Two Minds: What to do about Crime Rate Rise?
We have a hammer problem with policing. As in, “when every problem is a nail, every solution is a hammer.” We have asked the police to do too much. Or to put it another way, we send police to deal with stuff that is better dealt with by other people using other methods.
In the Absence of Packaging… A social life emerges
Sometimes it’s the thinnest of membranes that separate us from each other. This came to mind when I was contemplating our dramatic change of...
Canada loses a Legal Giant who served the Cause of Indigenous People
Why should we note Tom Berger’s passing on this side of the 49th Parallel? Because past mistreatment of Native peoples knew no boundaries, and redress in the form of empowerment and justice came in the 1970s on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.
Which Relationships Survived the Pandemic and Which Didn’t?
Our whole history lives with and in our oldest friends. If we hadn’t excluded less meaningful, casual acquaintances before the pandemic, we’re likely to do so when it’s over.
The Classics and our need for Ambiguity
We seem now to be in a time when fewer people are willing to consider life’s complexity, and to the truth that “human existence is not easily divided into good and evil, but filled with complexity, nuance and ambiguity.”
Why We Should Stop Calling it the Salish Sea
Originally, the two straits and Puget Sound were known as the Gulf of Georgia, a name given by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 to honor his sovereign and patron, George III. It was a patronizing term then, much as the Salish Sea is now.
Nash Collection Farm Worker Photos Get Front Page Treatment
The Nash Collection had been locked away in a sub-basement of the Washington State University Library since the early 1990s, with only about 100 low resolution images from the collection posted on the library’s website, until a Seattle couple posted a few of those images
on Facebook.
Navigating the Messy In-Between Before the End
Maybe a good time to take stock, to ask ourselves what have I learned? Are there things we have learned to take forward with us on the next leg of the journey? Are there other things that need, now, to be left behind?
Women Who Have Shaped Our Region: Let Me Add to the List
The Legacy Washington list of notable women is a most impressive group but the list is far too short. There are dozens who should have also been included, so I’d like to nominate a few.
Chief Seattle’s Complex Life: Impresario, Warrior, Slaveholder, Peacemaker
In Puget Sound society, if a new and vigorous group showed up, one might have to fight them, but one could also intermarry with them, sharing in their vitality and mitigating violence. Seattle changed his course and set to work immediately to bring this peaceful vision about in his homeland around Elliott Bay.
Not Yours
There is a deep line forming between my eyebrows. It’s not centered; it’s closer to my right eyebrow and it's about an inch wide. I have always known it’s there. Last week it became more prominent as I was reading about the disappearance of Sarah Everard.
Will we Miss the Pandemic when it’s Gone?
While I would like to think that the pandemic has taught us to slow down, I’m skeptical.
Biden and Rapinoe team up for Pay Equality
Megan Rapinoe teams up with the President to highlight the gender pay gap on Equal Pay Day.
Seattle’s Forgotten Battle
Historically the Battle of Seattle has been treated as an oddity: an engagement the Indians were bound to lose. In fact, it was a major setback for the settlers. And historians have largely ignored the crucial role played by the Duwamish and Chief Seattle.
What do Women Want?
I can say only what this one woman wants: a world where women are honored for more than one month a year; a world where women in every country and of every race and religion enjoy full equality and every door is not only open but has a welcome mat.
The Role Model Boys Need
Isn't it great to imagine young boys seeing a man helping his spouse in this way -- of frankly playing second fiddle?
Her Name is Elisia
Photographer Irwin Nash began documenting not just the political struggles of the farm workers but their domestic life as well. Along with agitation in the fields, he photographed weddings, community meetings, visits to the clinic, everyday life. “This was a labor of love,” he says. “It needed to be done.”
The Seen Unseen – Not what you Expect
It’s one of the things you think you won’t do – judge people by appearance. But it’s one of the first things people seem to do when the word “homeless” is used.
Remembering Charlie Brydon and Seattle’s Long March to Gay Rights
Joel Pritchard held a memorable lunch 45 years ago, calmly asking for discrimination to end against gays. Seattle should be proud of its progress.
Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person. Agreed, So Then What?
It was a wise Jewish mother who had said, “Men marry women with the intention that they will the stay the same. Women marry men with the idea that they will change.
Pandemic Wallops Women: Behind a Persistent Gender Pay Gap
Women today are caught in a perfect storm, and swift federal and state action to expand child care and enforce paycheck fairness are urgently needed.
I Owe My 15 Minutes of Fame to Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh’s blast was fair comment, but it was not journalism, I argued. He made no attempt to walk through the issue, and certainly never called me. It was clear he had not read my story.
Turning in Dad (or Mom): Families Grapple with their Capitol Insurrectionists
A 19-year-old told the HuffPost that as his mother’s paranoia about political events and her constant referrals to QAnon continued, he followed her into that particular on-line swamp, where he discovered a group called #SavetheChildren, and was horrified by what he found there. “It’s hard,” he told a reporter. “I don’t know what to do. I’m losing her.”
Safety First: Why We’re so Preoccupied with it Now
Social media, Yuval Levin notes, intentionally blurs the lines between pubic and private, between inside (think “safe” inner circle) and outside (the whole damn world), as well as between formal (situations of some gravity and sensitivity in which restraint and decorum serve to protect us) and informality (let it all hang out).
Embarrassing Injustice: Proposed State Education Law Omits Teaching Duwamish History
Seattle pioneers came intending to found a town and get rich selling lots to subsequent settlers. The last thing Seattle’s white settlers wanted was for land near them withdrawn from the public domain and set up as an Indian Reservation.
The Opiate Epidemic, Writ Small
In the first 12 months that the doctor oversaw her treatment, he prescribed her 4,070 30mg pills of Oxycodone, 2,450 8mg pills of Hydromorphone, along with a slew of muscle relaxants, antidepressants, sedatives, anxiety and anti-inflammatory pills.
Good Riddance to 2020…
I bid good riddance to 2020 - if this democracy survives to January 20 and beyond, it will take an historic effort, a re-dedication by all of us day by day without rest, to restore what we have lost.
Lost Pleasures: The Art of Letter-writing
Reading a letter is more like savoring a fine wine, if your letter writer is at all good at the task, as is my letter-writing bro. Email is more like drinking your third cup of coffee. You’re already jittery and it doesn’t taste that good.
Cyrus Vance Jr.: From Seattle to Trump Legal Tormentor
Vance's office has long investigated Trumps for fraud. But there's a hitch. Vance, 66, is still undecided about running for a new term in 2021, has already drawn some opponents and has raised very little money for a reelection campaign. The betting is he won't seek a new term.
Out of your Bubble? How Your Brain Weighs Risk
How we consider what risks to take is processed in our brains as well as our psychology and lived experience. We like to think we assess risks rationally, but our fears and desires play a bigger role in decision-making.
