City crews had to take down some cottonwood trees today that were at risk of damaging the Cedar River flood wall, as well as a road and electrical wires down by the river.
The reason…. a busy beaver had damaged the trees so badly they were ready to fall over in the next high wind.
Such a sad story from Kirkwood, Missouri. Thank you Rentonites for handling your controversial and heated issues with letters, petitions, debate, diplomacy, endorsements, passionate words, campaigns, and the ballot box, instead of physical violence. Many families were destroyed by this, and a community will require many years of healing.
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6 Dead After Gunfire at Mo. Meeting
By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, AP
KIRKWOOD, Mo. — A gunman with a history of acrimony against civic leaders stormed City Hall during a council meeting Thursday night, killing two police officers and three city officials before law enforcers fatally shot him, authorities said. The mayor was critically injured in the rampage.
Scientists say that the December flooding was not a 20 year flood, or a 100 year flood, but a 500 YEAR FLOOD! See the story here.
To understand how bad this is, the scale looks something like this:
Winter flood
5 year flood
20 year flood
100 year flood
500 YEAR FLOOD
1000 year flood
Noah’s flood
As a reminder of the rainfall, here is a video from 180th down by IKEA
Mark Hancock, who adminsters nojets.org, and Charlie Conner, Kennydale lakefront resident with a helicopter, have been working productively to reach a mutually acceptable aggreement on lakefront heliports. (This has been a huge topic of discussion on earlier blog entries)
The city will look seriously at their joint recommendation. I’m delighted to see that a solution may be at hand.
Here are some of the emails on the topic.
My nine year old makes a pizza from scratch. She has completed some pretty complicated recipes.
The speaker acknowledged that the pro-life activists have a right to present such images to adults in an effort to illustrate the controversy of abortion, but that the use of the street corner also exposed the images to children who could be confused, stunned, and/or traumatized by such pictures.
The speaker asked the city to look into options for protecting kids from the images. The council referred the topic to the administration (mayor, city attorney, and staff) for a recommedation.
The speaker chose not to show the images to the public last night (because kids may be watching the TV broadcast, but the images can easily be found on the internet with a google Image search on the term “anti-abortion”. Here is a link to such a search, but before you click be prepared that the images might upset you. (link )
I think the city may be able to partially manage the size and placement of the signs, to the degree that they are an obstruction or a traffic hazzard, but we are unlikely to be able to do anything about the content because of first ammendment protections.
What do you readers think about this?
To get you thinking, here is an article from the Redwood City Daily News, about the City of San Mateo California mulling this issue.
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Apr 29, 2007
Graphic photos spur city response
Parents say shocking anti-abortion images in San Mateo are traumatizing children
San Mateo City Attorney Shawn Mason is exploring what the city can do to address people’s concerns about anti-abortion activist Ross Foti’s habit of displaying graphic pictures near St. Matthew Catholic School.
Foti uses poster-size images of aborted babies, Jesus and other religious symbols to protest five days a week at San Mateo Planned Parenthood on Palm Avenue. The posters are mounted on his truck, which he parks outside the church most Thursdays when he goes there to pray. Children see the graphic pictures when their parents drop them off for school at the parish.
Mason said the parents have lobbied the city to intervene.
“I’ve been candid with the parents that his activity certainly involves significant issues regarding the First Amendment and free speech,” Mason said. “We are concerned. We share the concerns of parents about the impact these images have on children.
“I would not recommend that the city take any action unless we were very comfortable and confident that we were not violating his First Amendment rights.”
Mason said he expects to have a better idea about the city’s options within the next month.
Parents say the pictures have traumatized their children. They met with Foti and St. Matthew officials earlier this week in an effort to resolve their differences. They have asked him to at least cover the truck-mounted posters.
“We really want this resolved and obviously he is not going to do this on his own accord,” said Jan Brown, a parent of a fourth-grader at St. Matthew. “We thought he would have a change of heart and he is not going to, so we need to find other options.”
Brown said her son dreads going to school on Thursdays because of the posters.
Foti has said he would cover his posters if the church’s clergy agreed to talk about abortion at least once a month during Sunday Mass. He said he would also like his fellow parishioners to protest with him, but that would not be a condition of covering up the posters.
“It’s something that should be done,” Foti said of his request that abortion be discussed at Mass. “It’s not blackmail.”
Rev. Anthony McGuire said abortion is something the church talks about and he does not believe it is appropriate to invite the parishioners to protest with Foti.
