Leschi Elementary students began classes on September 4 following the remote learning model. In these challenging times, we are doing our best to welcome new families, foster connections between students and teachers and among families, and focus on the need for equitable education for all students. Our PTA continues to work with the school’s family support team to provide food, rent, and utility assistance for families in need as the covid-19 economic crisis continues. We welcome donations and would like to thank our community partners, including Bluwater Bistro, Meet the Moon, Leschi Community Council and Leschi Market, for their unwavering support. We wish the very best to Principal Lisa Moland, who has been and will always remain an important part of our school community. A group of parents, staff and community members continues their advocacy to demand transparency and accountability from SPS following Ms. Moland’s dismissal last spring, especially in light of standing policies on racial equity and family engagement. At the same time, we welcome the new members of our school’s leadership team, all of whom have been working very hard in these extraordinary times to connect with families and give every Leschi student access to a high-quality education. Principal: Stephen Liu I am excited to introduce myself as the new principal of Leschi Elementary and I am honored to join the work that Leschi is doing to support each and every student as they learn and grow. As a resident of the Central District, I am proud of our neighborhood and community members, and I am committed to working and collaborating with you to create a positive impact on students, families, and staff. Leschi Elementary has a rich school history and I know that, together, we will continue to build on the important work of the school and to make improvements to better serve our students, especially those furthest from educational justice. I know that transitions and having changes in leadership has an impact on students and the community and I look forward to navigating this change with you. I am eager to listen and learn from our students, families, and staff while also learning about Leschi and the success the school has had and the ways that we can partner to improve the areas that need to be better. I will be sending out more information and details about this process for you to share your stories with me. Schools can’t do it alone and a strong partnership with the community is vital for the success of our students. As an educator and leader, I am focused on the health, safety, and well-being of our students so they can learn, grow, and reach their highest potential. That starts with a positive school culture where students, staff, and families are happy and excited to be at school. During my career as an educator, I have focused on the positive culture needed in the classroom and school since we know that students, and adults, learn best when they feel positive and safe. I taught 4th, 5th, and 6th grades in the Seattle Public Schools and the Northshore School District and I also served as an assistant principal at Fernwood Elementary in the Northshore School District for three years. For the past three years, I have been the principal at Wedgwood Elementary in the Seattle Public Schools, and I have learned a great deal through experiences, mistakes, and successes. During my time at Wedgwood, I worked with the staff and community to align the teaching and services for supporting students who were struggling, academically, socially, and emotionally. My spouse, Rainy, and I have two children, Alakai (age 7) and Ira (age 4) and we enjoy playing games, spending time at the park, and connecting with friends and neighbors. Alakai is a 2nd grader at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, which is our neighborhood school, and Ira attends a local pre-school. As a parent, I know the joys and challenges of parenting and that every parent wants what is best for their child(ren). As a community member, I will work diligently on issues of equity and social justice that impact our students, families, staff, and community. Head Teacher: Letta Mason In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world!” I am Letta (Steward) Mason, I truly believe that it takes a village with a social justice foundation to raise a child holistically in today’s world. I am a wife, a mother of four and grandmother of 6 beautiful human beings. I have been involved in the private and public education sector for over 27 years in many facets. Eight years of my career was spent as the Head Resource Teacher in a K-8 School. I completed my undergraduate and graduate work at Pacific Oaks Northwest College, where I received a Bachelor of Arts in Developmental Education and Human Development, Teacher’s Certification with endorsements in ELL, Elementary Education, ELA, Science, Social Studies, Technology, Visual Arts, and Mathematics. A MA in Human Development with Emphasis in Bi-Cultural Studies. As a believer in lifelong learning I returned to the institution of higher learning and received a M.Ed. and certifications in Instructional Leader and Program Management from City University of Bellevue. I received the Jocelyn Myers Child Advocate Award in 2000, Phillip Swain Teacher of the Year Award in 2010 and Kent Elementary Teacher of the Year Award in 2017. As a coach through the Kennedy Center I implemented and coached teachers on integrated culturally centered curriculum with the arts as the foundation. I am happy to be returning to the District I consider home, Seattle School District! It is an honor to be a part of a rich, diverse community who values equity, trusting relationships and education for all. Assistant Principal: Barbara Dixon I am very excited to be joining the team at Leschi. My husband and I have raised 5 children here in Seattle and now we have 5 beautiful grandchildren. I have been employed in the district for 20 years. I attended Seattle Central Community college, receiving my AA in Early Childhood education. I worked on the Black Child Development campaign collecting data in the 80’s and began working at Happy Medium, which is now Giddens. While there I attended some classes at Pacific Oaks college. I volunteered at MLK elementary school as a tutor, then became a Sped IA and worked until 2004 when I received my bachelor’s degree and teaching certification from Antioch University. I received my master’s degree in Educational Leadership from Grand Canyon University. In my journey at SPS I have worked at Martin Luther King Elementary, Bailey Gatzert Elementary, African American Academy, Lawton Elementary, and currently at North Beach in addition to Leschi. I look forward to meeting you! Keep up to date on upcoming events and news by visiting leschies.seattleschools.org or our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/leschischool To support our school and community programs please see: https://leschies.seattleschools.org/school_involvement/fundraising ~Benson Wilder

