999, is known for a determined focus on academic achievement. University Place test scores have gained significantly in recent years, even as the district enrollment has grown more diverse and gained more low-income students.

From the WASA announcement:

“(Banks) has engaged the entire district school community in supporting and actively carrying out the district vision of improved student achievement with a common and research-based learning focus that is shared at the primary, intermediate, and secondary levels,” cited the nomination. It also stated that she articulates a clear district-wide vision of learning improvement goals and leads buildings administrators in establishing non-negotiable instructional strategies that are supported by research.

Banks told WASA:

“I am proud of the significant student achievement gains in my district, but cannot take credit for them. Instead, that credit belongs to a strong, student centered, and supportive board of directors; an exceptionally focused and talented administrative team; an extraordinary teaching and support staff; and a community that cares deeply about its schools.

Here's a February news story about University Place's special emphasis on bolstering achievement by young black male students.

Hands down, it's the most mysterious creature in the Pacific Northwest.

It eats dirt and it poops dirt; that much we know. It spits mucous at attackers; that much we believe. It is so elusive that few human beings have seen one.

It's the giant Palouse earthworm. Yes, earthworm – kind of a terrestrial geoduck with awful table manners and a Greta Garbo-like obsession with avoiding the limelight. The Palouse worm, which has been measured as long as three feet, just wants to be left alone.

Which creates a problem for its defenders.

Logically, the giant worm should be on its last legs, if it had legs. Its presumed habitat, the dry Palouse grasslands of Eastern Washington and Idaho, was long ago put under the plow and overrun by nightcrawlers and other wriggling, pinkish invaders of European ancestry. (Indians will find the story familiar.)

Champions of that habitat want the worm listed under the Endangered Species Act. Last October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service turned down their petition.

Why?

=> Read more!

The continuous cycle of fundraising breakfasts, lunches and dinners many local nonprofit groups stage can be hard on the wallet and the wasteline for faithful community supporters.

They can be tedious, too. But this morning's Goodwill Industries event was a good one. A good-sized crowd at the Greater Tacoma Conventer Center heard an engaging talk by "Chef Jeff" Henderson, the reformed ex-con who became a celebrity chef.

More importantly, Goodwill CEO Terry Hayes announced that supporters have raised 75 percent of the $20 million needed to build a new "work opportunity center" at its campus on South 27th Street and Tacoma Avenue South. As a result, the Goodwill board has green-lighted construction; groundbreaking is scheduled in June, with opening in the fall of 2009.

Other organizations that receive federal workforce training dollars will join Goodwill in offering education and training for people with disabilities or other disadvantages creating barriers to employment. The new center will allow Good will to triple the number of job-training clients it serves.

Kudos to John and Buzz Folsom, indefatigable community volunteers, for co-chairing the Goodwill capital campaign. Only 20 percent of the fundng is coming from government; Goodwill is financing about 30 percent, and private gifts the rest.

Did this kid take his firearms safety course from Dick Cheney?

CENTRAL POINT, Ore. (AP) — A 65-year-old man escaped serious injuries when he was hit in the back and face by shotgun blasts from a teenage hunter who mistook him for a turkey.

Oregon State Police say Jerry Barrett of Central Point was hit with about 130 shotgun pellets while he was scouting for turkeys for a future hunt.
The 14-year-old Medford boy who shot him was hunting with a friend and their fathers when they realized what happened and called police.

Doctors told Barrett it would do more damage to remove the pellets so they gave him a tetanus shot and some medication, and sent him home.
Troopers decided not to issue any citations.

Now if Barrett hadn't been gobbling and scratching for crickets, things might have turned out differently.

Here's evidence that Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, who kicked off his campaign for state attorney general Monday, has some work to do in upping his name recognition outside the South Sound.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times has now corrected the mistake.

Albert Einstein worried about hominid apes getting their hands on nuclear weapons. Heck, I'm worried about them getting their hands on steering wheels.

