The other day the Obama administration's "Chief Information Officer" -- or CIO... isn't that clever? -- was in Seattle decrying a "culture of faceless unaccountability" in government. His boast:

"This is part of the President's agenda: to make sure we’re hardwiring transparency into the culture of the federal government."

What a bunch of horse patootie.

At least that's the way Vivek Kundra's chest-beating looks from the trenches, for me and for other journalists trying to get information from the federal government, and particularly from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency...

From what I've seen more than a year into the Obama administration's four-year term, the administration isn't interested in answering questions from dispassionate, knowledgeable and professional observers. It's more interested in running the federal government like a political campaign. (more)

Publicola calls it...

The most important election you’ve never heard of, for a seat on the five-member King Conservation District board, is happening next Tuesday, March 16, at seven libraries around King County. The district gives out conservation grants and oversees land use in rural King County; the decisions it makes determine whether wetlands and habitat are protected or developed into suburban sprawl.

You can vote at the downtown library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle, between 10:30 AM and 7:30 PM Tuesday. Get info on the candidates here.

As the Seattle Times put it:

The candidates are: Mary Embleton of Seattle, director of Cascade Harvest Coalition; Mara Heiman of Auburn, a farmer, landowner and former real-estate agent; Teri Herrera of Redmond, Realtor; Kirk Prindle of Seattle, ecologist and environmental planner; and Max Prinsen of Renton, former appointed conservation-district-board chair and president of Save Habitat and Diversity of Wetland (SHADOW). For more on the candidates,...

When we broke the news that the Jimi Hendrix statue would be staying on Capitol Hill, we also learned he would have iconic company in the form of the father of rock 'n' roll, Chuck Berry. Turns out, Hendrix and Berry will be joined by at least a third. 

We saw Elvis being wheeled from his delivery drop point at the construction site on 10th over to his new home at the by way of Nagle Place. Hard to argue too much with the selection of this rock triumvirate -- Elvis, was a hero to most... but we're hoping three more (Run DMC) get added to the scene...

Bill Lucey of The Huffington Post featured InvestigateWest [and Seattlepostglobe] in an article about nonprofit investigative journalism in an age of declining for-profit newsrooms.

Lucey, a former South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter, began the interview by asking what it was like to watch the Seattle Post-Intelligencer close.  To be frank, it was horrible.  

But I've replaced that memory with a year of hard work... (more)

More here at InvestigateWest

  The P-I stopped publication almost exactly a year ago.

  (Photo and purse by Linda Thomas)

Former Dateline Earth denizen Lisa Stiffler, now digging up all kinds of interesting material on stormwater and other topics for Sightline.org, came out this week with a helpful hands-on guide to  how homeowners can do their part to cut down on stormwater pollution.

The basics: Keep as much rain as you can on your own property. Stiffler outlines how to use a variety of techniques to get the water to soak into the earth right around your castle. (more)

Lisa Stiffler

Congress has begun debating how to revamp the No Child Left Behind Act and one of the nation’s newest superintendents has an idea lawmakers should keep in mind: Education reform begins with child care, preschool and prekindergarten.

“If you want to reform high school, you need to reform early childhood. You don’t reform high school in high school, you reform very early on in life,” incoming Minneapolis Public School Superintendent Gregory Thornton told Milwaukee’s Business Journal.

(more)

Today comes news that a seed bank set up on a frosty Arctic island in Norway to preserve the possibility of feeding the world after a nuclear or climate disaster has reached the half-million mark for seed samples.

I'm confused: Should we be comforted by the Svalbard Seed Bank, or alarmed? (more)

Our friends at PubliCola did the heavy lifting by attending Tuesday's public forum debating Tim Burgess's proposal to crack down on aggressive panhandling.

During a public forum at Seattle University last night, proponents and opponents of City Council member Tim Burgess’ proposal to crack down on aggressive panhandling made the case for and against the measure...