Our featured speaker is Lawrence Pitre, Central District artist who has proposed creating a mural for the 2-story retaining wall on 31st, just south of S. Jackson St. The community is invited to ask questions and comment on this proposal. We tried to have this program last January, but snow intervened and by the time we had an opening in our schedule, the pandemic was upon us and community meetings were a no-no! In our February issue of the Leschi News, Pitre was interviewed by local artist Esther Ervin and he talked about his roots in the Central District and his mentorship from Jacob Lawrence. As noted on his website: https://www.lcpitre.com/artist-bio: “Personally, Lawrence sees his artistic endeavors as self-expressions depicting life experiences, which includes struggles, joy, and his love of life. Lawrence seeks to understand the process of creativity in the way a theoretical physicist seeks to understand the universe. His selection process is a spiritual layering which, when you step back seems to float within the universe we live in. He calls this process natural “intelligence.” It is a key aspect of Pitre’s philosophy as he explores different art forms, styles and unique works of art.” ~Interviewed and compiled by Esther Ervin We will also have a speaker from the Health Department to bring us up to date on Covid-19 and answer our questions. Topic: Leschi Community Council Time: Oct 7, 2020 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81670663785?pwd=YXFmNkh4RlR0VmJlWGdyUkJyY2ZsQT09 Meeting ID: 816 7066 3785 Passcode: 680667 One tap mobile 12532158782, 81670663785#,0#,680667# US Dial by telephone +1 253 215 8782 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdIj2VTsEa Go to https://support.zoom.us/ for step-by-step instructions

After waiting long past the promised 9 months, our new post office opened on September 21 with a ribbon cutting at 9am. We need to offer thanks to Kshama Sawant and her staff for listening to our pleas and working on this with the post office powers that be. No other politician paid any attention to this plight. The post office is located in the departed space where The Electric Lady once lived. It is directly across Union from PCC. Parking is minimal so it will probably serve mostly walkers and there are many in the area. Wear your mask when entering out of respect for the hard-working crew. Post office staff has been out there serving the public throughout this pandemic and unfortunately many workers have succumbed to the virus. ~Diane Snell

If you told me that a Labor Day windstorm brought 12 consecutive hours of sustained hurricane-force winds to Timberline ski resort on Mt. Hood, I would have burst out laughing. “No way!” I would have said. “There’s no way that could ever happen in early September.” At least, that is what I would have thought before the Labor Day wind/firestorm of 2020. On Labor Day afternoon (9/7), an intense, extremely dry cold front raced across the Columbia Basin, creating dust storms so intense that they could clearly be seen from satellite. Winds picked up over Western Washington throughout the day, and this cold front slammed into the Willamette Valley in the afternoon, bringing sudden, intense winds accompanied by dust, cooler temperatures, and much, much lower dewpoints. These extremely strong, dry winds started new forest fires by downing energized power lines and growing abandoned, smoldering campfires into raging tempests, and they turned existing wildfires into hellish beasts that devoured everything in their path. When the dry, easterly winds finally shut off on Thursday 9/10, Oregon wildfires had scorched over 400,000 acres, and several towns in the Cascade foothills had been burnt off the face of the Earth. Thankfully, the fires over Western Washington were far smaller and less damaging than those in Western Oregon, though the Big Hollow fire south of Mt. St. Helens burnt nearly 25,000 acres during the event. And then there was the smoke. The 2010s have seen plenty of smoky summers, but I’d never tasted air as noxious as it was this September. The smoke cooled temperatures so drastically that we became enshrouded in a thick, persistent layer of fog. But as bad as our air quality was, it was pristine compared to that over the Willamette Valley, which remained in “hazardous” conditions for nearly a week following the firestorm. The 2020 Labor Day fires were a textbook “worst-case-scenario” fire pattern for the Pacific NW. In this pattern, a deep upper-level trough plunges south from Canada and spills cool, extremely dry air into the Columbia Basin. This upper-level trough also helps push a tongue of warm air offshore, creating a very strong thermal gradient. This thermal gradient induces a strong pressure gradient - and very strong, extremely dry, easterly winds. This pattern occurs occasionally in October and frequently occurs from November through February. However, it isn’t associated with high fire danger for the Pacific Northwest then because our fuels are very wet, and the air is frigid. Our fuels are plenty dry during July and August, but this pattern doesn’t occur because the Canadian airmass is not cool enough to create the intense offshore gradients needed for truly extreme fire danger. But in September, our fuels are still plenty dry (in fact, they are often the driest of the entire year) and the arctic has cooled enough for strong cold fronts to plunge southward into the states. And on rare occasions, these cold fronts can bring California-style fire danger to the Pacific Northwest. Despite the intensity of this event, it was not unprecedented. The Yacolt Fire of September 11, 1902 traveled 30 miles in 36 hours from Carson, WA along the Columbia River Gorge all the way northwest to Yacolt, WA. Seattle’s streetlights glowed at noon, and the blaze dropped a half inch of ash in Portland. Another devastating Columbia River Gorge fire occurred on September 15, 1929, and on September 20, 1951, a fire broke out in Forks, WA on the Olympic Peninsula and traveled an astonishing 18 miles in only 6 hours. The 2020 Labor Day Fires are just the most recent occurrence of this devastating pattern. Even so, the 2020 Labor Day Storm was likely particularly intense, even for a “worst-case” pattern. Unfortunately, wind speed and humidity records from those prior events are scant and difficult to find, but there is a robust record of daily high/low temperatures. The 2020 storm had the strongest cold front of all the storms - consider that Denver had a high of 93 and sunshine on Labor Day, and a low of 31 and an inch of snow on the 8th! Stronger fronts are associated with stronger winds. And when you consider the extraordinary wind speeds measured in the 2020 storm, it’s tough to imagine any event that could be stronger. Can we expect more forest fires in a warming climate? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Global warming is expected to intensify droughts over the Western US and make forests more susceptible to devastating blazes. However – this easterly windstorm was still an extraordinary, 50–100-year event, and there’s no reason to expect that we’ll see more of these windstorms in a warming world. In other words, we’ll have more frequent and severe fires due to higher temperatures and lower fuels, but this was an extreme, highly anomalous event by all measures and will remain a rare occurrence even in a warming world. ~Charlie Phillips Charlie Phillips, a Madrona resident, received his B.S. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington and works in Portland as a meteorologist. Check out his weather website at Charlie.weathertogether.net.

