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For safe holidays, plan on visiting someplace else
THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: November 28th, 2008 12:25 AM (PST)
Here’s something your out-of-town relatives might like to know before risking their lives to visit your hacienda for the holidays.
Tacoma is the 39th-most dangerous city in America. So says the annual list by CQ Press of Washington, D.C., which mushes together FBI statistics and counts a murder the same as a property crime.
Apparently we’re a tad less bloodthirsty than Macon, Ga. (38th), and a smidge more likely to need a chalk-body-outline artist than Springfield, Mass. (40th).
New Orleans is the most crime-ridden city of all. But with etouffee that good, why worry?
T-Town easily out-toughs its pantywaist Washington sister cities on the list: Everett (55th), Yakima (84th), Spokane (123rd) and Seattle (165th).
Of course we’re only as safe as our immediate neighbors. We suspect rowdy Fircrest dragged us down a few notches.
Not to mention South Hill, with its annual Black Friday shopping rumble. Prices are being slashed. Also your neck, if you don’t watch it this morning.
In the end, though, this whole safe-city ranking business is A-OK with us.
Chicks dig the dangerous type.
Noise walls in Fife, Chapter 2: Maybe you saw the article this week about the state possibly building 24-foot-tall sound barriers along I-5.
The Nose has learned that the Fife City Council on Tuesday came out squarely against them. The Fifesters instead will ask the DOT for “quiet pavement” or some other means to muffle noise.
Some free ideas from Snores Truly:
• Cover freeway with old carpet that once covered nearby SeaTac Mall.
• Give padded bunny slippers to hitchhikers.
• Encase entire freeway in plastic tube, like a Habitrail.
• Lease space to a GM, Ford or Chrysler dealership. Ain’t nowhere more quiet than that these days.
Just how bad are the former Seattle Sonics/current Oklahoma City thingamabobs?
Clay Bennett is coming after our Donkey Basketball team next.
With all the brain-rattling news about Wall Street, you have to love the calming newsletters being produced by your friendly local banks. They’re like the rain-forest CD you pop into your stereo while stuck in traffic.
Take the fall 2008 issue of Venturings, a publication of DuPont-based Venture Bank.
You won’t read in there that Venture lost $28 million in the third quarter.
You will read the headline “Traditional bank products offer security, strong returns.” (Patter of raindrops, whistle of a tropical bird.)
Flip the newsletter over, however, and Venture’s true priorities come into focus. Customers are offered a reduced room rate, discount coupons and deluxe round-trip motor coach for a special Dec. 8-9 field trip.
To Tulalip Resort and Casino! The No. 1 place for fun!
And as safe a place to invest your holdings as anywhere these days.
Memo to Tacoma School District: Get a spellcheck on your computers. Better yet, learn to spell.
Regarding your list of potential names for the new middle school on Portland Avenue: You’d better get out the red pen and correct some goofs before you start sandblasting tributes on buildings.
Caesar Chavez Middle School? Try again. It’s not Caesar like the salad or the emperor; it’s César, last we checked.
And the late black pastor at Shiloh Baptist Church was Ernest S. Brazill, not Brazell. Take a gander at the street sign not far from your headquarters.
You might respond, “Can’t you see we’re honoring people of color? The Nose is missing the forest for the trees!”
Da forest? You mean late City Councilman Dave DeForrest? Or “Deforest” like it says on your list?
Got news for The Nose? Call 253-597-8742, Ext. NOSE (6673) or write TheNose@thenewstribune.com.
Originally published: November 28th, 2008 12:25 AM (PST)
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