...Jon Scholes, policy director at the Downtown Seattle Association, and Burgess argued that the legislation is needed to make downtown feel safe again for residents and visitors. “Our members and residents have had encounters with people who will follow them, people who will get in their face … people who are soliciting for organizations as well as people who are soliciting for their own benefit. So it’s a wide area of concern,” Scholes said. (more)

 

more at

While parents may think preschool is a place where their kids race around, run and play, a study found students engaged in “moderate to vigorous exercise” only 3.4 percent of their day at preschool. Granted, there are other things to do beyond run around outside, but the level found in the Children’s Activity and Movement in Preschools Study seems way too low. (more)

Read more here at Birth to Thrive

A thin, scraggly-coated wolf struggles for life, the lone lone survivor of the most-watched of the wolf packs that have grown up in Yellowstone National Park since the reintroduction of wolves there 15 years ago. About 750 miles away in California, a young bachelor wolverine wanders around hunting for a female wolverine to mate with -- but it's a fruitless search, because the nearest ones are hundreds of miles away. And back in the direction from which he came. 

These two stories that cropped up in the last few days can't help but tug at your heartstrings if you're even a little bit human.

And yet, if you look behind the obvious, these are actually encouraging signs. Here's why: (more)

A federal judge, in an amusing ruling Tuesday that took note that “many trees have died” in the ongoing court battle over Washington’s Top 2 primary system, has refused to toss the Top 2 primary system, but is allowing the political parties to continue their quest for some fine-tuning.

The parties have hated the Top 2 system ever since voters approved it in 2004 and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it in 2008.  Top 2 allows voters’ two favorite candidates for each office to advance to the November General Election. It’s no longer a nominating system that sends each party’s winner forward. It’s a winnowing election.  Parties don’t like that, particularly since  they aren’t guaranteed a runoff spot, because unaffiliated voters are welcome to take part in the primary, and because candidates declare their own party preference when they file for office. (more)

SEATTLE – Today and tomorrow, March 10 and 11, students are attending the Seattle Symphony’s Arts in Education Concerts at Benaroya Hall from 10:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m..   Approximately 32 school buses will be parking on surrounding streets while unloading and loading the 2,500 students expected at each concert.  Seattle Police will assist with traffic;  however, motorists can expect congestion in the area from the morning until the 2:00 p.m. each day.

Do you enjoy reading Dateline Earth? Is there a need for environmental news blogs? I hope the answer to both those questions is yes…. but if not I’d like to hear from you. Tell me: Is this a worthwhile enterprise? Because there are a lot of stories we’d like to get to out there – documents to read, people to call, data to analyze. All that takes time, and writing Dateline Earth costs me time.

Lest you think I’m fishing for compliments, I should point out that my inquiry is prompted by a post today on Columbia Journalism Review’s Observatory blog discussing how the Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal have discontinued their enviro-news blogs.

Both of these publications have storied histories and high journalistic standards. So CJR’s Curtis Brainerd checked in with editors at both sites, asking: whassup? (more)

Questions about the shipwrecked sailor rescued on Vancouver Island last week are no closer to be answered after the man was released from Canadian custody and mysteriously returned to the U.S.

Keith Carver was arrested by RCMP officers at a hospital in Port McNeill, B.C., on Friday, where he was being treated after being stranded on Vancouver Island’s rugged north coast for five days. (more)

more at

This spring one of the giants of family research will launch a campaign to connect parents and teachers with all of the research on benefits of quality early learning, and help them use it.

Next month, Family and Work Institute head Ellen Galinsky will kick off “A Mind in the Making,” an ambitious and multifaceted effort that will be the culmination of eight years of work on early childhood learning research, why kids lose interest in learning and what can be done to keep them engaged.