This article missed the June issue by just a few days, and we felt it was important enough that we print it in September; we can already see that there are serious fires in the west. It is no secret that the Pacific Northwest has had a string of more active-than-usual fire seasons lately. 2019 was pretty minor for the Pacific Northwest, but 2018 and 2017 were both very active seasons. August 2018 featured easterly winds that dropped smoke and ash from billowing fires over the Cascades right over the highly populated Puget Sound megalopolis on multiple occasions, creating an apocalyptic scene for citizens enshrouded in the earthly exhaust. 2017 was capped by the Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge, a raging September firestorm that burned approximately 45,000 acres of timber, and 2014 and 2015 were also extraordinarily active fire seasons for the entire Pacific Northwest. And who could forget about the devastating fires of 2017 and 2018 for California, as well as the unprecedented public safety power shutoffs during 2019? Over the past decade, the sheer amount of Pacific Northwest wildfires hasn’t increased, but the acres burned has increased dramatically. The reasons for this are multifold; the last several summers have been some of the warmest and driest on record, and 2017 was particularly bad because it followed the wettest winter/spring on record, meaning there was a ton of fresh growth that became tinder dry in the summer and provided fuel for fires to spread. We’re also seeing more acreage burning now simply because our decades of fire mitigation have resulted in unnaturally thick forests in fire-prone locations, allowing fires to grow more easily than they otherwise would if we had just let them naturally burn out on their own accord. Most Pacific Northwest fires are caused by humans, though the disparity isn’t as extreme as it is in California or east of the Rockies. However, most acres burnt in the Pacific Northwest are due to fires ignited by lightning. Lightning-ignited fires often burn in remote, hard-to-reach regions and away from humans and property, so they are not only often harder to fight but take a back seat to those threatening structures. When the original ‘Smokey the Bear” campaign came out in the 40s, the standard procedure was to extinguish both lightning and human-caused fires, but since the 1980s, the standard practice has been to let lightning-caused fires burn out unless they are threatening structures as people realized (particularly after the mega-destructive Yellowstone Fire of 1988) that fire plays a natural role in the ecosystem and that mitigating natural fires only results in the buildup of fuel and an increased probability of catastrophic wildfires going forward. Summer Fire Outlook Unfortunately, all indications are that we will have a more active-than-normal fire season. Our one saving grace (from a wildfire perspective) is that there may be less outdoor recreation this summer due to COVID restrictions and thus fewer opportunities for human ignitions, but the current conditions and long-range climate models suggest that we’ll have higher-than-average fire danger this summer. Much of Oregon and Eastern Washington is now in a “moderate” or “severe” drought, and some spots even have an “extreme” designation. I believe (and I think most people would agree) that the US Drought Monitor uses hyperbolic language, but it’s the standard used by the Climate Prediction Center and, in my opinion, is the best holistic indicator of drought because it takes a wide range of variables across a wide range of timescales into account when making its designations. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, we are in both a short-term (<6 month) and long-term (>6 month) drought and are experiencing effects from both. With short-term droughts, finer fuels such as twigs and grasses are drier-than-average and there may be a decrease in top-level soil moisture, while long-term droughts have a greater effect on the large-scale hydrology and ecology of the affected area. With regards to fire danger, both short-term and long-term droughts dry out fuel of various sizes and, if severe enough, can kill vegetation, making them more susceptible to fires. The California drought from 2011-2016 was most severe from 2011-2014, but over half the estimated 102 million trees that died in California during the drought died in 2016 alone. Snowpack also plays a significant role in summer fire danger. A substantial snowpack, particularly one that melts late into the spring, increases danger by keeping fuels moist and stifling the development of grass, shrubs, and other ‘fine fuels’ that inevitably dry out and burn during the summer. There are exceptions; the 2011-2012 winter was snowier-than-average, and the spring was wetter and cooler-than-average, with March being the snowiest month of the entire year for many spots. Still, below-average snowpack is often a harbinger of an above-average fire season, and snowpack is currently below-average for the eastern slopes of the Washington Cascades and nearly all of California and Nevada. A third factor that plays a significant role in summer fire danger is the amount of ‘fine fuels,’ such as grasses and shrubs, that grow during the spring and subsequently dry out in the summer. In this manner, wetter-than-average spring weather can actually lead to increased summer fire danger, as wetter-than-average springs allow more grasses to grow. It’s rare to have above-average fine fuels and drought conditions, but according to the National Interagency Coordination Center, the Western US has above-average fine fuels at lower elevations for the third year in a row due to our previous wet winters. So, with widespread short-term and long-term drought over the West, below-average snowpack, and above-average fine fuels, fuels have an above-average chance of being drier and more plentiful than average this summer. And that’s a pretty bad combo for fire danger. But at least our seasonal forecast points to cooler and wetter-than-average summer weather, right? Sigh... I wish I could say otherwise, but the Climate Prediction Center is pretty gung-ho on us seeing warmer-than-average weather this summer, and they even have a slight chance of drier-than-average weather for the Pacific Northwest. Needless to say, hot and dry summers are associated with an increased risk of large, destructive fires. We can’t do anything about how much rain will fall or how high temperatures will rise this summer. And lightning will ignite forest fires throughout the West this summer, just as it has done since trees first appeared nearly 400 million years ago. But we CAN do our part by preventing human-caused fires. With the world entrenched in arguably the most disruptive social and economic crisis since World War II, let’s help our first responders and fellow humans out and not burn down any forests! ~Charlie Phillips Charlie Phillips, a Madrona resident, received his B.S. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington and works in Portland as a meteorologist. Check out his weather website at Charlie.weathertogether.net .

One hardly knows where and what to start discussing with all that is going on, but of course I do have opinions and that is what the editorial is all about. Defunding the Police: I understand that the police are asked to do many things that are not actually what we consider public safety issues and very definitely they don’t receive enough training to be stepping into situations that call for Crisis Intervention. There are many people who would be alive today if experienced professionals had intervened in cases like Charleena Lyles. Newspaper reports indicate she was a small woman and was dealing with two armed police officers. News reports also say she had a knife but did not describe the knife; there are many knives in most kitchens from paring knives to butcher knives. As we know, the pregnant Charleena was shot and killed in front of her four children who are now damaged for life. When I was the oldest student at the School of Social Work, we had an assignment in Nancy Amidei’s class to work on some issue and present our solutions to appropriate authorities. I was working with a middle-aged man and a younger man whose brother had a mental health diagnosis; the family was in constant fear that if he had an episode in public, he would be a victim of the police. This was an issue that had recently appeared in the newspaper where a man with mental health issues was shot in his grandparents’ back yard on Yesler. We did a lot of research, especially with the new crisis intervention team in Los Angeles. The City was trying to avoid this type of killing and were experimenting with a new team trained to intervene in situations where mental illness was a factor. The initial results were good, but they needed to expand the team as these calls came in over the entire 24-hour period 7 days a week and the newly formed team could not handle all the cases. We arranged a meeting with then City Councilwoman Jane Noland and a police liaison officer, Clark Kimmerer. They were interested in our report and took both the report and the statistics to the Mayor and City Council. The result was the formation of a Crisis Intervention team here, but just as in LA, this one team could not always be available and for some reason, steps to increase the team weren’t taken. The three of us students moved on to other classes and eventually graduation and we did not pursue it unfortunately. Soon I was working and dealing with my own cases and we were raising a grandchild at that point, so I was not paying attention either…. until now. I feel that starting out by defunding the police is not the way to tackle this; instead, develop a plan of what you want to see first so the money is transferred into a more appropriate service. Just cutting it out of the police budget may mean it drops into that black hole where no one can find it, or it is used for a pet mayoral project. We also know that the public wants the police to step out of the homeless sweeps and leave this to social workers but provide resources. Homeless individuals seem to do better in the tiny house villages than shelters, which do seem dangerous in this pandemic. It may not be necessary to lay off large numbers of police; some might want to transfer into the Crisis Team, and we know that some officers have graduated from the School of Social Work and have some of the necessary skills. These folks are generally used in public relations jobs for the police. One of my favorite reporters and a watchdog of the City Council and Mayor’s office is Maria Tomchick. She said that the police department has successfully lobbied for increased funds due to increased population and while we have grown, the numbers are very different. The population is one third larger during this same period and the police budget is 3 times larger! Maria can be heard on Saturdays at 1pm on KODX FM; it can be streamed. KODX is a low-powered station that has picked up the interesting programs that used to be broadcast on KEXP as Mind over Matters. So, I would say to the City Council, take your time and use your listening skills to determine what the ideal police force would look like and what auxiliary services are needed to absorb some of the services. The “defunding” will take care of itself once the auxiliary services are fully funded. And I would say to the public, put your creative caps on and forward your ideas to your District Council representative. ~Diane Snell

What a summer it has been! Immediately after my last column went to press on the COVID-19 murals all over town, George Floyd was murdered by the police in Minneapolis on May 25. An outpouring of protests against racism and police violence erupted all over the United States and around the world. Here in Seattle we had nightly marches that escalated into direct confrontations with the police on Capitol Hill when they were not permitted to march past the 12th Ave precinct on Pine. At the same time, we had huge Black Lives Matter Marches. I went to two of them, one called “We Want to Live” beautifully organized without a police officer in sight in South Seattle. The second was the enormous silent march, organized by BLM, that started at Judkins Park. It was incredibly moving to be with 60,000 people who were all silent, both at the start for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to honor George Floyd, and on the march itself. “Let Us Breathe” and “I can’t keep calm, I have Black SONS” , June 7, courtesy Susan Platt Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill on Pine Street between 12th and Broadway, the resisters took over the area. The police left (no one is quite clear on who gave that order), and Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) set up. It was a utopian moment. The community poured out donations, the people were peacefully talking to one another, gardens were planted. At the same time, the demands were clear: 1. Defund the Police by 50 per cent 2. Fund Community Restorative Justice, Housing, Healthcare 3 Freedom for all Protestors. “End Police Brutality” and “Latinos for Black Lives”, June 7, courtesy Susan Platt As everyone knows, utopia is hard to maintain, and by the time I went back it had deteriorated from a Black Lives Matter protest to a disorganized combination of homeless persons, activists of various stripes, and the original BLM occupiers. It got increasingly white. The police and the city put up wooden boxes as barricades, all of them were covered with graffiti. So as your culture columnist I documented a lot of the art www.artandpoliticsnow.com/2020/06/capitol-hill-occupied-protest/ I also documented the intersection of BLM with COVID murals in the International District as the two huge events collided there in stunning murals. www.artandpoliticsnow.com/2020/06/intersections-in-the-international-district-murals-fish-vegetables-black-lives-matter/ George Floyd Mural June 24, 2020 now painted over, courtesy Susan Plat t Much less reported (indeed so far, I am the only writer on this subject) is the current occupation of the Northwest African American Museum entrance. The Colman School, site of the Northwest African American Museum, has been occupied since Juneteenth by Omari Tahir, Earl Debnam, and others to declare that they are the