Those “Walking with Dinosaurs” folks sure know how to get in good with the locals – they welcomed in no less than Gov. Chris Gregoire, Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma and assorted other VIPs to “meet” the stars ahead of the shows July 11-15 at the Tacoma Dome. How exciting. It will be the first time dinosaurs have rocked the Dome since last year’s Aerosmith concert.
Baarsma, for one, was wowed.
He couldn’t say enough about ’em at the City Council meeting this week. He called the mechanical creatures “extraordinary,” and not at all like those roaring, but immobile, T. rexes you see all the time.
“They have complete movement,” the mayor enthused. “They’re completely articulated.”
One even walked across the convention center floor and roared, its muscles rippling like it belonged on the cover of a pulp romance novel.
Repeated the mayor: “These dinosaurs are fully articulated.”
Got it? Articulated!
Fully articulated Gov. Gregoire enjoyed the visit, too, as seen in promotional photos of her with the stars of the show.
We were inspired to conduct a quick caption contest in the newsroom:
• Gov. Chris Gregoire, left, says, “I shall call him Dino!”
• “It’s good to see you again, Gov. Rosellini.”
• “Trooper, here boy! Troooo-per! Now where did my little doggy run off to?”
• “Are you one of those pharmaceutical lobbyists?
Speaking of the governor, she sneaked out of town this week and went to the other Washington with her daughter. We say sneaked because her weekly schedule was blank for Wednesday through today.
Her communications director, Holly Armstrong, said it was a personal trip, so her office didn’t send out a notice.
We think it should have.
After all, when The Guv is out of state, that means Lt. Gov. Brad Owen is in charge – and we’d just like to be prepared in case he mobilizes the National Guard and invades Canada.
And all this time, the path to pumped-up test scores in Tacoma schools was obvious, if only we’d caught the whiff.
No, it’s not that mind-numbing Saxon math, pitched by pretend Ph.D’s. Instead, give student hordes the Milligan test. Favored by soon-to-be-former Tacoma Schools boss Charlie Milligan, it’s a sure passing grade. Just a few simple rules:
• Students write all the questions.
• No cumbersome written essays – it’s all oral.
• Teachers give you gold stars no matter how you bungle it.
• Anyone who marks your answer wrong just doesn’t understand how wonderful you are.
Faithful readers will recall our May 4 item joshing four-star general Charles Campbell for his botched rendering of local geography – he said Mount Rainier was north of Fort Lewis – when he was here for the goodbye ceremony for outgoing post commander James Dubik.
Campbell pleaded for forgiveness when he came back this month to install the post’s new commander.
“You gotta put that in perspective,” he said. “I got the fact that Puget Sound is to the west right. I got the fact that the Cascades are to the east right. I know that the Columbia River is somewhere south.
“So three out of four is not bad for a product of the Louisiana public school system. That’s 75 percent.”
