Another view of Seattle from the Bastion on the SoundWashington State Convention Center Sky Bridge
Photo by MS(R)M
Hi again and yep, from the ramparts of the Bastion on the Puget Sound, it’s been an interesting week. First, and specifically for those of you reading this from the Los Angeles area, our hearts go out to you and our prayers are certainly with you. As this “goes to press,” The Standard Fire has claimed some 219 square miles of prime Angeles National Forest, taken the lives of two firefighters, consumed over 60 homes and still threatens 10,000 others.
Masha, who runs coffee kiosk where I go when I need to slip out of the Bastion and associate with the hoi polloi for local perspective had the news on her portable tv set. A couple of her other customers were discussing the Standard Fire and one of them contended that population density was responsible for a lot of what happens every fire season there and that a lot of this could be avoided by zoning ordinances limiting the number of people and structures allowed to live in high disaster potential areas.
It’s a nice idea but it presupposes that all of us have a choice about where we’d like to live. In a “Don’t work, don’t eat” economy, people tend to live as close to their workplace as possible. Three Southern California cities rank among the top ten longest commutes in the nation, according to the US Census Bureau and Los Angeles is ninth on that list.
In terms of an outstanding example of what a human being can accomplish, this week, we cross the Pond to the United Kingdom for a story about an English teenager who set out alone to circumnavigate the globe and become the youngest person (by several weeks) to do so. Sixteen-year-old Mike Perham undertook the adventure, however, for something far more important than a Guinness World Record and here’s the story within the story on this one.
Mike’s goal was to raise 24,000 pounds (about $38,400) for his two favourite charities, Save the Children and the Tall Ships Youth Trust, which gives underprivileged children the chance to learn to sail. Mike, who was born in Hertsfordshire, England and raised in Potters Bar, crossed the Atlantic in 2006 – 2007 with his father Peter accompanying him in a separate boat. Mike’s transglobal sail was made alone. For more on this remarkable young man, please go here.
Well, this next one is straight out of Little House on the Prairie and the days of sod huts. And it’s sure catching on. It’s a roof made of sedum and other succulents native to that part of Montana where these roofs are being raised, harvested and manufactured. There are apparently 1.2-million square feet of these roofs in North America now and one is currently slated for the Nintendo Company’s new building in Redmond, Washington. The product is called Xero Flor and it’s based on a system devised in Germany and modified for use in North America. To us, this is yet another example of how environmental manufacturing can not only improve the quality of life of its consumers but bring a new income source into the local economy.
This week’s critter story strongly suggests why we live in the Bastion on the Puget Sound, replete with moat, drawbridge, ramparts, battlements and all that other cool castle stuff. There’s another cougar been sighted ambling around a neighborhood about two miles from here, near the Woodland Park Zoo. That’s the closest one’s come to where we live, in the University District. And it can’t come as good news to the University of Washington. Their mascot is a husky. Their rival is Washington State University. Guess what “Wazoo’s” mascot is? Hint: it doesn’t bark.
This latest mountain lion was spotted by a resident arriving home around midnight. She got out of her car and just told it to go away. The fact that the big cat complied with such alacrity says I think as much about the caliber of Seattle women as it does a good-natured instinct for survival. Authorities are on top of the situation and if this one is treed, it will be tranquilized and transported back to the woods from where it likely came.
And I’m definitely proud to report that Washington State ranks just third behind California and Massachusetts in reducing its dependency on fossil fuels, cleaning up the environment and promoting an economically feasible green agenda. Governor Christine Gregoire, this state’s former attorney general, has taken a tough stand on these issues and her influence on the state legislature in Olympia has resonated to all levels of government.
The electrification of Seattle is more of the more obvious results. She sold the green agenda to the constituency and they’ve embraced it with the same quiet enthusiasm that characterizes positive change in the region as a whole. She’s proven, as well, that if Washington can do it, it can be done.
Lots of good and positive things going on then and, at least in our house, more than enough reason for remaining optimistic. This Recession has been an expensive lesson for a lot of us and in ways so vast as to be almost beyond human ken and so obvious as to defy denial, we have changed and I believe for the better. I rather imagine that comes as some relief to the rest of the species with whom we share the planet.
Take care, stay well and we’ll see you next week
Rusty
NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS
To Your Health
If you’d like to know whether your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.
Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.