rightful owners of the property based on a purchase agreement and loan agreement from January 1998, a copy of which they provided to me. Tahir and Debnam were involved in the original occupation in the 1980s and 1990s. They state that they are the “real museum” with the name of African American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center. They have a report from the Mayor in 1994, that was Norm Rice, outlining the programs for the museum that included a visual arts center, musical center, artist in residence program, intimate performing/workshop space, practice space, instrument library, and a recording studio. “Why Do you See Me as a Crime?” at We Want to Live March, June 7 in South Seattle, courtesy Susan Platt They occupied the school for an amazing 13 years between 1985 and 1998 during which they created an exhibition of displays of African artifacts that Omari brought from Africa, “led workshops, held concerts, engaged with youth to be proud of their heritage so they would not turn to the streets.” That was a huge motivation for both their original occupation and their current occupation: as shootings of black youth continue to escalate, their desire to connect to youth through African heritage is re motivating them to continue their campaign. As stated in a July 7 article in Seattle Met that does not mention the current occupation: “ After an eight-year occupation, disputes between city leaders and activists related to the site’s functions and funds kept NAAM from opening until 2008, according to Trevor Griffey, the co-founder of UW’s Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project.“ That article compares the occupation to that at the Centro de la Raza struggle (also a former school occupation, but only for three months), and Daybreak Star, by the famous Bernie Whitebear who “won” land from Fort Lawson (of course it was all indigenous land). Omari and Earl with new supporters have returned to NWAAM. They state that the current museum is not “supporting the community.” I asked them what the NWAAM response to the occupation had been. The chair of the board called the police to evict them three times, but the program director has, according to their account, been more amenable to listening. I went back just before this press deadline (August 18) to get an update and the occupation had expanded! It has spread over the two gravel courtyards on either side of the museum entrance. The occupiers are enacting their vision of a community-based cultural center: raised beds ( as well as free plants to take away), a hand painted people’s library, Earl Debnam’s painting studio, the Jimi Hendrix Musical Academy (I saw some instruments available for people to play), an announcement of Jimi Hendrix 50th Anniversary Celebration Sept 18-20, 2020. Hanging to the other side was a row of celebratory flags and an announcement of another festival, September 11-13 online by the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. https://inpdum.org/ . So, what will happen next? Perhaps by October NWAAM will want to reopen and then we will see. CHOP was dismantled on July 1, but the garden has survived. When I went back on August 15, some of the memorials were still there, many have been removed or painted out. Some of the art is being cataloged with the city Cal Anderson Park still has a garden with raised beds run by Black Star Farmers ( https://blackstarfarmers.org/ with lots of inspiring signs about African American and Indigenous history. But everyday something changes! Last week it was temporarily closed, and all the signs gone, this week it is open, with new signs. Drip irrigation has been set up. The City Council precipitously acted on the “defund the police” demand, to provide more money for community services, but when they targeted our African American police chief with a forty percent cut in pay, she resigned. My personal opinion is that the police need massive retraining and lots more money can go to community services. But singling out our African American police chief for a huge pay cut that led her to resign was a big mistake. As with the NWAAM occupation, negotiation is the way forward. But given our national mood, negotiation is not happening. We are all too angry, stressed and anxious. ~Susan Platt, Ph.D., www.artandpoliticsnow.com

Kudos to Leschi Market for a creative solution in the pandemic world! Hello Neighbors and Friends! You may have seen the Leschi Market Facebook posts, or maybe even have already participated- we just want to continue to get the word out as we look to continue throughout the summer and into fall. Due to the high demand and customer requests- Leschi Market proudly launched our Virtual Tasting Series in mid-May via Zoom! Our goal is to host a Zoom tasting every Wednesday from 5:05pm to 5:35pm and explore the world of wine. Wine pros from Leschi Market’s award-winning wine aisle are on hand to guide you through new wines, new varietals, and new regions in an educational setting that is professionally fun. We also look to include winemakers, importers, and other knowledgeable industry folks as featured guests in future episodes. Every Monday we’ll announce lineups for the next two Wednesday meetings. Wines will be discounted from normal shelf price to encourage participation. Once you purchase the wines to taste, you’ll also receive the proper codes and passwords. Log on at the right time on Wednesday, grab a glass, and enjoy! (Spitting is optional). Wednesday, May 20th, introduced the endeavor at hand. Learning about the origins of the Leschi Cellars project, a big toast to Steve Shulman, and we even discussed the very viable option of freezing leftover wine. Always something new to learn! Wednesday, May 27th, we featured all new summer releases of Leschi Cellars. Participants were able to taste new Leschi Cellars wines just before they hit the shelves. Stay tuned for upcoming lineup announcements and join us for one sometime- we are positive you’ll have a great time and maybe even learn a thing or two! In closing- please know, Leschi Market is dedicated to providing a healthy and safe environment for all customers. We are proactive with implementing policies and day to day operations to ensure this. We want to thank you all for the overwhelming support, kind words of encouragement to our staff, and overall understanding as we navigate these difficult times. Leschi Market will continue to be your one-stop-shop all summer long. Stay safe, stay strong and be well. Kenneth Benner, a Seattle area native, is a trained chef and has worked in such restaurants as Barbacoa, B.O.K.A. Kitchen + Bar, and Dahlia Lounge. Ken is the wine buyer at Leschi Market. He has a passion for learning, a meticulous palate, and a tenacity for searching out the best for his customers while offering some of the most highly coveted wines in the area. His wine column is intended to inspire and explore new choices in wine, learn about wine with his readers, and share his knowledge and experiences in the wine world. Check out the latest at www.LeschiMarket.com or request to be added to email updates or send questions, comments, or suggestions to ken@leschimarket.com and follow the wine department directly on twitter at twitter.com/leschimarket.