David Wickert's story Sunday on the crackdown on road rage prompted an inquiry into this manifestation of the savage within us. (See our editorial.)

Most amazing was the utter pettiness of the provocations that led drivers to ram, run over, shoot and attack others with tire irons, hatchets, baseball bats, etc. (By the way, you get 10 points if you can connect this cute bichon frise to road rage. Answer below.)

Examples of ragers' complaints:

"She wouldn't let me pass." "Nobody gives me the finger." "Playing the radio too loud" (the loud radio resulted in a shooting).

Want to know if you're a rager? RoadRagers.com offers a self test. I took it, and I'll have you know that I am a "safe driver" with a 40 percent aggressiveness rating (I don't strictly adhere to the posted speed limit) and a 95 percent courtesy rating (I always signal, let people in, etc.) Such a nice guy (but don't ask me how I drove when I was 28).

How about the rest of the country? According to RoadRagers.com, 68 percent of Americans (as of 2004) said they were tail-gaters; 41 percent were headlight-flashers; 70 percent were horn-honkers; 67 percent were cell-phone drivers, 77 percent used obscene gestures – but 76 percent said they "try to be a polite and courteous driver."

Not trying too hard, it sounds like.

=> Read more!

Ouch. The New York Times carried a three-quarter-page feature recently on the rising popularity of links-style golf courses in the U.S. – and nary a word about our new Chambers Bay Golf Course.

Color photos showed links courses at Kiawah Island (S.C.), Whistling Straits (Wis.) and Carnoustie (Scotland), but Chambers Bay was a no-show. I quickly scanned the story. Bandon Dunes in Oregon was mentioned, but not a word about Pierce County Exec John Ladenburg's pride and joy.

Sigh. Anyhow, writer Bill Pennington sought to capture the essence of playing a tough links-style course in the spirit of the early Scots who established the game "on a windswept hunk of land in the Kingdom of Fife." (I don't think he meant Fife, Wash., Distribution Center and Car Lot Capital of the World.)

When you are done with your links experience, you will remember the windswept views, the peculiar terrain and the elevation changes. You will remember the blind shots and may a great shot out of a pot bunker. You may even take some wild fescue home with you wrapped around the hosel of your pitching wedge.

Chances are, you will not remember how many golf balls you lost. Or how your score was. And that is as it should be.

That fits Chambers Bay to a tee.

Tim Eyman's latest plug for donations sounds like a Jerry Lewis telethon.

“I’m jumping off a big cliff, please help catch me,” Eyman pleaded in his intimate, personal email today to “thousands of supporters throughout the state” and every member of the media, the Legislature and the governor.

Last week, the prolific professional initiative promoter announced he was taking a $250,000 loan on his mortgage to finance his latest venture, Initiative 985. In his follow-up appeal, Eyman wrote:

Your donation is needed to secure $30,000 grant to I-985 -- your
contribution is worth double this month -- matching program in May gets the
ball rolling in retiring my loan and ensuring I-985 qualifies for the ballot

The source of the matching grant is the Sam Adams Alliance, described thusly in this note from an alliance leader:

Your situation reminds me of why we launched the Sam Adams Alliance: America needs a political network that stands outside of the partisan struggle for power; a network of effective leaders and citizen watchdogs who can hold politicians and bureaucrats accountable without trying to take their place. The Sam Adams Alliance was formed to connect and support these citizen leaders across the country.

“Without trying to take their place?” Hmm.... could have fooled me. Check out Olympia reporter Chris Mulick’s take on this at his Tri-City Herald blog.

Billboard-haters have another reason to grit their teeth.

A new monstrosity-in-waiting appeard this morning near the Puyallup exit off Interstate 5 in Tacoma, just east of the Tacoma Dome.

Yep, it was inevitable: The Puyallup Tribe is putting up one of those huge, state-of-the-art, super-bright electronic billboards to advertise the Emerald Queen Casino. The tribe can do it because highway beautification laws don't apply on property held in federal trust for tribal members.

