The Seattle P-I is reporting that a Highline Medical Center X-ray technician accused of sexually assaulting a disabled patient has been charged with a felony sex crime.

King County Prosecutors claim that the man, Michael Ikeda, 54, forced a 53-year-old woman to touch his genitals while he was performing an x-ray on her on Nov. 18, 2010.

Ikeda, of Burien, who was subsequently fired, is alleged to have also kissed the woman as well as expose himself.

He then allegedly asked for her phone number, which she declined to give.

Read the full story here.

The Seattle P-I is reporting that David Dietrick, 24, of Burien, accused of firing a pistol on a West Seattle-bound Metro bus, has been charged with reckless endangerment and unlawful gun possession.

“I didn’t mean for the gun to go off,” the P-I quotes him as saying. “Look at the hole in the floor of the bus. I wasn’t even aiming it at nobody.”

The P-I continues:

According to charging documents, David Dietrick was aboard the No. 125 bus trying to unload a cocked pistol in his backpack on May 19 when the gun fired. The 9 mm round ricocheted off the rear door, then hit another passenger in the leg.

It didn’t cause a signficant injury.

King County prosecutors contend Dietrick, 24, had been in a fight outside the McDonald’s restaurant at Third Avenue and Pine Street shortly before the shooting.

Read the full story here.

The Seattle P-I is reporting that a Highline High School student has been accused of attempted rape for attacking a teen girl at the Burien Transit Center with a brick.

The King County Prosecutors Office says that the 17-year old male student attacked the 16-year-old girl as she was walking to the transit center at 1 p.m. on April 27th.

The P-I says:

Writing to the court, King County sheriff’s Detective Michael Gordon said the girl was near the 200 block of Southwest 154the Street in Burien when Lito grabbed her and pulled her into a short stairway.

Lito began beating the 16-year-old as she tried to defend herself, then began choking her while trying to force her pants down, Gordon told the court. The girl recalled losing her vision as he continued to choke her.

The girl continued to scream, apparently prompting Lito to drop the brick and leave the area before help could arrive, according to court documents. By then a resident hearing the struggle had already called the police.

Read the full story here.

The Seattle P-I is reporting that a Burien man is facing animal cruelty charges on claims that he beat and drowned his girlfriend’s Pit Bull dog.

According to the P-I, King County prosecutors say that on the night of Jan. 24th, Tyler E. Newman, 24, arrived at Five Corners Animal Hospital in Burien with the dead dog, a 5-year-old pit bull named Mada.

Staff at the animal hospital told investigators that Newman admitted, “I think I drowned my dog.”

Newman allegedly said the dog bit him when he was scolding it for urinating in his home. According to charging papers, Newman said he “just lost it” when the dog bit him again while he was attempting to bathe it.

Read the full story here.

The Seattle P-I reported Tuesday (Feb. 1st) that three men and a woman are facing charges that they kidnapped, beat and sexually assaulted a woman in an area north of Sea-Tac Airport.

The story claims that Candice Sanders, 23, Christapher White, 21, Luis Perez, 22, and Troy O’Dell, 25, held the unidentified female victim for two days at a home near the airport, where Sanders allegedly beat her.

Other times she was allegedly gang-raped by two of the male suspects in front of her their children.

The woman, who was hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center after the attack, told King County deputies that she had been assaulted, court documents show. Perez, O’Dell and White were apparently arrested later that day, as was Sanders.

A search done after the attack apparently turned up evidence of weapons, body armor and large amounts of prescription painkillers.

Read the full story here.

According to The Seattle P-I, a man was busted by Seattle SWAT officers on Jan. 7th outside the Burien Fred Meyer for allegedly trying to sell “cop killer” guns.

The story alleges that the man, a known sex offender, was also part of a white supremacist gang in prison, as well as having a long history of assaulting police officers and other assorted crimes.

The suspect, 36, has not yet been charged with gun crimes, but rather for failing to register as a sex offender. He also has a pending 2009 King County Superior Court charge for possession of a stolen vehicle.

The P-I goes on to say that police also found what they believe to be evidence of identity fraud in the man’s possession, including:

• An Acer Aspire laptop
• An All-In-One printer
• A black nylon bag containing documents and mail, blank checks, bank statements and other financial documents

Read the full story here.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories.

This four-part Sunday series, which concludes today, began with Miss Moo recalling taking her students to the P-I building on Sixth and Wall Street in the mid 1970s.

“In the lobby were the words of Thomas Jefferson which continue to imply what the role of the newspaper should be in a free society:

‘If it were left to me to decide whether to have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.’”]

Part Four:
by Dorothea Mootafes

When Kennedy was nominated, the Thursday July 14, 1960, P-I read “It’s Kennedy” and the front page included one of Jim Bishop’s stories in his traditional writing format, “The Day Kennedy Was Nominated.”

