journalism & essays

Backyard flights of fancy: Hobbits, dragons, pirates, oh my!

Many a kid (and grown-up) has dreamed of having a magical playhouse. If you’ve got more cash than carpentry skills, there are creative entepreneurs who specialize in bringing those storybook flights of fancy alive with Hobbit holes, treehouses, castles and more.

Socialist in Seattle: City councilor expects not to be a rarity for long

Kshama Sawant, rising from the Occupy movement, hopes to be the first of many new anti-corporate politicians in America

World of hemp celebrated at festival

Welcome to Hempfest, annual cannabis celebration in Seattle that this year was part protest and part victory party

Source: america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/8/16/world-of-hemp-celebratedatfestival.html

Art can add whimsy to a garden

I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Sprinting past an alligator drinking a soda pop and a T-Rex playing guitar, I lean toward a family of colorful metal toadstools that come to my knee.

Source: news.yahoo.com/art-add-whimsy-garden-171518938.html

When nature calls — at the worst time

At 26, I never thought the accident everyone fears would happen to me. But it did, and it was horrifying

Source: www.salon.com/2011/04/26/when_nature_calls_mortifying_disclosure/

Why I need Obamacare

I’m sick, and I will be for the rest of my life. Knowing I won’t be denied the insurance I need matters

Source: politics.salon.com/2012/04/02/why_i_need_obamacare/

Cedar Reviews Last Night’s Sedaris Show

David Sedaris’s people are not, as the uninitiated might suppose, gay men. Or rather, not exclusively gay men. Sedaris’ tribe are the freaks—the misfits, the neurotics, the obsessive compulsives and attention-defunct.

Source: slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/05/01/cedar-reviews-last-nights-sedaris-show

Seattle teacher strike: parents show support despite scheduling upheaval

Advocacy for students has been central to negotiations and despite having to organize childcare on the fly, locals have brought food and encouragement to picketing teachers

Beyond chickens and bees: Urban farmers try goats

Urban goat farming is part of a nationwide movement to eat food produced locally sometimes as locally as our backyards.

Need more space? Some put up a cottage out back | The Big Story

Source: bigstory.ap.org/article/need-more-space-some-put-cottage-out-back

Beyond mobile: Prefab homes come of age, promising to be efficient, green, easy

So much of what is in our homes these days is factory-made — toasters, furniture, toys — but not the homes themselves.Most are still built on-site, as opposed to being prefabricated and tr

Source: www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/19/beyond-mobile-prefab–ho_n_1896630.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-living

Northwest Botanical Analysis: The Seattle Lab That Will Test Your Weed, Tell You If It’s Safe

With sparkling facilities, geeks in lab coats, and a humming gas chromatography machine, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Fremont’s Northwest Botanical Analysis is just another Seattle biotech startup. But its test tubes aren’t filled with stem cells or blood samples. They’re filled with weed.

Source: www.seattleweekly.com/home/937986-129/marijuana

3 quick projects that kill clutter

If, like me, you spent this winter hibernating and eating baked goods, your home may have paid the price. Maybe it got a little disorganized, or is starting to look like an episode of “Hoarders.”

Source: news.yahoo.com/3-quick-projects-kill-clutter-181344283.html

Multiple Methods for Teaching Math … And Still Counting

Today’s elementary math education is far removed from the teaching methods most of us grew up with. Gone is much of the rote memorization (along with the blackboards), replaced with project-based learning and real-life application. Whether that’s a good thing is a matter of ongoing debate.

Source: www.parentmap.com/article/multiple-methods-for-teaching-math

Just say ‘I do’ to food trucks

Bobby Hughes’ family was worried about the food truck. They were used to sit-down wedding dinners with towering cakes.

Same-sex couples making new wedding rituals

Same-sex couples who have first been joined in a commitment ceremony are often waiting to legally marry when they can do so in their own state. This generation of gays and lesbians is creating a new set of rites and rituals incorporating both old and new traditions.

High times for West Coast ‘cannabusiness’

Marijuana trade conference outside Seattle highlights booming growth in products made from increasingly legal drug

Art houses – the home as a canvas

Some property owners are driven to turn their house into a neighborhood work of art

Childhood Obesity: How Did So Many Kids Get So Overweight?

The rate of childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years, due to a number of factors, including kids being more sendentery and spending more time indoors playing video games and watching TV

Source: www.parentmap.com/article/childhood-obesity-how-did-so-many-kids-get-so-overweight

Ditching the dryer: tips for airing clean laundry

Think clotheslines are a relic of a bygone era, a time when our grandmothers slaved over their dainties with stiff birch-wood pins?

Source: www.kansas.com/2012/08/03/2435379/ditching-the-dryer-tips-for-airing.html

Your Creative Team May Secretly Hate You – Be Yourself

There’s been a lot of talk recently about creativity in the context of business. It’s the buzzword du jour and every stage-commanding guru…

Source: medium.com/@cedarthvader/your-creative-team-may-secretly-hate-you-fdf894af2397

7 Parent Uniforms You Might Be Guilty Of

One mom explores losing her style after she had a baby and defines the fashion sense of other moms and dads. Types include parents with tattoos, the “Microsoft look,” the vegan attachment co-op cyclist parent outfit, and the parent who is trying to still look cool.

Source: www.parentmap.com/article/14579

Whose Pet Is It, Anyway? Getting Your Kids to Walk the Walk (and Walk the Dog)

We know pets can be man’s best friend, but can they be your child’s best teacher? Wet dog kisses and warm kitty cuddles aren’t the only things kids gain from furry friends. Caring for pets fosters responsibility and a whole lot more. “Loving something that needs you and depends on you teaches empathy,” says Becky Bishop of Puppy Manners in Woodinville.

Source: www.parentmap.com/article/whose-pet-is-it-anyway

Male Nesting: How Expecting Fathers Prepare During Pregnancy

Do expectant dads nest?

Mary Dodge, a Seattle marriage and family therapist, thinks they do. “Today’s fathers are far more involved and emotionally expressive than their predecessors, and that means experiencing and acting upon nesting instincts — or anxieties — all their own,”

Source: www.parentmap.com/article/male-nesting-how-expecting-fathers-prepare-during-pregnancy