This one will be a whopper: Although it was still on the ground when I saw it, the top of the sign will be a large yellow logo bearing the casino's "EQC" trademark.

If that wasn't bad enough, a few minutes later I discovered that another tribal-trust billboard at the top of Norpoint Way in Northeast Tacoma has been erected. I thought it was divine justice when the first billboard on the spot, in the parking lot of a defunct Indian smokeshop, collapsed in a heap a month or two ago.

I wish the Puyallups well, but those billboards sure feel like a poke in eye.

I was part of a News Tribune team that participated in Saturday's Operation Graffiti Cover-Up sponsored by Safe Streets. If you read today's story about the local graffiti
problem, you know it's not only creating blight in the community, but it's also draining budgets of local agencies like Metro Parks and school districts as they try to quickly get rid of gang tagging on their property.

More than 200 residents from around Pierce County gathered at the South End Neighborhood Center before going out and cleaning up 102 graffiti sites. (Puyallup and Lakewood held separate cover-ups.) The TNT team worked with some great folks: an East Side mom and her girls, a MultiCare employee and her girls, and a Habitat for Humanity mom and her boys (who got almost as much paint on themselves and they did on the graffiti).

Our group painted over gang tags at three sites along South McKinley Avenue. Even though it was raining lightly, we were able to cover up a lot of unsightly graffiti.

I'll definitely participate in any upcoming cover-up event. My only suggestions for improving it would be to cut the speechifying by at least half before sending us out to paint, and ask people to bring their own paint rollers if they have any. We could have worked even faster if our group had had more rollers and fewer paintbrushes.

Tacoma Port Director Tim Farrell and his wife, Jessyn, happily announced a special delivery on the first of May.

Emaline Muriel Farrell, their first child, entered the world safe and sound.

From the Farrells:

Dear Family and Friends,

We are delighted to introduce you to our daughter Emaline Muriel Farrell.

Her name is pronounced "EM-align", a name we discovered and love. Muriel is Tim's late Mom's name.

Emaline was born at 7:19 p.m. on May 1, 2008, weighing 7 pounds and measuring 20 inches long. Everyone is happy and healthy.

Thank you for all of your expressions of love and support. We'll send another note with pictures very soon!

With Love and Affection,
The Mommy and Daddy formerly known as
Jessyn and Tim

Jessyn Farrell is on leave from her job as director of Transportation Choices, a pro-transit advocacy group. For some reason, neither parent thought naming the baby "Freight Mobility Farrell" was a good idea.

Mike Lonergan is making Pierce County political history by forming the "Executive Excellence Party" to back his bid for county executive in November. His strategy is to tout himself as the only executive candidate with experience as a chief executive.

Not a bad idea. Among his rivals, neither County Councilman Shawn Bunney, R-Lake Tapps, or County Councilman Calvin Goings, D-Puyallup, has experience managing a large organization.

Lonergan cites his experience as a director of the local Salvation Army and later the Tacoma Rescue Mission. But what about Democrat Pat McCarthy, who has run the county auditor's office for six years. I don't have the auditor's budget at hand, but I'd wager it has a staff and budget comparable to the Rescue Mission.

From themission website:

The Mission’s current annual operating budget is 3.775 million with 67 full and part-time staff

I think McCarthy could legitimately claim chief executive experience. While her budget is determined by the executive and the council, she alone manages the county's licensing functions and its elections. Oh, yes, she oversees the county's animal control service now, too.

So you could say McCarthy is absolutely qualified to run for dogcatcher.

One of the first people I met in Tacoma after taking this job was Felix Flannigan, executive director of the Martin Luther King Housing Development Association.

At the time (February 2005), he was pitching a plan to build a $16 million retail and office complex at its former headquarters at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and South 11th Street in the Hilltop. Demolition was due to start that fall.

