It turns out that most of what we think we know about Thanksgiving, that apparently most American of all holidays, is not as true as we might think it is.
A week ago Saturday, RatsPacNW sponsored its Seventh Annual Ratapalooza at the VFW Hall on Mercer Island. (Evidently the Convention Center and Benroya Hall were booked). Ratapalooza is, of course, a festival for rat aficionados featuring rats of all shapes and sizes. This year’s event included rats wearing tiny Halloween costumes, a rat named Snoodles wearing a reindeer outfit, and an appearance by Tanya Hardin’s (no relation) polydactyl rat Hannibal, a black Berkshire rat, which has seven toes (three more than usual) on its front feet and six toes (one more than usual) on its back feet.
While the rest of our nation deliberated over its choice for Most Likely to Succeed, the isolated, insulated democracy that is Bainbridge High School recently held its own elections.
Election ’08
Community
Were the design charrettes that the city has been conducting during the last few months on the restoration of Strawberry Plant Park a waste of time? It appears so.
Hope is not a prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizon.
When Alex Harui began his tribute to his father last Saturday in the jam-packed gymnasium at Sakai Intermediate School, he said: “No doubt you are here because, in some way, Junkoh touched your lives…” Yes, no doubt.
First, a confession. My husband was recently recruited by a large coffee company across the water, and I have relatives addicted to their products. I appreciate the importance chain stores play in the lives of many Americans.
Altagracia, Oct. 26, 2008
You’ve got to love Bill Conerly, the Portland-based regional economist who was invited by Viking Bank to the island this…
“The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the Hawaii Legislature in 1959, two years before Mr. Obama was born in Honolulu, and declared that the civil rights movement was aimed not just to free blacks but ‘to free the soul of America.’” – Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, Nov. 5, 2008.
As a child, I was always surprised at those characters in fairy tales who were granted three wishes by some magical genie or talking fish. They always managed to fritter away each wish, thoughtlessly and impulsively, and always ended with nothing or worse.
