Search Results for 'nA'

[charlabob]

Miranda Taylor (www.taylorgoodhealth.com) She’s amazing (the first acupuncture I ever had, so she also overcome fear). Slightly out of WS, but also http://www.communichi.org for community, sliding scale acupuncture from folks who are extremely kind *and* professional. I’m dealing with chronic pain (see previous post on other forum about the wonderful purple cane) and these two saved me many times! I can’t say too much, so I’ll stop.

[Kayleigh]

The past matters to me, Ken, and I’m not going to change my mind about Hillary. Until she shows me real, progressive plans and ideas that make sense, I won’t vote for her at all, even if she gets the nomination.

I’m so disheartened by the type of thinking here in this thread (and elsewhere in the country in the Democratic party), I’m tempted to not attend the caucus at all. We have a real opportunity to turn the country around with John Edwards–to really make gains in things like health care and income equality. The poor, working,and middle classes have already lost so much in the last decade. It’s time get some of those things back, not to compromise.

The Democrats have given Bush way too much of what he wants and gotten little in return. When are they going to stand up and fight for the people they’re *supposed* to represent?

[mlyn1375]

Hey All,

Again, I second the motion (started by me) that we schedule another time after the 3rd to meet again. Maybe early march?

My original plan was the Superbowl , but due to a family illness now I will be out of town. :-( Will check this topic again to see if there is an update on meeting another time after the 3rd.

[JanS]

hi to everyone here…here’s a link to a class you might all enjoy….and Harmony Hill is an absolutely wonderful place near Hood Canal in Union, WA…just down the road from Alderbrook Inn.

Sustainable Gardening

with Ann Lovejoy

Feb. 16, March 2, and March 15 – one-day workshops

Get your gardening year off to a great start by learning how to create a garden that offers year-round beauty, serves your changing needs, and becomes easier to care for each year. Ann Lovejoy is one of America’s most well-known and widely respected gardening authors.

Details & registration

http://www.harmonyhill.org/retreats/lovejoy.html

[Ken]

Jonathan Tasini (author of the above link) was defeated by Hillary Clinton in New York’s Democratic Primary in 06.

The piece seems a bit long on allegation and short on links to supporting documents.

Hillary is my last choice but lets stick to her very real policy problems and current DLC affiliations.

[JanS]

kayleigh…I guess we all have our opinions. Ovaries are only a part of the package…but those without haven’t exactly done a bang up job in recent years, now have they? And if that’s the deciding thing that can put a candidate in there to beat whoever the Repubs put out there, then idealism may just have to sit in the second seat on the bus.

They are ALL politicians…they ALL have something or other from their past that’s not exactly the best thing for some…Hillary has Wal-Mart…others have other things. Mr. McCain has a not too wonderful past, too, despite his Vietnam service and imprisonment. Do his body parts( or that imprisonment) give him a get-out-of-jail free card? I think not…just MHO…

[JimmyG]

My experience with Ballard HW was less than positive, although it was back in 1999. It was a small refinishing job (kitchen) and the quote was reasonable.

What they didn’t tell me up front though was since it was such a small job they subbed it out. The guy showed up and told me he was a sub. He did a half-assed job and when I complained they said they always sub out the small jobs. Nowhere in my paperwork I’d received or signed did it disclose they wouldn’t do the job themselves.

I learned a great deal from that experience–I always ask all contractors what they sub out before I sign or agree now.

So, no W. Seattle refinishers?

[Kayleigh]

I’m baffled as to why some of you are letting Hillary off the hook for Wal-Mart. It’s an assumption that she voted against the reeeealllly crappy stuff that Wal-Mart did–and even if she did, it’s a failure of leadership on her part, because they did the reeeeallly crappy stuff anyway.

Wal-Mart’s greedy suppressive acts didn’t begin with buying cheap sweatshop goods in China.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0207-34.htm

I guess it’s OK to be a corporate greedmonkey if you have ovaries? Ovaries are now a get-out-of-jail-free card?

[Ken]

I read it online and try to give a vendor the dollar to keep the paper and sell it again. But I don’t get downtown very often anymore.

This issue has a story relevant to this thread.

http://www.realchangenews.org/2008/2008_01_23/harasment_v15n05.html

The rich are coming. Hide the poor

Excerpt

---

After a shadow of public debate, the mayor will lay down a breathtakingly cruel policy of hounding human beings out of town.

By TIMOTHY HARRIS, Executive Director

How is one to respond when the most beautiful, affluent, and liberal city in America outlaws basic human survival? What are we to feel? What words could measure up to the sadness of this moment?