Westbrook Pegler was still writing his opinion column but better balanced by “On The Line” with Bob Considine, one of Drew Pearson’s “Washington Merry Go Round” columns and David Sentner of the Hearst Headline Service with “Convention Window.”

The November 10, 1960 election issue had a full-page photo of the young president-elect whose election margin was described as the “Tightest in Nearly Half A Century.” Frank Conniff of the Hearst Headline Services gave his observations on Kennedy.

Kennedy’s inauguration was the Hearst Headline Service story on January 21, 1961. His now famous words were at the top the page:

“Let every nation know, whether it wish us good or ill, that we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe in order to assure the survival of liberty.”

The P-I of November 8, 1980 proclaimed the “Reagan Landslide.” Editorial columnists that day included Jack Anderson and Flora Lewis. OP Ed writers were Russell Baker, William Safire, and T. D. Allman of The New York Times. A David Horsey cartoon appeared, a congratulations to the new President.

Many Horsey cartoons followed including two Pulitzer Prize winners in 1999 and 2003. I recall when Horsey was an outstanding staff member of the excellent Ingraham High School Cascade.

These reflections of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer are becoming longer than the final edition of the P-I a few weeks ago. In conclusion I’ll borrow some words of the P-I headline on Wednesday, October 18, 1995, referring to the “Refuse to Lose” season of the Seattle Mariners. Etched in the minds of every Seattle fan was a front page photo of a compassionate Alex Rodriguez consoling a weeping Joey Cora. “Thanks for the Ride, M’s,” the banner headline read. We have been provided with a lifetime of P-I editorials, news stories, and features, not to mention comic strips which live In our memories, at least one of which fortunately has moved on to The Seattle Times (Blondie). There are those hoping Dennis the Menace also will find a home there. For all of the years of information, entertainment, and thought, to The P-I -“thanks for the ride.”

Even more important than the pleasure and thought The P-I and other vanishing newspapers have brought us are these facts:

• Up to the present, even other media tell us, newspapers are still responsible for 65 per cent of the news.
• A free press is a constraint on those who would impose their will on an uninformed public.
• When The P-I folded, it was said that Tim Eyman, the perennial initiative writer, would dance on The P-I’s grave. There would be one less critic of his over-zealous initiatives.
• Just before he died, Peter Jennings reported on a survey of young people which showed a large number thought a newspaper should send its stories to the government for approval before printing them. Every high school journalist would cringe at that idea of prior review!

Although history tells us that Thomas Jefferson read few newspapers himself after eight years of being criticized by them, in the end the saddest part about losing The P-I and all the other newspapers which have folded already or will soon stop publication is we may soon be left with the society the third president rejected: a government without newspapers.

- 30 -

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories. Today we continue a four-part Sunday series by Miss Moo.]

by Dorothea Mootafes

Some columnists are associated with presidents. I always thought of Marianne Means as beginning with John F. Kennedy, but she actually wrote for 50 years for the Hearst newspapers from Harry Truman to George W. Bush. On October 5, 2008, in her farewell column, she wrote:

“It’s a new world, for someone else to figure out. So I bid you fine farewell, and I will miss you all terribly particularly my great mentors at the Hearst newspapers.”

Marianne Means was among the first women whose opinion columns appeared in The P-I. Maureen Dowd, Helen Thomas, Ruth Montgomery, Marcia Freeman, and Mary McGrory were among the others.

Men expressing their thoughts through the years in The P-I have been many: Frank Conniff, Jack Anderson, Shelby Scates. Jack DeYonge, George Will, Fendell Yerxa, Drew Pearson, Westbrook Pegler, Fulton Lewis, Jr., Jack McCoy, David Horsey, Jack Hopkins, James Reston, Paul O’Connor, Richard E. Thompson, Patrick J. Buchanan, Jack Douglas, William Safire, Russell Baker, Charles Dunsire, O. Casey Corr, Charles Sykes, Dan Coughlin, Bob Considine, Charles Osgood, Bill Prochnau, Joel Connelly, Sam Angeloff, George Dixon.

For this article of remembrance, I entered my basement with its myriad of yellowing and aromatically scented Post-Intelligencers proclaiming presidential nominations, elections, and inaugurations as well as the rare times when Seattle sports teams triumphed nationally (the Seattle Supersonics in 1979 when they won the NBA Championship and the Seattle Mariners in 1995 when they stopped one game short of playing in the World Series).

The Thursday, May 5, 1977 issue described David Frost’s interview of Richard Nixon which just last year was remembered with the Academy Award nominated movie “Frost-Nixon” based on that historical event.

