ETS! encourages comments, feedback, tips, corrections, and info! Please keep them as concise as possible so we can print as many different voices as possible: ETS!, P.O. Box 85541, Seattle WA 98145, or e-mail ets@scn.org.

Signs of Peace

On Sunday, October 7, 2001 when I heard the United States had begun bombing Afganistan, I decided to do something about it.

I found a small poster with the sentence "All People are Welcome Here" in English and 17 other languages. It's a very beautiful sign and I made 100 copies on yellow paper. Then, I walked along Broadway on Capitol Hill and handed them out for the businesses to post them in their windows.

The signs were designed and created by a group of friends from Harborview.

The reaction by shopowners and their employees was mixed: everything from "We are a corporation and our corporate policy is that we can't put anything in our windows" to "Thanks, can I have two?" The most interesting responses were those people who saw their own language in the poster first. One or two stores said: "No thanks, we assume everyone knows that all people are welcome here!" which I found to be an elegant response.

After four hours of visiting stores and talking to shop owners and workers, I decided to call it a day and handed out my remaining signs to people on the street. I noted that a few more businesses had already put these signs in their windows and that made me smile as I was leaving for Beacon Hill.

On another note, I posted a long article to my friends and family with the title: "If this is Patriotism, Keep it!" or something to that effect. This has stirred up my various e-mail lists and a number of friends have written to me in protest--that it is a good thing that we bomb Afganistan. It's giving me a chance to discuss the events with them, which I appreciate. Thanks to you who are taking the time to think about what this all means and for talking to people you know about it.

Albert Kaufman, Seattle

Tiny Hand Prints

Tashkent is also one of Seattle's sister cities. In fact, the little park up the street from me is called Tashkent Park in honor of this partnership. The park was created when Tashkent was still part of the USSR and its centerpiece is a brick courtyard and planter adorned with ceramic tiles made by the children of my sister city. The simple images of our Earth, smiling faces, or the word MIR (Russian for Peace) mean a lot more to me now than they ever have before.

The children that made those tiles are adults now and are living at this month's Ground Zero. I see each tile and touch it, wanting to know the history of its creator and how they are doing now. Do they still harbor the same hopes and dreams that they did before? Do they know that while surrounded by thousands of American strangers in their own city that an American stranger is in his own city thinking of them? Do they still believe in peace and unity?

As I trace my finger along the outline of their own fingertips I want to reach out to each one of them and take their hands. Grasping them firmly with friendship and love. For all people and all eternity.

Best,

Curtis Linderman, Seattle

Come vote on Bainbridge! We've got better candidates

A bare majority for policies to do the "most good, for the most people, all the time" is possible now. This "most good" line (an old saw of civics) has on Bainbridge always taken a back seat to "We're just trying to make a little money here."

Our City ordinances are looked at as to their profitability and changed to meet that goal! I'm not arguing against people building things, or making money. I am arguing that people can and will build things and make money without the taxpayer providing most of the infrastructure free, and without a peep from Council after Council. If these things were discussed openly and in enough detail, I might find out I'm wrong and people just love paying 80% of development fees for developers. Without a Council that even sees these things as worth having on the agenda, what is there to do?

All four candidates--Debby Vann, Debby Vancil, Bill Knobloch, and Darlene Kordonowy--are exemplary. Their policies are community friendly, and they have worked for years to prepare to take on a City that is driven to help development and sacrifice our Comprehensive Plan, environmental basics, and communities.

Don't let personal evaluations of any of these distract from policies that you will need them to change in your favor. Too much is made of the personal. Let's go for policy.

I bring up personality, because I hear people talk about this or that candidate not being "a consensus maker" or being "too confrontative". It's not true. Any of you who have dealt with the City long enough to see what goes on, will have traded etiquette for confrontation, if you care about Bainbridge. Money, not people's best values, drives decisions. Rooting this out isn't for the timid.

Where are the farms, trails, and "alternatives to single occupancy Vehicles," salmon restoration projects, historic preservation, etc. that the Comprehensive Plan and survey after survey have called the City to do?

This is a watershed election. Please vote and vote for these four.

Jeff Moore, Bainbridge