Besides a lot of noise, the Seafair celebration offers a little bit of everything. Perhaps in the spirit, Crosscut's writers served up their own richly varied offerings this week.
Readers showed a great deal of interest in Seattle politics, and we were happy to have two articles that seemed to take a larger look at the recent past and the future possibilities. In "How the Muni League's hidden bias got Seattle into its current state," Knute Berger wrote about the Municipal League of King County's candidate ratings and suggested that the high ranking in the last mayoral election for candidate Joe Mallahan owed a good deal to the League's desires for a leader from the business sector. Looking ahead, Roger Valdez discussed the possibility of new coalitions emerging (in part out of the tunnel debate) that would aim to create a better, more sustainable city without destroying the best of Seattle's heritage. His thought-provoking article is "Tunnel debate is redefining Seattle politics."
Beyond politics, readers seemed to like stories that looked at values, health, and the human condition. Anthony B. Robinson posed hard questions about religious trends in his article on Monday, "Are consumer-driven churches betraying the American soul?" Collin Tong's sensitive book review and interview, "CBS correspondent tells of his wife's early slide into Alzheimer's", also drew a lot of readers. The book, by CBS correspondent Barry Petersen, tells about his love for former KIRO anchor Jan Chorlton and her affliction with Alzheimer's.
Peter Newman wrote a touching recollection of conductor and music expert George Shangrow. And Daniel Jack Chasan's personal essay, "Patient communications: When doctors missed the signs," brought home the experiences of many people in trying to communicate with the health-care system about their loved ones.
Here are a few of the other articles from the past week worth checking out if you have a few extra mintues:
"Anonymous? Website comments are not all created equal," by Heidi Dietrich.
"Farms' problems with a herbicide may be back," by Bill Richards.
"Southcenter has a hit with Filipino, Asian food," by Hugo Kugiya (part of his Eating on the Edge series).
Thanks for dropping by.