The resurgence of wildlife in the neighborhood in recent weeks has resulted in documented sightings of wild rabbits and coyotes. At the beginning of May a friend looking out her kitchen window saw a large, brown visitor at her fishpond. It was a small, hungry beaver. “Frank,” as he came to be known, seemed to enjoy the large pond and the fresh fruit that was delivered to him by my friend’s daughter. He seemed to settle right in. Unfortunately, he also began to take great delight in the beautifully landscaped woodland garden. The Japanese maple was the first to go and it was apparent that by summer’s end there would be little left in the back yard if he kept up his pace. What to do? Call a “beaver relocator.” My friend, who lives about 2 blocks west of Lake Washington near Denny Blaine beach, got hold of a permitted trapper who lives in Madison Park. He came and set up a suitcase trap and promised that Frank would be taken to the Tulalip Reservation which welcomes the resettling of beavers as the tribe works to restore salmon habitat in the foothills of the western Cascades. It was unusual, the trapper said, for beavers to be found in private Seattle gardens. But these are unusual days. In the end, Frank must have gotten wind of the plans and disappeared, refusing to be enticed by the fresh willows and alder that baited the live trap. Frank is probably a juvenile. Beavers typically are encouraged to leave their colony when they reach about two years old and are sharing a lodge with parents and younger siblings. They head out solo, looking for their own territory, typically a half mile or more from their birthplace. They will begin looking for a mate soon after. Frank will one day grow to weigh about 60 pounds. The name “Frank” was a guess as it is difficult to tell the sex of a beaver by sight. This is a determination best made by smell, if you can get that close to their sex glands, which is not advised. Males smell like motor oil and females like old cheese. Frank’s front incisors were orange because of an iron-rich protective coating. Beavers were once prolific in North America, numbering close to 400 million when the first Europeans arrived. By 1900, the fashion craze for beaver fur hats and accessories, and a growing reputation as a farmland pest, saw beaver numbers drop to 100,000. Today, there are about 15 million beavers in the United States. Being how beavers are rodents (the second largest in the world) they reproduce quickly, and their numbers will no doubt begin to grow as environmentalists realize the incredible contributions beavers make to the ecosystem. Beavers are now considered a “keystone species.” Beavers rebuild Nature. Their damming of streams, done so they can build lodges that are safe from predators, results in the creation of quiet pools for young salmon. In addition to providing fish habitat, their lifestyle (the felling of trees for building and nourishment and dental care) creates wetlands which in turn provide habitat for butterflies and moose alike. They dig canals to bring additional water to their living areas and to skid small branches and logs along. This engineering, along with the ponds they construct, effects water storage and drainage. Their work actually lowers the temperature of water in some streams and rivers, a critical feature as we face the challenge of climate change. There are dozens of beaver colonies around Lake Washington. The best-known local spot to see beavers is at Beaver Lodge, a public access area at the intersection of McGilvra and the Broadmoor golf course. Best time for viewing is at dusk. Patience is required as beavers can stay under water for 8 minutes. A wonderful website for additional information is beaversnw.org which includes an astonishing aerial photo of the waterways beavers have made in the wetlands at the west end of the Montlake Community Center. And there’s a book that will convince you that beavers can literally change the world: Eager: The Surprising Secret Lives of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb. On a recent evening stroll near Leschi’s T Dock, we saw a beaver swimming toward the tip of the fallen pine that now floats on the lake’s surface. “Frank!” we shouted. We wish them the best. ~Anne Depue

Dozens of COVID 19 murals going up on Capitol Hill from Pike and 10th to Broadway and Pine, in Pioneer Square, and a third group in Ballard. The idea is that plywood over closed stores provides a great surface for painting. Many types of artists are involved, and the procedures vary. Sometimes an individual store owner directly chooses artists, as with the Globe Bookstore, Molly Moon, and Oddfellows; other times it is an organization like the Alliance for Pioneer Square and Pioneer Square Business Improvement Association. Here is a link to a website that lists all the artists and murals there in Pioneer Square. See pioneersquare.org/experiences/murals-in-pioneer-square. Another organization is “Signs of Hope” by CreativityThatConnects. creativitythatconnects.com/collections/seattle-locations-1. In some cases, artists simply paint beautiful imagery such as lush green foliage (Josephine Riceflower Wakuda) or mountain peaks (Nikki Frumkin). Often there are encouraging words: “Keep Going,” “Slow Down” “Stay Strong,” “Stay Home,” “I can’t wait to see you again,” etc. The theme of the mural is frequently directly related to the store that commissioned it, as in the cheery works of Morgan Zion on Molly Moon’s Ice cream stores and Coastal Kitchen (a nautical theme of course). Steve Shao, Ballard. Photo by Jeff Hou Collectively the murals suggest a reassuring outburst of creativity as we all fear the loss of all of our cultural organizations. Many of the artists come from a street art/graffiti background, or a pop culture focus. Others are obviously highly trained illustrators and fine artists. If you go to look for the murals, be forewarned it is easy to miss some of them. The walking tour map of Pioneer Square (from link above) showed me that I missed at least half of them. Even on Capitol Hill to which I returned three times, I missed some based on photos sent to me by Jeff Hou, UW Professor of Landscape Architecture, who kindly sent me a link to his facebook.https://www.facebook.com/houjeff/media_set?set=a.10221629106098228&type=3 . Hou’s images include Ballard which has an outstanding group but does not have a website. I encourage you to look at the murals closely and individually even as you experience the collective spirit. The styles are wildly contrasting. I have a couple of favorites. On Retail Therapy on Capitol Hill a mural by Burgundy Viscosi depicts birds with large lungs. I love this image. The mountain scene by Nikki Frumkin in Ballard, “Ascent Outdoors,” was stunning (she is a professional painter of mountains). But the Globe Bookstore images by Sam Day of famous literary figures made my day. Globe Owner John Siscoe personally commissioned them. (For more imagery see my blog posts at artandpoliticsnow.com/blog/.) Patrick Nguyen(Dozfy), Ballard. Photo by Jeff Hou These artists all have distinctly contemporary approaches, which is appropriate for this existential moment in history. They did not concern themselves with the long history of mural painting starting in Italy in the fourteenth century and continuing in a direct line through to the twentieth century with Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, the most famous of the Mexican muralists who worked in the United States at various times ( New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles). Judy Baca, who studied with Siqueiros continued those grand mural traditions