More than three years later, I am driving up 11th and see a backhoe ripping into a building next door to the Monsoon Room. After my double take reassures me that the bar itself isn't in danger (it makes a mean mai tai), I get to wondering whether this isn't Flannigan's project come to fruition at last.

Turns out, it is. Flannigan said MLKHDA has already torn down a former doctor's office at J and 10th and is now working on demolishing the building where the Paulson family once ran an appliance repair shop. On May 12, down comes the bank building that housed the association's offices.

In its place, Flannigan plans to erect two six-story buildings attached by a 325-stall parking garage. Plans call for retail and office space, apartments, a child care center and MLKHDA offices.

In all, the buildings will have 330,000 square feet and cost $25 million. Flannigan says he was hoping to buy up more of the block, but the owners of the buildings that include Monsoon and shops along 11th were either unwilling to sell or wanted too much money.

The project does hinge on getting the Hilltop's height restrictions lifted, which is far from assured.

Dave Seago and I visited Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg this morning. Before delving into a number of other issues, we had to ask him the burning question of the day: Can Chambers Bay's tree be saved?

As Dave Wickert reported today, the Doug fir won't necessarily die from the hacking it received Tuesday night. But Ladenburg said that even if it lives, the tree's structural integrity might be too compromised to leave it standing near a popular walking path.

The county has had several offers – from Cascadia developer Patrick Kuo and Weyerhaeuser, among others – for a replacement tree. A few years ago, the famed Pebble Beach course lost its iconic 67-foot cypress to lightning and disease. The course went to great lengths to find a twin.

Ladenburg says the $1,000 reward for information about those responsible for taking an ax to the Chambers Bay tree is working its magic: Sheriff Paul Pastor told him there are two suspects.

UPDATE: Wickert checked with the sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer, who says they do NOT have suspects in the case. They’re working several leads from Crime Stoppers, as they do in any case. But often those do not pan out.

Tacoma City Councilman Mike Lonergan was planning to run for Pierce County Executive as an independent. Then he was going to run as a Republican. Now he's got a new strategy: Form his own party.

Lonergan ran a notice in The News Tribune classifieds this week announcing that the "Executive Excellence" party's nominating convention – called for the sole purpose of nominating one Mike Lonergan for county executive – will be held at 9 a.m. May 10 at King Oscar Tacoma Inn, 8820 S. Hosmer in Tacoma.

State law used to require minor party candidates to hold nominating conventions attended by at least 100 people, but under the new Top Two election system, conventions are no longer required. The Secretary of State clarified the issue after Lonergan had already booked the banquet room at King Oscar, so the candidate decided to go ahead and stage the convention/campaign rally anyway.

Why the switch from independent to the "Executive Excellence" party (which will have to be shortened to Exec Excellence to fit on the ballot)? Lonergan said the label makes it clearer to voters why he's running. "I'm the only candidate in the race who has chief executive experience," he said.

Seattle's experience with banning sales of high-octane booze would suggest such efforts amount to a fool’s errand. As fast as cities outlaw one kind of fortified beer and wine, distributors and retailers find a way around the prohibition.

Or so it seems, judging by the results of the Emerald City's attempt to rout rotgut alcohol from certain neighborhoods where public drunkenness is a problem. A policy adviser to Mayor Greg Nickels reported this week that stores are skirting the ban by selling the same products under different labels.

Greg Hopkins isn't worried that the same thing will happen in Tacoma. He's the police officer who has bird dogged alcohol sales on the Hilltop, downtown and much of the North End since Tacoma adopted the state's first alcohol impact area in 2002.

Hopkins says distributors here don't play those games any longer. He knows because he checks up on retailers every day. If they have a product on their shelves that’s too potent or cheap, Hopkins calls the distributor stocking that store. The booze is pulled or the price raised.

=> Read more!