Ever had trouble getting behind eating a lot of fruits and vegetables despite how good they are for you? Ever had trouble selling that one to your kids and grandkids? Ever been totally sold on the idea then gone to the market and been totally tasered by the price of good health in some places? If your answer is yes to any or all of the above, you really need to check this site out. Fruits and veggies: more matters.
Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.
The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.
.
Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.
Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale
COMING ATTRACTIONS
In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.
If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.
Masha, who runs coffee kiosk where I go when I need to slip out of the Bastion and associate with the hoi polloi for local perspective had the news on her portable tv set. A couple of her other customers were discussing the Standard Fire and one of them contended that population density was responsible for a lot of what happens every fire season there and that a lot of this could be avoided by zoning ordinances limiting the number of people and structures allowed to live in high disaster potential areas.
It’s a nice idea but it presupposes that all of us have a choice about where we’d like to live. In a “Don’t work, don’t eat” economy, people tend to live as close to their workplace as possible. Three Southern California cities rank among the top ten longest commutes in the nation, according to the US Census Bureau and Los Angeles is ninth on that list.
In terms of an outstanding example of what a human being can accomplish, this week, we cross the Pond to the United Kingdom for a story about an English teenager who set out alone to circumnavigate the globe and become the youngest person (by several weeks) to do so. Sixteen-year-old Mike Perham undertook the adventure, however, for something far more important than a Guinness World Record and here’s the story within the story on this one.
Mike’s goal was to raise 24,000 pounds (about $38,400) for his two favourite charities, Save the Children and the Tall Ships Youth Trust, which gives underprivileged children the chance to learn to sail. Mike, who was born in Hertsfordshire, England and raised in Potters Bar, crossed the Atlantic in 2006 – 2007 with his father Peter accompanying him in a separate boat. Mike’s transglobal sail was made alone. For more on this remarkable young man, please go here.
Well, this next one is straight out of Little House on the Prairie and the days of sod huts. And it’s sure catching on. It’s a roof made of sedum and other succulents native to that part of Montana where these roofs are being raised, harvested and manufactured. There are apparently 1.2-million square feet of these roofs in North America now and one is currently slated for the Nintendo Company’s new building in Redmond, Washington. The product is called Xero Flor and it’s based on a system devised in Germany and modified for use in North America. To us, this is yet another example of how environmental manufacturing can not only improve the quality of life of its consumers but bring a new income source into the local economy.
This week’s critter story strongly suggests why we live in the Bastion on the Puget Sound, replete with moat, drawbridge, ramparts, battlements and all that other cool castle stuff. There’s another cougar been sighted ambling around a neighborhood about two miles from here, near the Woodland Park Zoo. That’s the closest one’s come to where we live, in the University District. And it can’t come as good news to the University of Washington. Their mascot is a husky. Their rival is Washington State University. Guess what “Wazoo’s” mascot is? Hint: it doesn’t bark.
This latest mountain lion was spotted by a resident arriving home around midnight. She got out of her car and just told it to go away. The fact that the big cat complied with such alacrity says I think as much about the caliber of Seattle women as it does a good-natured instinct for survival. Authorities are on top of the situation and if this one is treed, it will be tranquilized and transported back to the woods from where it likely came.
And I’m definitely proud to report that Washington State ranks just third behind California and Massachusetts in reducing its dependency on fossil fuels, cleaning up the environment and promoting an economically feasible green agenda. Governor Christine Gregoire, this state’s former attorney general, has taken a tough stand on these issues and her influence on the state legislature in Olympia has resonated to all levels of government.
The electrification of Seattle is more of the more obvious results. She sold the green agenda to the constituency and they’ve embraced it with the same quiet enthusiasm that characterizes positive change in the region as a whole. She’s proven, as well, that if Washington can do it, it can be done.
Lots of good and positive things going on then and, at least in our house, more than enough reason for remaining optimistic. This Recession has been an expensive lesson for a lot of us and in ways so vast as to be almost beyond human ken and so obvious as to defy denial, we have changed and I believe for the better. I rather imagine that comes as some relief to the rest of the species with whom we share the planet.
Take care, stay well and we’ll see you next week
Rusty
NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS
To Your Health
If you’d like to know whether your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.
Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.
Ever had trouble getting behind eating a lot of fruits and vegetables despite how good they are for you? Ever had trouble selling that one to your kids and grandkids? Ever been totally sold on the idea then gone to the market and been totally tasered by the price of good health in some places? If your answer is yes to any or all of the above, you really need to check this site out. Fruits and veggies: more matters.
Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.
The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.
.
Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.
Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale
COMING ATTRACTIONS
In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.
If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.
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