“Ike New President,” a banner headline on November 5, 1952, announced the nation’s return to rule of the Republican Party for the first time since the Depression, twenty years earlier. The lead editorial that day was a full page in length by the regular editorial width with the title “It’s Ike,” written by William Randolph Hearst, Jr.

In a call for unity, the younger Hearst wrote in one section:

“The Hearst Newspapers and this writer share in the elation of General Eisenhower because we were on his side.” He quoted his father with the following: “The Hearst newspapers are not Democratic in the party sense, nor again are they Republican. In fact, they are not party organs of any kind.”

“The Hearst papers hold as their guiding policy Lincoln’s injunction to support any man when he is right and oppose him when he is wrong.”

“This was Pop’s policy.

“This is our own.”

In the logo of the editorial page that day was a thumbnail photo of the elder Hearst next to his words: “Great issues are never invented or created by political leaders. Real issues make themselves.”

I could not help but remember that the elder Hearst, because of his sensational yellow journalism, was one of those blamed for creating the issue of the Spanish-American War.

The editorial page that day in 1952 included Westbrook Pegler’s “The Republic Is Badly Damaged,” and Fulton Lewis, Jr., “Truman’s Last Order.” The man from Missouri’s flaws were tempered only by Drew Pearson’s “Bitter Campaigns of the Past,” reviewing some of history’s “hottest political campaigns.” The Op Ed page had a soothing effect with E. V. Durling’s “On the Side,” “The Mirror Of Your Mind,” “City Bred Farmer” with Clarence Dirks, and Ph. D. Richmond Barbour with “Parents’ Corner.”

The full page advertisements scattered throughout could have enticed readers in our own era to spend the country out of our recession.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories. Today we continue a four-part Sunday series by Miss Moo.]

by Dorothea Mootafes

Just as the other P-I departments had something for everyone, sports had a fishing expert, Ken McLeod; a hunting specialist, Cliff Harrison; a bowling enthusiast, Blaine Freer, who also covered skiing at times. The P-I sports also provided public services for young people with fishing derbies, ski schools, and swimming lessons.

John Owen also wrote sports and succeeded Royal Brougham as sports editor. The item I most remember pre-Mariners, was when he wrote that Seattle would never have a major league team until it had a major league hot dog. In his view the hot dogs either were served with a hot dog on a cold bun or a hot bun with a cold dog. A major league hot dog, he wrote, consisted of a hot dog on a hot bun. When he came as a visitor to one of West Seattle’s journalism classes, I told him how much I had enjoyed that. He was not happy with my commentary, preferring that readers remember articles in which he had taken greater pride. I hope the Safeco cuisine suited his taste.

In the 1940s, Leo Lassen, the radio voice of the Seattle Rainiers, covered the team for The P-I. Among the many other P-I sportswriters through the years have been—Angelo Bruscas, Jim Street. Laura Vecsey, Steve Rudman, Jack Smith, Mike Donohoe, Los Angeles columnist Melvin Durslag, Jim Moore, John Levesque, John Hickey, Bill Knight, Joe Mooney, J. Michael Kenyon, Bud Withers, Jack Jarvis, Ellis Conklin, Boyd Smith, Robert Browning, and Art Thiel.

Special features included columns by Emmett Watson under various names including “This Our City.” “Lesser Seattle” was his unofficial campaign to discourage people from migrating to Seattle in order to keep it a more comfortably sized community without the problems of a large city. Douglass Welch with his “Squirrel Cage” provided laughs particularly with his humorous coverage of Park Board meetings. Referring to his wife as “Green Eyes” also evoked a few smiles. Jon Hahn wrote a column on a variety of subjects. “Action,” edited for a time by Maribeth (Bunker) Morris and later Dick Young, gave readers the opportunity to solve problems and frustrations they might have. It was similar to today’s television problem solvers.

Ann Landers not only provided advice for those who asked but also occasionally gave readers more to think about. The Mike Mailway column spanned the years. It consisted of questions and answers, along with interesting facts (Example: Firefighters have the greatest incidence of heart attacks.) Billy Graham provided spiritual advice in answers to questions sent to him by readers. By now bridge enthusiasts must be great players. The lessons were interminable.

The Post-Intelligencer’s “Living Textbook,” as did The Seattle Times’ “Newspaper in the Classroom,” assisted students and teachers in improving their knowledge of newspapers, the English language, history, and geography.

The P-I conducted Christmas Fund Drives for the needy. Articles through the years showing the special needs of the handicapped and the poor touched everyone’s humanity.

Critics helped readers in determining what movies were of value (William Arnold), plays and other events (John Voorhees), the theatre (Joe Adcock)., music (R. M. Campbell).

E. J. Mitchell edited a Saturday religion page and wrote a weekly column covering churches and religious matters. Maggie Hawthorn edited Arts and Entertainment. For some years Louella Parsons provided a column of movie gossip.