Washington's labor leaders and social-justice activists are frustrated: Not one member of the state's congressional delegation has come out against a proposed free-trade pact with Colombia.

Not even the seven House Democrats – including U.S. Reps. Norm Dicks and Adam Smith – who often side with labor. The Washington Fair Trade Coalition wants to know why they won't join a majority of their fellow Demcrats in opposing the trade deal.

"It goes without saying that if it were CEOs rather than union members being regularly murdered in Colombia the US would never have considered negotiating this trade agreement," comments Rick Bender of the Washington State Labor Council. "It is unacceptable to ignore the continued violation of human rights in Colombia."

It's kind of a funny question, because the coalition's latest public complaint – full text below – itself provides the answer: "Washington is a very trade-dependent state" it acknowledges.

I imagine Dicks and Smith don't mind that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi maneuvered to prevent the House from having to vote on the pact before November. The House was supposed to vote on the pact within 90 days after President Bush sent it to Congress last month. But House leaders simply changed the rules.

Democrats or not, our representatives in the other Washington know that international trade butters a lot of bread in this state. One of every six jobs is said to be trade-related. Trade through the ports of Tacoma and Seattle generates a big chunk of the region's economy.

Here's our most recent editorial on this issue.

=> Read more!

Longtime KIRO radio host Bob Pittman signed off the air for good last month. In this note, he recounts how his radio gig started with a letter to the editor published in The News Tribune.

Radio journey began
with letter to the editor

About 18 years ago, I wrote my first letter to the editor. It was about a lawyer's responsibility to educate the public. As I recall, I was annoyed with living trust scams that were blowing through town and I wrote to lay partial blame at the feet of the lawyers. Lawyers have a responsibility to educate the public and we had fallen down on the job, I said. I lamented that people were afraid of lawyers and so fell victim more readily to the bad guys.

Because of that letter I did a guest appearance on a local Tacoma radio program that led to a guest appearance on KIRO radio in Seattle. My guest work resulted in an invitation to host a legal advice program on the 50,000-watt blowtorch that was KIRO, with the likes of Jim French and Dave Ross. Cisco was yet to come, and John Carlson was just getting started.

"Legal Line with Bob Pittman" aired on a Saturday evening way back in 1991 and proceeded to march through time until the broadcast fell victim to the budgetary meat ax of weekend infomercials, some 17 years later, this April.

Each weekend I had the privilege of demystifying the law, translating the legalese and pointing people in the right direction with regard to their legal problems, all because of a letter to the editor I wrote so many years ago. Thanks for the memories.

Bob Pittman
University Place

We're all delighted about Congress' belated creation of the Wild Sky Wilderness Area, which will put 106,000 acres of the Cascade Mountains under federal protection.

But there's a curious omission in this excerpted press release from the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and other enviros. Can you spot it? (Answer below.)

Wild Sky Wilderness Passes Congress

Conservation Community Celebrates Congressman Larsen's and Senator Murray's Commitment to Washington's Wilderness

Seattle – After years of work, supporters of the Wild Sky Wilderness Act (H.R. 886/S. 520) celebrated today as the legislation passed Congress and was sent to the White House for final approval. Conservationists praised Congressman Larsen and Senator Murray for their unwavering commitment to Washington's wildlands and thanked them for their support of the people and the places that make Washington state such a great place to call home.

"Congressman Larsen and Senator Murray are true heroes of our state's environment. They have never stopped fighting for Wild Sky and today we can finally start celebrating the first new wilderness in Washington in more than 20 years,” said Tom Uniack, Conservation Director of the Washington Wilderness Coalition. "Senator Murray and Representative Larsen are fortunate to have had strong support from Washington's congressional delegation throughout this process, including Congressmen Jay Inslee and Norm Dicks and Senator Maria Cantwell.”

After more than six years of legislative action, the Wild Sky Wilderness Act has now passed both the House and Senate and is headed to the President's desk, where he is expected to sign the bill into law.

