Posted By Cheryl Tucker on November 20, 2009 at 7:53 pm Share this

Here's a Web special for readers – a Leonard Pitts Jr. column we weren't able to get into the print edition this week.

Sosa in 2007

Are you happy with yourself now? Are you more confident and self-assured? When you look in the mirror, do you like yourself better, now that you are white?

As you know, photos taken of you at an awards show earlier this month have the whole country talking. Last time we saw you, you were a brown man from the Dominican Republic, star slugger for the Chicago Cubs. Now you are white, facing the camera with a complexion strikingly reminiscent of Dracula’s.

Sosa recently

You claim you’ve been using a skin-softening cream and that it, combined with the bright lights under which the photos were taken, made your face look whiter than it is. Which is an extraordinarily lame excuse. Indeed, if that excuse was a horse, you’d shoot it.

While it is admirably metro-sexual of you to be so concerned with the softness of your skin, I must say: if I slathered something on my face that was supposed to render it tender and it left me looking like the Joker instead, I’d sue. You, on the other hand, are reported to be considering an endorsement deal.

"Skin softening" my fanny. "Skin bleaching" is more like it.

So I want to know if it’s made you happy, being white, if it’s given you what you felt you lacked. Me, I’d have thought you already had the brass ring by both hands: you were a handsome sports hero, had made beaucoup dollars, had the requisite gorgeous wife. What could be missing?

Whiteness, apparently. (more...)

Categories: Behind the scenes
Tags: Leonard Pitts Jr., Sammy Sosa
1 Comment »

Posted By Michael Allen on November 20, 2009 at 11:31 am Share this

In case you haven’t heard, the president of the United States just declared accused 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed guilty and even announced what his sentence will be.

I’m not kidding. A newsman asked President Barack Obama if he understands why ordinary Americans are so offended that Mohammed (“KSM” in Newspeak) is receiving constitutional rights due only to American citizens. Obama replied: “I don’t think it will be offensive at all when he is convicted and when the death penalty is applied.”

Oh really?

Can you imagine the uproar if President Bush had assured Americans that an untried defendant in a federal court would certainly be “convicted” and receive the “death penalty” months before he even went on trial? Such a blunder would no doubt be ascribed to Bush’s “stupidity.” (more...)

Categories: My take, Uncategorized
Tags: 9/11, Barack Obama, Terrorism
4 Comments »

Posted By Cheryl Tucker on November 20, 2009 at 9:51 am Share this

We received this letter today from Joseph J. Hesketh III, the father of one of the young men who testified against former Superior Court Judge Michael Hecht. It's too long to run as a letter to the editor (we have a 250-word limit), so he agreed to let us post it here.

Justice served?

What has happened to justice in Pierce County? Hundreds of citizens in this county have been arrested and booked for offenses as minor as shoplifting, jay-walking and spitting on the wrong part of the street. Many of these citizens have spent a considerable amount of time in Jail awaiting administrative hearing (arraignment) to determine what official charges will be levied against them.

Then we have the former Superior Court Judge Michael A. Hecht. At his sentencing hearing he was sentenced to 30 days, converted to 240 hours of community service. Is this justice? Not in my opinion.

Mr. Hecht complained to the presiding judge that he has extensive health problems. How is that different from the scores of citizens who also have health problems and end up in jail, many times without these health issues being addressed due to day of the week, staffing or a number of other reasons? (more...)

Categories: Behind the scenes
Tags: Michael Hecht
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Posted By Kim Bradford on November 19, 2009 at 9:43 pm Share this

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

Randy Dorn’s timing is both politically astute and all wrong.

For days, the state schools superintendent was widely rumored to be preparing for battle over the state’s math and science graduation
requirements.

Sure enough, on Thursday morning, Dorn’s office announced he would ask the Legislature to delay the math and science tests, and to allow students to pass math with lower scores.

Meanwhile, across the state Capitol campus at the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council, chief economist Arun Raha was sucking all the air out of the news cycle. Little can compete with an ugly revenue forecast that puts the state $2.6 billion in the hole.

(more...)

Categories: Sneak preview
Tags:
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Posted By Cheryl Tucker on November 19, 2009 at 7:32 pm Share this

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”
– R.E.M. song

Unless you’ve been hiding in a fallout shelter for the past few weeks, you’ve seen the ads for “2012,” an apocalyptic movie about how the world ends. That is, if you believe Hollywood’s take on an ancient Mayan prediction that doomsday will come on Dec. 21, 2012 – a prediction that modern Mayans say is a bunch of hooey.

