King County Republicans Are Natural Guys
So who would have pegged the Republican-dominated King County Council as a bunch of health nuts? And alternative ones at that, touting the benefits of oil of evening primrose and so on.
But it’s true: The council is the first government in the country to approve spending tax dollars to pay for a public clinic offering naturopathic remedies.
Naturopaths prescribe herbs, diet, exercise and traditional Oriental medicines as a cure for bodily ills, rather than conventional drugs.
The idea is to key into the natural healing systems of the mind and body.
If that sounds too far out, consider Councilman Kent Pullen, a coat and tie kind of guy, waxing rhapsodic about the wonders of pollen and what not at a council hearing on the clinic last week.
Pullen and other council members who practice natural medicine swore they haven’t had so much as a cold in ages.
Final adoption of a motion to create the clinic is expected Monday.
Larimer not laughing
Bob Larimer, formerly a leader of the Citizens Alliance of Washington, is back in the news again. And he’s outraged.
Larimer resigned from the Citizens Alliance two years ago amid an organizational shake-up and after published reports that one of his former wives had pressed charges against him for hitting her. Nothing came of the charges.
Larimer now is heading up Washington for Traditional Values, a conservative group in Vancouver. Seems he’s having a bit of trouble on the information highway.
Organizations can set up a so-called home page on the Internet, where they post ideas and information. Larimer did, and opened it up one recent fine day to find it laced with profanity.
Not funny for a conservative group that calls itself pro-family.
“We extend our deepest apologies to anyone who might have accessed or inadvertently downloaded the offensive, criminally-produced text,” Larimer said in a prepared statement.
He wants to press charges of criminal computer trespass, a truly ‘90s kind of problem.
They’re playing hardball
True to their word, a band of anti-stadium activists has filed suit against the new Mariners stadium authorized by the Legislature last fall.
They say the stadium is illegal because it is paid for with public money, but does not serve the general economic interest of the citizens of Seattle, King County or Washington.
Instead, the owners of the team and the players are the primary beneficiaries of the stadium, the suit states.
Legal proceedings will begin Feb. 5 in Thurston County Superior Court. Who knows? Maybe construction will be over before the case is.
They didn’t mean it
Senate Democrats sidling up to House Republicans to embrace hundreds of millions of dollars in tax cuts will find themselves with some explaining to do when the legislative session begins.
A slew of the Democrats’ usual bedfellows - ranging from the Sierra Club to the state labor council - is planning to turn out and speak against the cuts.
At least House Republicans will be able to say they backed the cuts all along. Senate Democrats can at best claim a deathbed conversion based on new revenue estimates.
Stay tuned.
, DataTimes MEMO: West Side Stories runs every other week.