The Mayor’s staff has described their draft policy on homeless encampments as “consistent and compassionate.” Consistent, perhaps. But compassion requires action that is based upon understanding and empathy.

This is not that.

Seattle has joined the ranks of cities across America whose growing affluence will no longer tolerate the sight of extreme poverty. As urban living attracts those who can pay the price, the visible poor have come under attack in communities from LA to Boston.

Here in Seattle, in the few blocks that abut Pike Place Market, construction cranes mark four developments that will house 505 new condos with an average value of $2 million each. This represents about one-tenth of new downtown condo development.

The rich are coming. Hide the poor.

Until sometime last year, the City of Seattle mostly left homeless encampments alone until complaints forced action. This was as it should be. Last year’s one night homeless count — held in the dead of a cold January night — revealed about 1,600 people surviving on the streets. They slept in doorways and in cars. They rode the night buses. They walked to keep warm. They huddled underneath blankets and inside sleeping bags.

They made do without shelter because the shelters were full.

[Ken]

Just to clarify: The regulations on “free markets” were made after the crash of 29, to save capitalist and the corporations they invested in, from themselves. The boom and bust cycles throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, were the result of manipulation of most investors by the few insiders. Every cycle relied on a new crop of investors that could be roped into another “once in a lifetime opportunity”. Note they occurred at approximately generational intervals. Sometimes the unregulated businesses caused ecological disasters. The Dust Bowl of the 20’s could never have happened without wheat speculation during WWI driving investors to lease Midwestern grasslands sight unseen and pay crews to plow up the grass and plant wheat. After two years most of it reverted to it’s normal dry state, the wheat market crashed and the newly exposed dirt took to the winds in storms that brought darkness at mid day as far away as Washington DC.

Deregulation loosed these same actors on the public again and it is foolish to think any corporation will police itself. History can only teach us when it is not ignored.

[JoB]

Yesterday, i saw a man holding a sign on a street corner that said “homeless, need help”. had i encountered him in starbucks, i would not have been surprised because he was clean, well dressed in outdoor clothing and carrying a quality daypack. i nearly stopped just to ask him his story because i think there is probably a pretty interesting one there.

The assumption that the homeless are there by choice has driven a callousness about this problem that borders on cruelty.

There but for the grace of god… Any of us could suffer reversals of fortune that could bring us to that street corner. I know many women who are one step from that because of nothing more than chronic illness.

As a community, we need to address this problem whether it is an “artificial” problem landed on us by crackdowns in other parts of the city or a local problem. Once it is here, it is a local problem.

I am too new to be able to name the local agencies that take on this work. I encourage donations of money and goods… but the most important donation is time… both for those doing the work and those receiving help.

the greatest gift we can give another is to listen and acknowledge their story.

shame on me for only almost stopping to at least hear that young man’s story. i had the time.

[JoB]

ken, i would agree with your advice to the candidates… even to my favorite candidate.

As a woman with one of those voices that tends to go all high pitches i would bet that she has already had some coaching tho:)It’s a difficult thing to control. she should reflect on poor Dean whose one outburst and uncontrolled voice cost him any chance at the presidency… for good or bad, who knows.

However, she can control her stance on health care and she should come down on the side of universal health care. I think America is finally ready to talk about that option.

As for corporations, we need to roll back deregulation for sure, but i am not sure how to keep them out of campaigns.

I just read a totally unrelated book about Helga and Clara Estby’s walk across America (Bold Spirit) which mentioned the Bryan/McKinley campaign and that the campaign contributions of just two corporations for McKinley exceeded those of Bryan’s entire campaign($500,00 from JP Morgan and Standard oil.). McKinley won.

Corporate involvement in campaigns is not news and any attempt to keep them out of it has just resulted in the exploitation of loopholes.

As for our current concern with corporate greed, let me quote Wiliam Jennings Bryan’s campaign slogan, “Wall street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people for the people, by the people but a government of Wall street, for Wall street, and by Wall street.”

This too is nothing new. In reading history it seems that there were only a couple of times when Wall Street seemed to get the need for investment in anything other than making money and that was during the industrial revolution and the period after World War II when it became apparent after our investment in Germany and Japan under the Marshall plan that we had better do some investment of our own here or American Corporations were going to be left in the dust. Both times, investment was crucial to their own self interest… better a little now and a lot later than none now and nothing later. And both times America and Americans prospered.

I feel that concentrating on the injustice of corporate greed (including their involvement in our elections) we are missing the boat that would lead to a realization of the importance of actual production for profit…

just as America missed the boat on health care when they worried about the govt rationing health care when the insurance companies were exceeding anything our government could have done. At least the govt had public opinion to contend with.

We need to find a way to focus on the real conversation which is about actual production… even in service industries which have forgotten they relied on service to create their business.