in the 1970s and later in both her own work in Los Angeles and that of many others. Then of course there are the Indigenous traditions of large-scale painting, all over the Americas. Another historical reference for public murals is Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal which commissioned artists to paint murals between 1933-1943, some of which still survive in their original locations. The Public Works of Art Project, part of the WPA, paid artists an hourly wage as workers because artists identified with unemployed factory workers, mine workers, and many other industries in marches and protests. They were very, very visible. The government programs for visual artists, writers, theater artists, musicians, and dancers, was brilliantly promoted with the slogan “preservation of skills.” Today, we have a government that would not even think of providing employment to any workers, much less artists. Furthermore, we are prevented from getting out in the street and protesting. The COVID 19 mural artists, paid by individual business owners and community organizations, can only express hope and solidarity, not a critique of the system in which we are living. But I am inspired by the fact that these creative artists are getting support from the community. So, here is my hope for the next step: I would like to see some of these and other artists connecting the dots on the virus and climate change as affiliated, intersecting crises. The denialism of the virus is the same as denialism of the climate crises, which is escalating even as lots of people temporarily stay home. We can’t wait to get back on the road (I definitely include myself in that). The disintegration of the systems of the planet through our actions, is part and parcel of the disintegration of our bodies. A big positive of this quarantine as seen in these murals and every day: a shared experience. We all hope to build on that sense of connection, and the sharing spirit of “stay at home.” We need to for our own survival. ~Susan Platt Art & Politics Now

Sick people, lacking paid leave, couldn’t afford to stop working. Others who lost their jobs lost their health insurance, too. White-collar workers on lockdown discovered they were counting on people without health care to endanger themselves by delivering food. Poor children began falling behind in school because their parents couldn’t afford internet access. African Americans in states like Louisiana began dying in numbers out of all proportion to their share of the population. The coronavirus was a serious blow. But it quickly became obvious that America’s pre-existing conditions had left the country far weaker and more vulnerable than it should have been. I began with the words James Bennet, editorial writer for the New York Times, wrote April 9th because his paragraph succinctly covers circumstances I would have summarized to begin this article. Moreover, Bennet says nothing I did not know long before the pandemic. I hasten to admit that I was far from alone; many other persons were, are privy to this information: the millions whose plight it is to live in these circumstances; social workers, teachers and others who work in urban and sometimes rural communities, many “service” workers. But like me, they have no power to improve life for more than a few persons at a time and often only temporarily. The researchers could not make Donald Trump not cut their budget for the study of disease and pandemics. Evidently, neither could Congress. Or in the midst of the wheeling and dealing, Congress selected a greater good, most likely saying, “We can’t get it all.” The people with power return to their safe environments as the powerless continue suffering in their unsafe environments. As Trump lavished hyperboles on the economy before the virus, the economy he takes credit for, I knew it was not great from a great many of us. No one asked the person rising at dawn and/or working until after midnight, “How are you faring in this economy?” No one asks the person who works two, three jobs to live, support a family comfortably. The people at the top made hundreds of thousands of dollars that they could choose to spend or save; the people at the bottom continued their trudge in drudgery choosing whether to pay rent, mortgage or utility bills, skipping meat or purchasing more of the not-so-lean ground beef, not looking at vegetables. Many persons in the position of going to college or have children going to college had to defer their and their children’s college or vocational school plans. Would any in the higher and high echelons of government have guessed so many Americans would need food, need food so soon? Could anyone have imagined so many food banks could be emptied so quickly? Recently our leaders have heard how many of us live paycheck to paycheck, but it meant nothing to most of them. Their checks continue to be deposited in their accounts as is expected. They may not know the amount of their mortgage or mortgages, rent, utilities, insurance, etc. Everything is always paid and paid on time. The President loves to mention how he accepts no check but never mentions how much wealthier he has become as a result of becoming President. When Trump so often lavished hyperboles on the economy, he was ignoring so many Americans as he has always done unless he was in a denigrating mode. I did not want to write about coronavirus! The subject is everywhere—all or most stories on the front page of the Seattle Times, almost all of the TV channels. Of course, it is important. What tires me is the “discovery” of so many problems in the United States. Of course, there are problems, big problem—pre-conditions. Americans who do not have at least $100,000.00 annually coming into their households, without inheritances, and know nothing about the social service sector of our country, live high above or away from the urban centers or rural sections are not affected by much of the negatives. I look at the persons on television, for instance. As they recount the news, they continue to live, for the most part, as they live: pay remains the same, health insurance, paid sick leave, and the list continues. “Essential workers” have always been essential but never valued. Essential workers are being recognized more than ever before. More people in more places—especially those not in the so-called “essential workers” group, whose children, nieces, and nephews certainly won’t be in this group—have noticed these persons for the first time other than, perhaps, a present of some sort. Or a “big” tip. The television, newsprint, signs, salutations are great, well-deserved, but they do not remove these persons from danger nor put more money in their paychecks. Sincerity requires that we provide much better care. Friends know I say the Imperialist has no clothes. I say the curtain no longer covers Oz—before President Barack Obama said it in his commencement address! More than anything I want to hear the following. Everyone will have shelter. Everyone will have healthcare including those who cannot pay. (This includes the mentally ill. No one knows how many of the homeless are mentally ill. This includes persons addicted to prescription and illegal drugs. Unhealthy addiction is unhealthy addition.) Everyone will have more than simply adequate education—this includes computers and wi-fi. Education from pre-k to diploma, a certificate, a two or four-year degree. Everyone will have a job with a living wage. The infrastructure of the U. S., especially bridges and roads, will be repaired, rebuilt and NOT WITH SHODDY MATERIALS! I realize this is expensive. I also realize