Recent Stories with tag fireworks

The Visitors Center at Mount Rainier, during the Good Friday Storm of 2010.

The Good Friday Storm of 2010 has come and gone without sinking the 520 bridge, but Seattle is already looking ahead to July and fireworks. Turns out that after laying off thousands of employees the past two years, Microsoft and Starbucks had a little fun money for the Fourth. Tesoro Corp. and Anacortes made national news when a refinery explosion killed five. The refinery has a history of safety violations.

The Teamsters Local #174 came to an agreement with Allied Waste, but rejected Waste Management's "best, last, final offer" and it looks like a strike will take place. That's how this week was. People are not giving up their money without a fight. A woman on Capitol Hill pulled a knife on muggers, and a man apparently stabbed an aggressive panhandler downtown.

The Seattle Bubble noted a decline in Seattle-area home value, and a spike in foreclosures. The PSBJ reported that Seattle is ninth nationally in business bankruptcies. It was holy iPad week, so TechFlash did a round-up of Seattle's iPad apps. Publicola reported on the pro-Chihuly GOTV strategy at a Seattle Center meeting.

We balanced all this news with pictures of a cute little Pika and the Zoo's fuzzy baby penguin. In sports, Seth told the M's to stop kidding around and practice. Audrey told you to go to the Croc, Jeremy sent you to On the Boards, Seth said go see Fences at the Rep. And Columbia City Cinema needs your help, if you get down there.

The March 6, 2010, fireworks downtown, thanks to Lux_Tyro

With all due respect to Kara Ceriello, president of the Wallingford Chamber of Commerce, we can do without fireworks this year. Event producers One Reel, in their letter announcing the fireworks cancellation, says they were unable to secure corporate sponsorship of the event, a $500,000 fee.

You have to ask, especially now, what else our very limited supply of corporations who can afford a $500,000 gift might fund instead of fireworks? Maybe they could keep five vital non-profits open this year with $100,000 grants.

I know that spending "fun" money on serious things makes some people crazy. But our economic situation is very serious for thousands upon thousands of Seattle residents, and we seem to have lost touch with the idea of even temporary community sacrifice.

Let's not pretend we're experiencing some sort of fireworks deficit in the first place. There were fireworks downtown this March. We blew up the Space Needle for New Year's.

Fireworks on the Fourth has, in becoming an "annual tradition," become a stand-in for a creative community response to the holiday. It's the package we buy because who has time and there it is on the shelf, just like last year. We know the Fourth happened because we saw the fireworks on TV.

What would a real "Family Fourth" look like? Would it happen over several days, rather than a half-hour one evening? I feel like we can do better if we take the opportunity the recession is handing us to figure out what, exactly, we're celebrating. One Reel has hopes to bring back the fireworks next year. But this year, if we get the chance to plan our own party, what could we do instead?

Let's start the new year (work week edition) off right: fireworks + Space Needle. Thank Paul Swortz for getting the shot and dropping it in our Flickr pool.