I believe that Hilary has a grasp of that concept… and that is why i am supporting her. It may be a vain hope, but there you go.

:) In closing, I can’t resist mentioning Bold Spirit again and that these two women walked across America during a time when only one state (Wyoming) actually granted women the right to vote… a little more than a hundred years ago. Something to ponder.

[Ken]

If you want to see why the entire Rapid ride program will be mismanaged to benefit the fewest number of people, especially here in West Seattle, check out the young earth anti science creationist view of the project. (Note: this is the same morons at the Discovery Institute that think Dinosaures wore saddles.

http://www.cascadiaproject.org/surfaceandmarinetransportation/busrapidtransit.php

It appears to be a super expensive express bus for Vashon Island.

None of the links above disprove this theory except the King county link that is already riddled with inconsistancies.

[credmond]

Al, et al.

try this URL “http://www.metrokc.gov/kcdot/transitnow/” for present and past on the Transit Now initiative from the government perspective.

–

try this URL “http://www.globaltelematics.com/pitf//transitnow.htm” for present and past on the Transit Now initiative from an PAC/non-profit.

–

try this URL “http://soundpolicy.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/king-county-proposition-2-transit-now/” for bla-bla from the perspective of a blogger on the local political scene.

–

fascinating stuff, actually. Tracking transportation stuff around here is more than a full-time job, and that’s an understatement.

[JanS]

I have been treated by Dr. Weibe, but not recently…I loved his gentle touch. He’s just a really nice person, and very knowledgeable. I’ve also been treated by Linda Minato….she’s really very, very good. Debi worked for a naturopath in West Seattle a number of years ago, when my daughter also worked there. She’s both an RN, and an acupuncturist…and both very, very nice…

[acemotel]

I think in general there is an increase in homelessness, as evidenced by the increased count this year. Close to 3,000 people on the street and 6,000 in transitional housing and shelters is a DISGRACE in one city in one of the wealthiest countries in the world! I’m sure there are at least 1,000 who were not counted because they are sleeping in cars in side streets everywhere throughout the city. Some of these people have substance abuse or mental health issues, but there are many who just hit a string of bad luck, and for the grace of god, it could be most any one of us. There is no safety net. The social services are spread so thin as to be nonexistent. The middle class is the new class of working poor, while the rich get richer, moving into bigger and grander and finer homes, insulating themselves from the poverty that’s now on virtually every street corner. It’s a disgrace.

[Ken]

As long as we are weighing in… Let me offer a few opinions.

I am undecided mainly so I can run my caucus meeting fairly. I am pretty up to date on the primary wars on national blogs.

First. a few notes. Hillary worked for Walmart when old Sam Walton was still running things. He was as cut throat as anyone else in the retail business, but at that time, his motto was “buy American” and he made it a goal to stock his stores with American goods. He staved off the closing of many mills in the south by contracting with the for goods more cheaply made in other countries. But Sam died and the worthless spoiled family members started listening to wall street.

The rest is fairly recent history.

Note, Wall street investors tell Costco founders they have no business paying a living wage or keeping prices at a fixed percentage of cost. So far the founders have blown them off and I hope they continue.

Hillary has flaws, but working for walmart ain’t one of them.

Falling for the excuse that it is too late to rein in corporations IS one of those mistakes.

Corporations, at a minimum, need to be isolated from the financing of political campaigns. Corporations have fairly simple goals, some of them mandated by stockholders and some by stockholders lawyers. Profit. The pursuit of profit does not include any actions for the common good beyond what minimum their PR firms tell them they can get away with.

Corporations are also devoid of any limit that the non sociopaths among us would call a conscience. History is “rich” with the results of unregulated corporations, including some pretty recent ones that have fallen down the memory hole at warp speed.

Enron was not the first company to fudge books, ignore laws or rely on political donations to consolidate their monopoly, merely one of the recent ones. Most of the rest were clustered in that doppelganger time period between 1920 and 1929, coincidentally also the last major housing bubble.

If we do not “combat” the corporations in several areas, all the good will and well meaning politicians will have no effect on our current trajectory.

Each of the Dem candidates is deeply flawed in some way. But the Republicans are bull goose loony and cannot wait to get ahold of the accelerator on the highway to feudalism and theocracy.

I prefer anyone but Hillary but I will work for the election of the nominee whoever it is.

If I had advice for the candidates it would be:

John Edwards = Change the damn stump speech before you drive the national press any further insane. They were not in your corner in the first place and now they are taking any opportunity for payback that comes within their grasp. You have the best ideas and policies, but your killing your own messengers.