“We certainly are against abortion,” said Ken Boegel, the principal at St. Matthew Catholic School. “It really comes down to the effect those poster have on the children.”
But Foti has successfully defended his protesting practices in other cities, and he parks his truck in a public area by the church. In 1998, a federal court ruled in his favor when Menlo Park tried to quash his anti-abortion tactics at a clinic.
“A lot of people use these posters and we get complaints, and we deal with them,” said Katie Short, Foti’s attorney with the nonprofit Life Legal Defense Foundation. “You could ban obscenity, defamation or something like that, but just the idea of (banning) something that is graphic or upsetting is not going to work.”
http://www.redwoodcitydailynews.com/article/2007-4-29-sm-foti-folo
Issaquah is talking about banning pan-handling…and threatening a $1000 fine.
Why do I think they won’t collect much of the fine?
“Brother, can you spare a dime to help me pay my fine?”
Seriously, Issaquah is going to have a hard time legally distinguishing homeless who sell overpriced “newspapers” from girl scouts selling cookies.
I am pretty sure they will find that the only thing they can really ban is aggressive pan-handling…i.e. altercations with passers by.
Meanwhile, they will pay $109 per pan-handler per day to house the pan-handlers in their jail, plus hundereds more per night for each one requiring medical, dental, or psych assistance….while waiting to collect on the $1000 fine.
This will continue until the ACLU gets an injunction and files civil rights violations against the city….yikes!
It will be interesting to watch….
I have a few different topics I want to cover from tonight’s meeting in some upcoming journal entries; (1) Rich Zwicker’s oath of office (I’ll get a picture);(2) new ordinances for the keeping of animals (more people will be allowed laying hens, miniature goats, and things like this, and large property owners will have more clarity on how many horses, goats, etc that they can keep);(3) and protest signs with highly offensive content (I’ll post the examples that were given to us tonight, that were not shown on television). I’m anxious to your input/ideas on this last topic, as it will come down to first amendment issues vs. protecting our children from being harmed by shocking content.
Also, I want to share some insight about our need for a new jail for misdemeanor offenders in the 2012 time frame.
Overall, I am really enjoying the new mayor and new council. Denis Law is already up to speed, and getting much done as our new mayor. the staff seem comfortable and productive, and everything is moving forwards. We are seeing a huge amount of work being accomplished in preparation for Benson Hill joining our city…but everyone seems upbeat even though they are busy.
Contributed by Rose McMayhem. (Rose was a Maplewood Heights Elementary School student when this tragedy occured. )
January 28th was the 22nd anniversary of the Challenger explosion.
I’ve discovered, in the last year, that I have an inexplicable interest in the Challenger. I’m not a NASA buff, nor do I remember the event taking place (Graham, whose elementary class watched it happen from the playground of his school in Orlando, does), but somehow the Challenger explosion gets to me on a very emotional level. This is something that the story of the Columbia breaking up upon re-entry does not do; it’s specifically the Challenger that upsets me.
When we were in Orlando last November, my boyfriend Graham took me to the Kennedy Space Center. I wouldn’t say that the main attraction was talk of the Challenger, but the event was certainly held in mind and honored by the exhibits. I’m not normally a super-reverent person, but learning about the Challenger shuts me up but quick. I think it’s because I so respect the people who are advancing our realm of science. When I think of people who deserve to be admired by the public for their chosen profession and accomplishments, astronauts are right up there- and while I don’t think anyone would argue that, I wonder why, with as many launches as occur, few people can name astronauts besides John Glenn and Buzz Aldrin- myself included. These are notable people who should unquestionably be recognized above and beyond the usual do-nothing limelight hogs (I’m looking at you, Paris).
Then just a few weeks ago, in a hotel on our way to Yellowstone, we came across a show examining what role the weather played in the Challenger’s launch. It was all very dramatic, showing footage of the people in Cape Canaveral with their heads in their hands after communication was lost. The conclusion, stated by Richard Feynman, was that an O-ring in the right solid rocket booster failed due to cold temperatures- something that had been foreseen by the O-ring manufacturer’s engineers, but ignored by management. Then there was footage of the shuttle breaking up, over and over. I made Graham tell me again about what it was like to see it- “you could definitely tell something was wrong,” he said.
