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War More Perceived, War More Real

Ron Richardson of Seattle keeps counts of American war dead and injured in Iraq on a hand-written sign in his yard. As the count of U.S. Iraq war dead reached 4,000 in March 2008, the sign, Ron Richardson, the count, and the war all received more attention. Mike Lewis at the Seattle P-I […]

The Haas Foundation

The Saul & Dayee G. Haas Foundation improves secondary education for those in need in Washington State. Their work involves 600 secondary schools — that’s 53% of the secondary schools in Washington, including both public and private schools.
While modernizing the efforts of volunteers and staff, the Foundation has created online tools of […]

Pike Place Market, 1969

The following is “A University of Washington Film” from 1969, produced when the threat of losing Seattle’s Pike Place Market to development was at its worst.

I found the film’s soundtrack clever, affecting me enough that I had to wonder why. It opens with accordion music, crowd noise, and market speak. The accordion sets […]

Open Congratulations to Al Gore

I was one of thousands who received email from Al Gore today in which he announced his gratitude and intentions for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for his shaping of public opinion on climate change.
My comments on defending science were recently included in a collection of comments by signatories of the Defend Science […]

Stop the Clash

Stop the Clash of Civilizations! Avaaz.org pleads in this video about peace between Islam and the West, with questions such as “who speaks for you?” and “are we so different?” There have been over 2.2 million YouTube views since it debuted in March, 2007, and the video is shown in classrooms around the globe.
Avaaz […]

Knowledge As Power — Everyday Democracy

Knowledge As Power offers accessible information on legislative action and education for citizen participation in the legislative process. A preview of their services is already available for Washington State, although as an organization they are just a few months old.
These are my notes from one of five sessions at a Seattle Net Tuesday event in […]

Defending Science

The organization Defend Science released a collection of “Comments from Signatories of the Defend Science Statement” and I am honored mine was included.
They write: Comments from a cross-section of our signatories provide a glimpse at the the depth of concern to Defend Science, the broad support for this initiative, and the diversity of viewpoints […]

Pale Blue Dot

Dedicated to Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.

In 1990, Carl Sagan presented to the world the most distant image yet taken of ourselves, from 4 billion miles. The image was of a pale blue dot, suspended in a sun beam.
The book Pale Blue Dot was published by Carl Sagan and Ann […]

Running The Sahara

Three men ran 4,000 miles, the equivalent of 2 marathons per day for 111 days, across the Sahara Desert in Africa, to raise awareness of poverty in Africa.

Here is their site from the National Geographic Society.