“2012” is the No. 1 movie in America (at least until the box office figures for “New Moon” come in), and it’s got people talking about the latest in a long and rich vein of end-times scenarios.

Most people will watch “2012” and just enjoy it for its vicarious thrills, such as the Los Angeles real estate market going upside down – literally. But some folks, unfortunately, are taking this 2012 doomsday stuff a tad too seriously.
(more...)

Categories: Sneak preview
Tags: 2012, Movies, NASA
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Posted By Kim Bradford on November 19, 2009 at 1:53 pm Share this

Ben Schiendelman of the Seattle Transit Blog (which does a great job of tracking transit issues up and down I-5 despite its name) has a counterpoint to our Wednesday editorial about Amtrak trains running through Lakewood.

Schiendelman laments that the state Department of Transportation's outreach efforts have done little to stem opposition that has emerged in Lakewood. He says calling these trains "high-speed" is a misnomer and notes that passenger trains already run up to 79 mph through Sumner, Puyallup, Kent and Auburn without incident. Schiendelman points out that the crossings will be much quicker with shorter Amtrak trains than the long freight trains that lumber along that route now.

It’s clear that trains will cause no more of a delay than any other light cycle, and backups across intersections when a train approaches are prevented by synchronizing signals.

Here's the video WSDOT made to model peak traffic at the intersections in 2020.

Categories: Touché
Tags: Amtrak, Cascades, Lakewood, trains, WSDOT
4 Comments »

Posted By Kim Bradford on November 18, 2009 at 7:58 pm Share this

This editorial will appear in Thursday's print edition.

Departing Tacoma City Council members should resist the temptation to make a final mark (or two) on city government via the appointment process.

The council is debating how to fill vacancies created by this month's election. Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland is moving to the mayor's chair, and Julie Anderson is leaving the council to become Pierce County auditor.

Both need to be replaced, and the question before the council is not only who will fill their seats but who gets to do the picking – the three newly elected council members or the term-limited four who are leaving?

(more...)

Categories: Sneak preview
Tags:
3 Comments »

Posted By Cheryl Tucker on November 18, 2009 at 5:06 pm Share this

I'm not a big Sarah Palin fan, but I'm on her side in thinking that the Newsweek cover photo of her in shorts is inappropriate.

I just don't buy the Newsweek line that the photo, originally taken for Runner's World magazine, was
"the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover." Most provocative, yes. But I think it's dismissive of a person who, like her or not, deserves more respect.

That said, she looks great.

Anyone else have thoughts on the cover?

Categories: My take, Uncategorized
Tags: Sarah Palin
6 Comments »

Posted By Kim Bradford on November 17, 2009 at 7:47 pm Share this

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

No doubt about it, the Tacoma School District needs to get its school renovation program back on track.

The failure of successive capital campaigns in 2006 and 2008 has effectively created a district of haves and have-nots. Some kids go to school in attractive new buildings hard-wired for the latest technology; others attend class in dank and dingy buildings heated by 80-year-old boilers and covered by leaky roofs.

The Tacoma School Board is appropriately eager to get a school-construction measure passed. But before it sends a proposed $140 million capital levy to the ballot next week, the board should consider tweaking its timing.

(more...)

Categories: Sneak preview
Tags: elections, School levies, Tacoma schools
5 Comments »

Posted By Cheryl Tucker on November 17, 2009 at 7:47 pm Share this

This editorial will appear in Wednesday's print edition.

Lakewood officials are absolutely right to challenge the state’s proposed Point Defiance bypass project that would send Amtrak passenger trains hurtling through the city at 79 mph. They would be seriously remiss if they didn’t.

At first glance, at least, Lakewood stands to shoulder all the negatives of the project – noise, traffic disruptions, safety threats – while reaping few if any discernible benefits. The Amtrak trains are not currently scheduled to stop in Lakewood, so residents who want to ride to Portland and points south would actually have to go north to Tacoma to board and backtrack through Lakewood on their trip.

It’s easy to see the appeal of the bypass for the state, Amtrak and the Port of Tacoma. It would separate passenger and freight trains that currently share tracks that wind around Point Defiance and along the shores of Puget Sound.

With the passenger trains shifted to the inland route through South Tacoma, Lakewood and DuPont, more freight service could be added on the Point Defiance tracks. And Amtrak trains that wouldn’t have to slow down around the Point Defiance curves would get from Seattle to Portland six minutes faster. (more...)

Categories: Sneak preview
Tags: Amtrak, Lakewood, Railroad
2 Comments »