Later on in the show, after Graham had gone to the bar with some others and I stayed behind, the show revealed something that I’d previously been unaware of- the crew hadn’t died instantly. From Wikipedia:
During vehicle breakup, the robustly constructed crew cabin detached in one piece and slowly tumbled. NASA estimated separation forces at about 12 to 20 times the force of gravity (g) very briefly; however, within two seconds, the forces on the cabin had already dropped to below 4 g, and within ten seconds the cabin was in free fall. These forces were likely insufficient to cause major injury. At least some of the astronauts were likely alive and briefly conscious after the breakup, because three of the four Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) on the flight deck were found to have been activated. Investigators found their remaining unused air supply roughly consistent with the expected consumption during the 2 minute 45 second post-breakup trajectory.
That had me bawling. I didn’t know these people, and don’t remember the event itself, but the idea of scientists and heroes plummeting to their inescapable death is something more gruesome and terrifying than I can handle.
So here’s to you, Challenger crew- and every other shuttle crew who’s been brave enough to keep at it. You are the future of science, helping our understanding of the world move forward. There are few on par with you. We owe you the utmost respect.
Rose
We had great placement for our City of Renton ad during yesterday’s superbowl. While we had paid for placement in the pregame coverage, they played our ad as the last local ad prior to the National Anthem. Sweet! (As a reminder, this ad was paid for through the hotel/motel tax, which is earmarked for promoting Renton as a destination)
Here is an article from the times on the topic:
Renton uses Super Bowl ad to boost image
By Karen Johnson
Times Southeast Bureau
Squeezed between ads for beer and cars, football fans might notice a new sponsor during today’s Super Bowl pregame show: the city of Renton.
Seattle Times columnist Charles Brown received the following question about junked-up busses in Renton. Has anyone else noticed this on the Renton 111 route?
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Q&A | Why junked-up Renton buses?
Seattle Times staff reporter
Talk traffic to us
Q: Does Metro Transit overtly assign better buses to some routes than to others?
With a discriminating eye, Renton resident Cherise Thompson senses discrimination. Thompson frequently takes Metro’s Route 111 from the Renton Highlands Park-and-Ride lot. “Over the last year, I used to commute to Issaquah … and grab a bus there,” she said. “My perception is the Renton Highlands routes receive all the junked-up, graffiti-filled buses, while Issaquah receives the brand new coaches.”
Our city will be sending a delegation of about fifteen to our Sister City of Nishiwaki Japan in April (the delegates will pay their own expenses). Cathy and I had to juggle our schedules a bit, but we are super-excited to be attending. We’ve been to Japan before, but never to Nishiwaki, so this will be new to us.
We’ve enjoyed visiting with citizens of Nishiwaki on their visits here. Above, the 2001 delegation from Nishiwaki poses below the “Nishiwaki Lane” street sign, after we renamed the street near the river in the City’s honor.
Nishiwaki Science Center, photo by Sleepytako
My wife Cathy affirms the trip is a go!
Renton Chiropractor Randy Baze (Baze Chiropractic) grew up around horses, about ten miles away from his cousin Russell Baze. They were part of a horse racing dynasty along with their dads, Carl Baze and Joe Baze. While Randy Baze studied the science of healing horses with chiropractic methods, and ultimately the science of healing humans, his cousin Russell became thoroughbred racing’s winningest Jockey in history.
(Thanks to Gene Smith for his comment correcting this blog entry; I had incorrectly identified the cousins as brothers)
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Briefs | Baze gets 10,000th win — and more
ERIC RISBERG / AP
Russell Baze reached 10,000 career victories Friday, in Albany, Calif.
Horse racing
Jockey’s first victory was at Yakima Meadows: Hall of Famer Russell Baze extended his dominance as North America’s winningest jockey Friday, posting the 10,000th victory of his career before winning two more races at Golden Gate Fields in Albany, Calif.
Earlier story when Russel Baze became thoroughbred racing’s winningest jockey
For those who did not see the council appointment at our council meeting last week, Dean Radford of the Renton Reporter has written a good play-by-play of the voting HERE.
There are just too many things I want to say about this, but I’ll let you readers do it instead. Please feel free to leave your comments!
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Exxon Mobil posts $40.6 billion annual profit
Oil giant breaks record for largest annual profit by a U.S. company
HOUSTON – Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion — on Friday as the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from historic crude prices at the end of the year.
Exxon also set a U.S. record for the biggest quarterly profit, posting net income of $11.7 billion for the final three months of 2007, beating its own mark of $10.71 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005.
The previous record for annual profit was $39.5 billion, which Exxon Mobil had in 2006.
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