Hillary = Learn the difference between mandatory insurance and universal health care. Quit pretending they are the same thing. And get some vocal coaching. If I have to listen to that chalkboard screech for four years I will stick knitting needles in my ears. Modern electronics can modulate it easily. I suspect the sound engineer is a republican plant.

Obama = Republicans are not your friends. They are not even you peers. They are not happy with a solution where everybody gets something they want. If no one is left crying, bleeding and broken in a negotiation with a Republican, then it was a failure from their point of view. Also, now that SC is behind you, put God back in your pocket and button the flap. Most southern republicans over 50 don’t even think you have a soul. Democrats mostly care more about whether you can keep Him out of the decision loop when reason and science are needed. Reassure those people. The theocons are not going to vote for you anyway.

[JanS]

actually, from a previous comment, I said “Really good acupuncturists…either Linda Minato (206-767-3298) or Debi Hoffman(206-781-3527). Both are located at 4746 44th Ave. SW Suite #203. It’s right across the street from Junction True Value. They are both extremely knowledgeable in their field.”

thought I’d be a little more precise :)

[JanS]

Robindianne…for acupuncture, try Debbie Hoffman or Linda Minato. They are in the junction on 44th right across from True Value Hardware.

For a chiropractor, try Dr. Brian Wiebe. He’s a Fauntleroy Chiropractic…at the foot of SW Oregon, where it meets Fauntleroy, on the east side of the street. He’s also a member of the WS Chamber of Commerce…

[AdamOnAlki]

I am personally not interested in the newspaper, but I support what they are doing and I will often give them the dollar, but not take a paper.

I am wondering if WSEA’s increasingly popular nightlife has anything to do with the increase. I remember there was fret over the potential increase from the abondoned monorail plan, but when that fell through, I guess they came anyway.

[WSMom]

Dear Kayleigh & JoB:

Thank you so much for adding your views on this topic! I am gratified by the notion that in a few short months our country might actually have a President we can be proud of, whether it’s Senator Clinton/Obama/Edwards is less important to me than that it BE one of these three. I sure enjoy reading your point of view. I still may end up just drawing straws between Obama & Clinton.

[Robindianne]

Hi there. Does anyone have an acupunturist they can recommend here in WS? Or a chiropractor that uses gentle pressure (not spinal adjustment)? Thanks for the help.

[JoB]

Kayleigh, my hubby and best friend would agree with you.

However… i view some of that differently. I am not sure what to think of her vote on the patriot act but i do know that one can’t look at any congressional vote as standing alone. With an act that was going to pass anyway, did she gain more in the long run from voting yes? I don’t know and i don’t think any of us does.

As for being a board member at WALMART…I personally believe that you have to invest in the system to change it. Did Hilary institute any change at Walmart? I don’t know. But i applaud her for being willing to be part of the system because i believe that is the only way to make changes. And if she did it just for money… then i hope the money she earned brought something worthwhile to her life…because she will have earned it merely by being there.

As for her corporate contributions…If you read much history, you will find that American foreign policy has always been led by American financial interests… corporations. Of course corporations are trying to buy more cooperation by donating to campaigns. But if you don’t have the money for the kind of coverage our media dependent campaigns require… you don’t get elected… and you don’t get to be president without getting elected. it’s that simple. I admire her for doing what it takes to get the job… because sometimes that is what you have to do.

No, Edwards is not getting the kind of coverage his message deserves, but he is also not spending the kind of money in political ads that the other two candidates are and his election results reflect that.

And yes, Hilary does have to “dance with the one who brung her”, but that doesn’t mean she has agreed to date rape. She can still say no when the situation warrants.

I believe that the time for doing battle with corporations as a political tactic passed with the emergence of a true global economy. We need to find a way to be inclusive of corporations… get them to the bargaining tables when “political” solutions are worked out so that they are invested in the long term outcome (the eventual larger profits … not immediate profit) of those policies.

I don’t believe we can do that by being combative.

So that’s why i support Hilary.

And i really appreciate this opportunity to clarify my thinking on why i have made that choice in spite of being pressured daily to change my mind.

Sometimes, it isn’t about the specifics. I have been known to argue any position just for the sport of it… and win… but this one is about my desire for deeper change. I believe everyone loses in a combative environment.

I believe Hilary has learned to work around that environment and i hope that this campaign will teach her to transcend it.

It doesn’t seem to be teaching Bill much… but then maybe that’s my real point:) Sexist to the core:) or maybe just pragmatic.

[Bayou]

I’m looking for an affordable landscaper on the west side. I need some general yard maintenance done and would like to have a stone path set. I’d also like to have a long term landscape plan drawn up. Any suggestions?

[Justan]

Thanks!!