“Too many kids were dropping out of high school, too many are not prepared for college, and there is a disturbing lack of engagement in learning..." (more)

more at

The plan for 18 loft-style apartments at 12th & Fir was one of the more ambitious projects of the real-estate bubble years. Now it's shaping up to be the Central District's poster-child of real-estate and banking woes, and how the resulting ownership confusion can leave us all with an unstable mess. (more)

more at

From Larry Johnson's blog: Looking for Trouble.

Thanks to ROFTO Radio – Palestine, I recently received a letter from the parents of Rachel Corrie, describing the lawsuit scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Haifa District Court in Israel. Rofto.net describes itself as a “Palestinian guy-owned independent network that promotes constructive dialogue and understanding within the Middle East and All the world.”

Here’s the letter:

Friends,

As many of you know, a civil lawsuit in the case of our daughter Rachel Corrie is scheduled for trial in the Haifa District Court beginning March 10, 2010. A human rights observer and activist,Rachel, 23, tried nonviolently to offer protection for a Palestinian family whose home was threatened with demolition by the Israeli military. On March 16, 2003, she was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Force (IDF) Caterpillar D9R bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza.

The lawsuit is one piece of our family’s seven-year effort to pursue justice for...

  (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Environmentalists are urging people to call their legislators in Olympia in a last-minute push to clean up the No. 1 pollution threat to Puget Sound: stormwater pollution. A plan to tax petroleum and other hazardous substances to raise money toward Puget Sound restoration is being fought hard by the oil industry, as well as agricultural interests who don't want to pay higher taxes on pesticides and fertilizer.

Enviros say they need a flood of last-minute calls from constituents to prod legislators into action before they adjourn their annual session in Olympia Thursday night.

Oil industry: "We are in complete and total opposition. …" (more)

With time running out in the Washington State legislative session, a cut in child care subsidies for poor families remains a $30-million part of a House plan to balance the budget, though the Senate appears to support more funding.

The House budget plan now has a smaller version of Gov. Christine Gregoire’s proposed cut to the Working Connections Child Care program – a move that would force thousands of poor families from the program that provides child care subsidies and support, according to interest groups. (more)

more at

Students in Seattle, Bellingham, Olympia, Portland, Berkeley and in college towns across the nation Thursday raised voices and waved protest signs against rising tuition and fees that threaten access to higher education.

It was called a "National Day of Action." It was bigger on some campuses, where hundreds turned out, and smaller on others, like Bellingham, where only about 20 students turned out. At Seattle Central, a protest banner read: "MONEY FOR JOBS AND EDUCATION, NOT WAR." Nationally, tens of thousands of students protested. (more)

 more at

It’s been more than 30 years since Congress passed a law called the Toxic Substances Control Act. It hasn’t controlled many toxics, though. And today a high-ranking environmental regulator from the Pacific Northwest told members of Congress that the nation’s efforts to keep people safe from harmful chemicals just aren’t cutting it.

Ted Sturdevant, director of the Washington Department of Ecology, rattled off a list of steps taken to control toxics in his state, including banning the flame retardant decaBDE and work to rein in mercury and lead. But Sturdevant’s testimony at the Congressional hearing quickly jumps to this point:

The truth is that our approach to protecting people and our environment from toxic chemicals is a failure. (more)

Corey Louviere, a Fine Arts teacher and Janet Woodward, a Librarian, both at Garfield High School, have won a $10,000 grant from Qwest to curate an exhibit on the history of the Central Area in Seattle.  Here is a summary of their winning grant proposal:

An ambitious photo exhibit project will engage Louviere and Woodward’s classes in an exploration of the history and culture of Seattle’s Central Area. Garfield High School, built in 1922, is one of manyhistorical landmarks whose providence depicts a long, community narrative they plan to research. Students will document the multi‐cultural topography of the area, where six bus lines converge, and therich diversity of its neighborhoods, commercial and community centers speak to the unique character ofthe area’s people and urban lifestyle.

In a series of field trips, students will photograph specific scenes, take notes and interview residents. Each student will select his or her best image for the exhibit and prepare statements that interpret...