Investigative reporters have included Eric Nalder, Hilda Bryant, Steve Militich and Shelby Scates among others. Stub Nelson, Charles Dunsire, Mike Layton, and Maribeth Morris covered politics. Fergus Hoffman wrote business and financial news.

The opinion pages (editorial and Op Ed), have through the years provoked thought and sometimes aroused anger over an editorial or column they carried, but they always provided the opportunity to disagree in letters to the editor. I couldn’t bear Westbrook Pegler and through the years have taken issue with other columnists and with P-I editorials.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: On March 17, 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its final print edition, completing a more than 145-year run. Its online presence continues. We at The B-Town Blog, while excited about the future of neighborhood blogs such as ours, lament the folding of great US newspapers, particularly those with such rich histories and stellar legacies as the P-I.

Scott Schaefer and Mark Neuman, of the B-Town Blog, worked together on their high school newspaper, The West Seattle High Chinook, a few decades back. They were fortunate enough to have as their advisor and journalism teacher a lady who truly is one of the very best in the state of Washington, Miss Dorothea Mootafes, known a little better as Dorothy, and affectionately as Miss Moo. Miss Moo has been retired from the Seattle School District for over twenty-five years, lives in the Roosevelt area of Seattle and is quite active in her church and various teacher organizations.

We recently asked her to reflect on the passing of the P-I, and let us in on her P-I memories. And so today we begin a four-part Sunday series by Miss Moo.]

by Dorothea Mootafes

When Mark Neuman asked me to recall what I remembered about The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, he mentioned the visit of West Seattle High School journalism students to the P-I building on Sixth and Wall Street in the mid 1970s. In the lobby were the words of Thomas Jefferson which continue to imply what the role of the newspaper should be in a free society:

“If it were left to me to decide whether to have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Jefferson’s words are also on one of the four panels in the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D. C. The P-I always could be counted upon to investigate excesses in government when they occurred and to keep demagogues in line when the occasion arose; but in my more than a half a century of reading The P-I, it has been more than a watchdog of my rights. It has been a source of information, a means of entertainment, and, at times, a needle instantly raising my blood pressure.

No part of any Seattle-area person’s existence was untouched by The P-I. The news pages, women’s pages, sports pages, opinion pages, special features, and even the comics have affected us all. Through the years, the women’s pages were transformed from strictly society news—weddings, engagements, club news—time, date place events; who, what, where, when—into a department exploring significant and controversial issues, adding the why and how to coverage.

Nancy Hevly, a women’s page staff member, recalls it was Susan Paynter who wrote the first stories of the new type. Among the first articles were those on a woman’s right to choose and on a lesbian couple.

Sally Raleigh was editor of the traditional society page and also guided it through its changes. “Lifestyle” was one of the subsequent titles which mirrored the change in content. Sally’s staff included Laura Emory Gilmore, Jean Lunzer and Nancy Hevly herself. Edna Daw edited the club news. If there was a PTA meeting, sorority gathering, etc., members would find the time, date and place in the club column. Groups chose publicity chairmen whose job it was to send notices on their meeting, guests, speakers, or special program to the newspaper.

Prudence Penny was the early title of the Home Economics Department. Food editors later began using their own names and their food pages continued to be popular and useful. Nancy Beardsley sometimes covered special community or church events showing an ethnic or historical specialty the public might enjoy.

Gradually women’s news blended into the rest of the newspaper. Articles under Lifestyle, for example, could be on either men or women. Until World War Two, women did not cover hard news. Lucille Cohen and Eleanor Bell were the first to break the sex barrier.

The name Royal Brougham was synonymous with P-I sports. He was not only the sports editor for so many years; he was also the cheerleader and promoter of every Seattle-based team and outstanding athlete. “The Morning After,” his daily sports column, opened with sections on sports personalities or current happenings, and closed with a final “Chitter-Chatter,” sometimes with an other heading, composed of a miscellany of sports news. Everyone learned much about Husky sports and particularly Al Ulbrickson’s crews, hometown baseball hero Fred Hutchinson, and the Seattle Rainiers. Naming the street across from Safeco Field for Royal Brougham was well deserved as the P-I sports editor long touted major league baseball for Seattle. Like the rest of us, he survived the short stay of the Seattle Pilots in 1969. The Mariners began in 1977, a year before Royal Brougham’s death in 1978.

It was Royal Brougham who started the annual Man of the Year Sports Award and Banquet at the beginning of each calendar year. I attended the event in l957 because my St. Louis Cardinal hero, Stan Musial, was the special guest. When golfer JoAnne Gunderson was named “man” of the year that night, she turned to Royal Brougham and said, “Royal are you sure you’ve got the right man?” Pat Lesser, another woman, had won the award two years before. The problem was solved in recent years with the selection of one man and one woman.