When I heard about the hourlong documentary film “Seattle Is Dying,” I felt a certain dread. Listening to a radio interview about the film, I was struck by the bleakness of Seattle’s homeless situation. It took me a week to make time to watch the film. After viewing it, “bleak” wasn’t strong enough to describe the problem. The film was produced by television station KOMO in Seattle. It was the third part of an informal series developed a few years earlier as the homeless situation grew worse in that city. The film opens with a bold statement: This is about an idea. For a city that has run out of them. What if Seattle is dying? Can it ever recover?
Last fall we ran an article about Marisa Bogdanoff and Steve Sphar, local volunteers who are working to foster civil political discussion by leading Sacramento’s chapter of Better Angels. Better Angels is the national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing liberals and conservatives together to understand each other beyond stereotypes. The idea for the group was in the works before the polarizing 2016 presidential election.
As we enter the 24th year of our publishing business, I am reminded how grateful we are to the hundreds of advertisers who pay 100 percent of the cost to bring our readers the most interesting local news each month. Cumulatively, ad revenues over the years have probably totaled more than $20 million!
The “Twelve Days of Christmas” song is still fresh in my mind in early January. As every child knows, the festive tune tells the story of a series of gifts given to a loved one that grow in quantity each day.
I’ve always thought owning a restaurant was one of the toughest jobs around. Thirty years ago when living in San Francisco, I had a friend who was a restaurant consultant. When we first met, I naively asked why an owner would need to hire her. In those days, the San Francisco restaurant scene was in its heyday. New places had opened everywhere. Tables at popular spots were hard to book.
The American experience is by and large the immigrant experience. Millions of people from all over the world have come to our great nation in order to find opportunity and freedom and to pursue happiness. Those last two things are unique to America. Our founders enshrined the phrase “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence.