that the U. S. prints money, gives money, billions. Little is ever said about the Pentagon budget. On occasion the Pentagon has asked for less and been given more! Our foreign aid budget is a staple for many countries—some use the money wisely; others do not. I refuse to check how much we have spent in the past eighteen years as we fight never-ending wars decreed by a handful of individuals, persons who often do not represent “the people,” persons who were elected from countless gerrymandered districts. Not doing the above is more expensive than all of the above! You know the adage “A stitch in time saves nine.” Imagine how different the response might have been had not so many industries had not been outsourced so millionaires could make more millions. Imagine how different our response to the pandemic would have been had everyone had insurance. Imagine how many social problems could be solved if the stress in more parents’ lives were dramatically reduced. The birth rate and crime rate could be significantly reduced. Preventing mobility in the lower classes eats away at the classes above. Make changes for selfish reasons! Just make the changes that allow more members of our society to live comfortably rather than desperately. When people can get the basics—food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, a job/career—adequately, they encounter less stress and may become more productive members of society. More and more I repeat the better off we are, the better off we all are. Most individuals who work in civic, community organizations see this possibility. We have had a few presidents, congresses, local, state, and federal leaders who also envision a much better world and work to make it a reality. We must get others as soon as possible if we ever plan to make the United States of America the great idea it is on paper. I still believe. ~Georgia S. McDade

An around-the-world enquiry of the ‘Equine Addiction’ Hello and welcome to Horse Girl Gone Global. A 2019 recipient of the Watson Fellowship, I am currently on a journey to discover the feedback loop between horses, the economy, and the environment around them. This blog will serve as the primary vessel for me to share the stories and insights collected on my 12-month adventure visiting horse cultures in Europe, South America, Australia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. An Interlude in the Middle East The flight to Jordan was eerily empty on March 11th. The normally bustling Doha airport felt like an unpopular museum; women in hijabs shuffled by, their face scarves shifted down to accommodate bright blue face masks. Bedouin men in flowing white robes drifted through with falcons perched on hands covered in latex gloves. After a 7-hour layover in Amman, a time that was filled with one Starbucks latte and two panic attacks about COVID19, I boarded the tiny plane to Aqaba on Jordan’s Red Sea and the only other airport in the country. We arrived in the middle of a storm; the plane barely managing to make it to the tarmac amid the screaming winds and pelleting sand. I converted to at least four religions as I prayed for safety on that miserable 45-minute flight. In the two-gate airport I met driver number one. I knew who he was when he held out his phone to show a picture of myself glowing behind the cracked screen. After transferring to another taxi at a gas station on the edge of the small town, I let myself settle in as we sped to the Wadi Rum desert. Half brain dead from 35 hours of travel, my eyes slid over the Bedouin houses squatting in the dark. The melodic hum of Arabic swam through the static on the radio. Sand continued to patter against the windows. The muttering of the driver grew louder as the sand came at us faster. Like a snow blizzard it invaded the headlights’ beams, forcing us to slow down from 60mph to 10mph, the opaque burnt-orange curtain closing in on all sides. In the next 20 minutes we turned around, then back towards my destination, twice. The driver’s face screwed in frustration as he shouted over the phone to my host, Sandra. I was glad I couldn’t translate. After 40 minutes we turned off the main road onto a sand track heading towards a small cluster of dark houses. There were no street signs or addresses, and without phone service we had no hope of identifying which was Sandra’s home. The taxi man back tracked to where we had seen a single police car and then he pulled over and began to haul my luggage out of the boot. As I jumped out and pleaded for him to take me “to Sandra’s,” the Jordanian police officer stepped out of his vehicle, hand on gun. He conferred quietly with the driver then turned to me with an enormous smile: “To you Jordan welcomes!”. As the wind and sand whipped around us the police officer showed me photos on his phone of horses and falcons in the desert until Sandra finally pulled up. The short-haired Dutch woman didn’t acknowledge my strange arrival, but maybe that’s the way nomads often appear in the Wadi Rum desert. At her modest cinder block house, I met Shannon, another young woman staying with Sandra, as well as the three dogs and four cats. We sat on the floor and had tea with fresh lemon, ginger, and mint before going to bed. At 5am I awakened from the strange doze so often induced by sleeping on the couch to the smell of dogshit. The large husky-mutt rescue was at that moment pooping in the middle of the living room, two feet from my nose. Fumbling around the stranger’s house, I did my best to scrape the green diarrhea off of the ornate handwoven rug with an empty yoghurt container (no bags to be found). As I stepped outside in search of a garbage can, I had my first glimpse of the landscape in daylight. The red desert sprawled before me was as foreign as another planet. Intimidating rocks broke the rolling sand, their jagged faces moody in the morning sun. I knew I wasn’t on Mars only for the silver pick-up truck and rusting green garbage bin. The next 72 hours was a whirlwind of adventures. Going to feed the scruffy Arabian horses that have never known a blade of grass in their lifetime, visiting the caves and springs in the deep desert with a local young Bedouin man, “sledding” the car down a 80 degree sand hill, playing FIFA and drinking tea in the makeshift café in town, having dinner over a fire in the hand built camp of Omar and Yasser, dancing in the moonlight at our end of the world party. Amid these micro adventures I was checking email and Expedia whenever I had the opportunity to connect to WIFI. Covid19 was blossoming like desert flowers after a spring rain, and the world was panicking. Jordan was closing their borders, the Watson Foundation had requested fellows return to the states, Seattle was the viral epicenter of the USA. On March 15th, saying goodbye to fast-formed friends and the still-alluring desert, I slipped out of Jordan on one of the last flights to leave the country. Stubbornly determined not to return home, I decided to fly back to Australia where I enjoyed quarantine in the sun and working at a horse yard on the Mornington Peninsula. In mid-April I finally retreated back to Seattle where I have been appreciating the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, enjoying seeing friends at a 6ft distance, and doing everything I can to go safely out of the house as much as possible (like walking 100 miles last week). Working with horses is keeping me sane throughout lockdown, but I am already chomping at the bit for when I can continue to pursue my project once again. I hope this finds all of you and your loved ones healthy and safe. ~A Socially Distanced Cello Lockwood