The omission: U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert – a co-sponsor and champion of the Wild Sky bill.

Reichert is hardly lacking in green credentials. But this is an election year. Heaven forbid that an ounce of credit, for anything, should go to a Republican up for re-election.

State lands commissioner Doug Sutherland's re-election bid is blessed by no less than "the Father of Washington Conservation."

At least that's the sobriquet bestowed upon Jim Ellis, who will be the main speaker at Sutherland's campaign kickoff event on May 21 at the Hilton Bellevue.

The honorific is not much of an exaggeration. Here's a description from the History Link website:

A retired municipal bond lawyer, James R. Ellis has never held public office, never headed a major corporation, and never been rich. Yet he has left a bigger footprint on Seattle and King County than perhaps any other single individual, as a citizen activist for more than half a century.

He was a leader in the campaigns to clean up Lake Washington in the 1950s; to finance mass transit, parks, pools, and other public facilities through "Forward Thrust" bonds in the 1960s; to preserve farmlands in the 1970s; to build and later expand the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in the 1980s, and to establish the Mountains to Sound Greenway along the I-90 corridor in the 1990s.

Not a bad endorsement to bag for Sutherland's bid for a third term managing the state's public lands and shorelines. King County Councilmembers, Jane Hague and Reagan Dunn, both Republicans (as is Sutherland) are the official hosts. Details here.

Sutherland is a former Tacoma mayor and Pierce County executive. His principal opponent will be Okanagan County rancher and environmentalist Peter Goldmark, a Democrat.

The lead article on our Insight section cover Sunday will be the fifth installment in our year-long 125th anniversary series on The News Tribune's corporate and journalistic values.

This time Executive Editor David Zeeck will tackle the topic of objectivity, noting how the concept has changed in the newspaper business over the years.

On the letters page, we'll have an oped piece from Metro Parks Tacoma commissioners Ryan Mello and Victoria Woodards. They respond to recent complaints that Metro Parks has kept the public in the dark about some important issues.

We'll also have a point-counterpoint on the merits of all-day kindergarten. The Washington Policy Center contends research doesn't support wide use of all-day-K. Bethel School Superintendent Tom Seigel, whose district plans to expand all-day-K this fall, begs to differ.

Carl Chew, the Seattle science teacher suspended for refusing to administer the WASL test, gives his side of the story in a Viewpoint Friday.

Chew writes that since his action became public (see news story here), "there has been a lot of uninformed and negative criticism directed at me and my value as a teacher."

He doesn't name names, but I suspect he was offended by a recent News Tribune column by Peter Callaghan, who wrote: "His isn’t a desperate cry for justice. His is a petulant response to the fact that his point of view hasn’t prevailed." Read Callaghan's column here.

Looks like the money the City of Tacoma set aside in anticipation of negotiating a new contract with police officers won't stretch quite far enough.

Bob Biles, the city's finance director, says that the 10.2 percent pay increase the police union negotiated for the years 2006-2008 will cost the city somewhere between $4.1 million and $4.4 million.

The city had yet to settle with police when it wrote the 2007-08 budget, so it set aside roughly $3.9 million. City Manager Eric Anderson had hoped the police union would settle for less generous wage increases in exchange for using the set-aside to hire more officers and make progress in relieving chronic understaffing.

Rank and file didn't take kindly to us calling their raises "hefty" (maybe we should have better sense than to irk a marksman). But, as we noted, the new contracts did come with a fiscal upside: The arbiter established a realistic yardstick by which to measure police salaries that could help keep future increases in check.

1. The Clinton-McCain call for a pre-election gas tax holiday is nothing more than election year pandering. It would do nothing to help consumers, and both of them know better.

2. Mike Cohen, should he pull off his grand plan to transform a Superfund eyesore into a $1 billion waterfront community on the old Asarco site, will deserve Tacoma's gratitude. Whether he's due a tax break is another matter.

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