{"id":2388,"date":"2020-02-25T16:05:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2388"},"modified":"2020-02-25T16:05:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T23:05:38","slug":"crusade-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/?p=2388","title":{"rendered":"CRUSADE ALERT"},"content":{"rendered":"

FREE THE PIER!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pier was new, beautiful, walk-able, inviting, fenced and locked.
\nIt was scheduled to open in FIVE YEARS, when the whole tunneling project would be done.
\nFIVE YEARS?<\/p>\n

Five years is a very long time.\u00a0 I’m 80 years old in a wheelchair and, although I intend to live forever, you never know.\u00a0 So I wrote to the City’s Project Director.\u00a0 I noted the many Seniors in a six-block walking radius, the lack of other places to actually be out on the water, and the City’s efforts to be community friendly and to foster healthy lifestyles.\u00a0 So why five years?\u00a0 The pier is finished and though it is needed for trucks to haul the dirt dug up to make the tunnel, how about unlocking it on weekends?\u00a0 FREE THE PIER!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I got a very nice note back from the Project Director, but freeing the pier was a no go.<\/p>\n

\"\"

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Action Shot #14.<\/strong>\u00a0 Being chagrined.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The pier is locked. No boats are docked.\u00a0 No gulls have flocked.\u00a0 Time to\u00a0 FREE THE PIER<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

Some weeks later, the neighborhood newsletter named the three local artists hired to invigorate the boring fence.\u00a0 And I had a thought.\u00a0 So I sent a second note to the Project Director offering to be a performance artist, sitting on the pier enjoying a latte, reading a “pertinent” book, or just being one with the water.<\/p>\n

And several weeks later, he responded.\u00a0 FREE THE PIER<\/strong>!\u00a0 (To be continued.)<\/p>\n

—————————————<\/p>\n

Ballard Landmark Book Notes:\u00a0 <\/strong>I read And enjoyed enough\u00a0of Joanne Freeman’s Field of Blood Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War<\/strong> to prepare for attending her talk about the polarizing dysfunction and violent incidents of 1850’s Congress leading up to the Civil War.\u00a0 The current parallels were obvious and many, and reviewers gave the book a rave, in part because of her\u00a0 extensive research and cited sources.\u00a0 So I was bound to love the talk.\u00a0 (She is the daughter of my neighbor and spoke while visiting her mother over Christmas.)<\/p>\n

It was a great talk.\u00a0 She described her purposeful, but serendipitous 17 year search for violent incidents in the secretive Congress, which was secretive much\u00a0 like today’s Congress is.\u00a0 Other than C-Span<\/strong> and a still flawed Congressional Record,<\/strong>\u00a0 how do we know what really goes on when the House and Senate meet?\u00a0 Dr. Freeman searched government records, family letters of members and the 11 volume journal of the Clerk.\u00a0 Newspapers, as we know them, were just starting and biased.\u00a0 But the new telegraph was coming to the rescue.\u00a0 \u00a0Introductory Notes and Appendix 2 were about her efforts with information distribution and credibility and searching.<\/p>\n

I loved the talk and\u00a0loved finding her recent, great Op Ed piece in the NY Times.<\/a>\u00a0 With her learning, she provided context to note the rightness of Nancy Pelosi’s wonderful speech-shredding and the wrongness of Rand Paul’s public-naming of a possible whistle blower.\u00a0 She is lively, learned, just a joy, who uses history to make current points and draw pertinent conclusions.\u00a0 She would be a GREAT commencement speaker.<\/p>\n

Right now I’m reading Think of a Number, a mystery by a\u00a0 new author, John Verdon,<\/strong> whose main character is retired NYPD\u00a0 Detective Dave Gurney, who lives in the Catskills but with a tie to Seattle.\u00a0 So far so good, but compelling?\u00a0 I’m not sure.<\/p>\n

Enough, already. I’ll keep you posted on our Crusade to FREE THE PIER<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0Every life needs purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREE THE PIER! The pier was new, beautiful, walk-able, inviting, fenced and locked. It was scheduled to open in FIVE YEARS, when the whole tunneling project would be done. FIVE YEARS? Five years is a very long time.\u00a0 I’m 80 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}