November 2012

The legalization of recreational marijuana use for Washington residents 21 years and older officially kicks in Dec. 6, but King County prosecutors and police are already changing their policies.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg announced on Nov. 9 that his office dropped all 175 outstanding misdemeanor marijuana possession cases in their system. Cases were only dropped for those 21 years and older.

“Although the effective date of I-502 is not until December 6, there is no point in continuing to seek criminal penalties for conduct that will be legal next month,” Satterberg said in a press release.

Shortly thereafter, the King County Sheriff’s Office announced their deputies “will not be directed to arrest or charge individuals caught with one ounce or less of marijuana following the passage of I-502,” effective immediately but only for unincorporated areas of King County like White Center.

Classmate robbery
On Halloween day, a new student at a local high school was sitting on the bleachers at the baseball fields along the 2600 block of S.W. Trenton St., minding his own business, when two fellow teenagers came up behind him. One of the suspects grabbed his backpack and the two started running away. The victim pursued the thieves, and started yelling that they “didn’t know who (they) were missing with.” One of the suspects turned around and punched the victim several times in the face, causing bleeding from the nose and a black eye. Undeterred, the victim continued to follow his attackers for a few blocks before losing sight. Back at the school, the victim told police and administrators he knew that both suspects were students at his school and, in fact, one of them was in his physical education class. Police gathered the name and photo on their 16-year-old suspect and planned to have a conversation with him about what it’s like getting arrested for robbery and assault.

A nefarious thank you

Kennedy Catholic rode a late fourth quarter touchdown by Drew Thompson to a 20-14 state football playoff victory over Columbia River Saturday.

Thompson ran the ball in from 13 yards out, snapping a 14-14 tie between the Lancers and the homestanding Chieftains at the Kiggins Bowl in Vancouver.

The victory gives JFK its first berth into the state quarterfinals since 2006. The Lancers will pay a visit to Mount Si this coming Friday or Saturday.

Mount Si is the No. 2-ranked Class 3A team in the state and the Lancers -- who improved their season record to 9-1 -- are ranked No. 4.

The two teams met in their first game of the season, when Mount Si shut out Kennedy by a 30-0 score. Mount Si is coming off of a 52-19 state playoff victory over Glacier Peak.

Aside from the touchdown by Thompson, the Lancers' trip to Vancouver was highlighted by two touchdown runs by Colin Cossette.

Cossette punched the ball into the end zone on runs of 11 yards and two yards.

The game was knotted at 7-7 at the half.

Discovery Shop
4535 California Ave. S.W.
206-937-7169
We are decorated and stocked with many one of a kind items for holiday decorating and gift giving. Help us celebrate our 22nd Anniversary on Saturday, November 17, with refreshments from 1 to 3 and buy one item of clothing, get a second item of equal or lesser value for free.  High schoolers with student I.D. get a 20% discount on Saturdays, seniors all day Tuesday, and double stamps on customer appreciation cards Mondays 10 to noon.  When you donate, volunteer and shop with us you support important cancer research.  The all volunteer run, nonprofit American Cancer Society shop is open for Thursday Art Walk until 8:30, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays and all other days 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Follow our blog at www.discoveryshopwestseattle.org and LIKE us on Facebook.

Continuing Education Classes
South Seattle Community College
6000 16th Ave. S.W.
Register now: 206-934-5339 or www.LearnAtSouth.org

GriefShare hosts a “Surviving the Holidays” Seminar
Grace Church
10323 28th Ave. S.W.

By Georgie Bright Kunkel

Complainers are always asking, “Why don’t they?” and end with whatever they would like someone else to accomplish. We are so used to expecting the corporation or the government or some institution to do things for us that we forget that we as citizens can make things happen by being pro-active. I know we feel very helpless sometimes. We are aware that we have lost a lot of power. Individual citizens used to live in rural areas, growing all their own food. Then it was the weather or the rich supplier or banker that stood in the way of getting our own needs met. We did not rely on corporate marketing to entice us to buy and buy and buy, charging it all on our credit cards.

By Elizabeth Wang

No roads. No lights. No nothing. The sharp contrast between dark and darker drew photographer Birgitte Aarestrup to the Arctic Sámpi region of northern Sweden. Inspired to shoot and preserve the Sámi people way of life, Aarestrup traveled to no man’s land to live, cook, talk and listen with the reindeer herders.

“I’ve always been very drawn to the North,” Aarestrup said. “The purity of the snow and all that. I was fascinated with their colorful costume, with their artwork and that they have kept a thousand-year-old tradition still alive. [They are] living in a harsh climate, but they are warm people.”

Aarestrup was born in Denmark and raised in Sweden. She was trained by Danish photographer Jörn Freddie, developing her own style and motivation. Aarestup’s book, “8 Seasons Above the Arctic Circle,” documents her multiple trips to northern Sweden, the nature she experienced and the stories she heard while she was there.

By Kyra-lin Hom

All right, enough of this zombie silliness. I get it. The predatory undead aren't for everyone. I mean, we're in serious political times here. This is no time to be joking around – *cough**Jimmy Fallon* *cough*. Excuse me, I had a frog in my... keyboard. Anyway, as I was saying, it's time for me to move on from zombie land onto more appropriate matters. Such as Korean pop music (K-pop) and specifically artist PSY's international hit “Gangnam Style.” That seems thematically proper and timely, right? After all, PSY did say that his song is all about looking classy while being as ridiculous as possible. Well, he used the word 'cheesy,' but that's close enough for me.

Two West Seattle boys, age 9 made a presentation of their science and robotics skills at the newly opened wing for the Space Shuttle Trainer at the Museum of Flight on Sun. Nov. 11.

Asa Buehler, and his friend Kyle Jensen worked for the past six months on an international robotics competition called " The Mindstorms Challenge", part of an effort sponsored by Google for the Lunar X Prize, and toy company Lego.

The competition is meant to stimulate more interest in science, technology, engineering and math and aimed at future robotic missions to the moon.

The boys, formed a team they call the Penguin Men (from a previous school project) and submitted a proposal, for a "Moonbot" including a video in June in the contest for 9 to 15 year olds that saw 300 teams from around the world vying for the prize.

Thirty teams made the first cut, including The Penguin Men who were not only the youngest team in the competition but the smallest with other teams numbering five or more.

UPDATE at 8:55am
Power is restored. City Light explained, " In attempting to reroute power to restore a portion of the original customers with another feeder (major power line), the second feeder relayed out. So, a second block of customers was without power for about ten minutes, including the Westwood neighborhood. At its height, the outages affected approximately 11,000 customers."

UPDATE at 7:00am
The City Light system status still shows 723 customers out at 7am.
http://www.seattle.gov/light/sysstat/

UPDATE at 6:40am
City Light crews responded quickly to a power outage that knocked out the lights for more than 3200 customers in West Seattle's Gatewood Hill. For a time the traffic signals at 35th and Thistle and Holden were out. The outage extended down to include the West Seattle Thriftway store at Morgan Street.
Power was restored for many shortly before 6:30 am.

UPDATE at 6:10 am
City Light has released a statement about the West Seattle power outage: