Seattle Newspaper for the People by the People

Author

Lilly Marek

Lilly Marek has 111 articles published.

Some Dogs Are Smart, Can Think, And Have Reasoning. Here Is My Story.

Do you have a smart dog?

Everyone knows “My dog is smarter than your dog”.  This is not a competition just some things that makes it plain that some animals can think and have reason. We know they can be taught to sit, roll over, shake hands etc. but to think almost like a human doesn’t happen to often.

When I was a little girl I lived on a huge farm. We had animals of almost every kind. We had hunting dogs, sheep dogs (that would stay in a field all day moving the sheep to new grass but keeping them all together). One dog we had was named Laddy. A mixed breed but close to the real Laddy in the stories. My Dad was almost blind. He could barely tell light from dark and couldn’t recognize people or see any distance. Our mail box was about a mile from the house. There was rose bushes on each side of the road to the mail box so my Dad could go get the mail. He could feel the roses if he went a little to far to the left or right. We had little creeks with cattle crossings over them so animals could drink and people could cross without opening a gate. My Dad went to the mail box every day and old Laddy went with him. One day Dad was screaming and Laddy was holding on to his pant leg and would not let my Dad get up. My brothers thought Laddy must have gone crazy and took a gun with them to rescue my dad, but NO that was not the problem. The cattle crossing had washed out. Had my dad stumbled along like he did he would have fell about 4 feet in a ditch. Most likely killed himself or for sure would have really been injured. Laddy figured out somehow that that was not a good idea to let my Dad do that and he grabbed my Dad and held on for dear life. That was sure nothing he had been taught or saw another dog do. He figured out how to save my Dad’s life all on his own. He was a hero for sure and I don’t know if every dog would have done that but Laddy did. We always wondered how he knew to do it.  This was in approximately 1933. I was about 10 and I remember it well.

Fast forward to the same farm about 70 years later. My brother John lived on the farm alone, and was very hard of hearing. He always relied on his watch dog to alert him if anyone came on the property. If a car drove up the dog greeted it and made it very plain it would not be a good idea to try to get out of their car. One guy tried and really got bit bad. But the man knew it was his fault. The dog stayed right with John and as soon as he got the signal it was OK then people were welcome. If John was in the house there was no need for anyone to get out of their car. But the dog was a mean character. My brother got sick and needed open heart surgery. A neighbor would take care of all the animals but no one could take care of the dog. My brother was even considering having to have the dog put down, could not let it just starve to death. Finally the neighbor that was going to come in and feed the other animals said put the dog on a long chain. He had a dog house and a little stream he could drink from. The neighbor would come with a long handled shovel and feed the dog twice a day from the shovel. Well this dog was not thinking like my brother thought at all. The dog was so sad when my brother left to go to the hospital.  The first morning the neighbor came with his shovel and food and inched his way to the end of the chain the dog was wagging his tail and greeting him like an old friend. The neighbor went closer and the dog was super friendly.  The second day the dog was really glad to see the neighbor, didn’t bark or growl or a thing so the neighbor took him off his chain and the dog went along as they did the chores. Then he chained him up for the night and so it went til the day John came home from the hospital. The dog was so glad to see his master and went right back into his really mean actions to anyone including the guy that had been feeding him. It finally dawned on my brother that he did not have a watch dog that gave a darn about the property it was my brother that he had been guarding with his life all those years. So unlike the story about Laddy, this dog had figured out that his job was to protect my brother only. His mind could reason beyond “sit, stay, roll over”. The dog had thought it all out as to what he thought his duty was. I found that interesting.

Now I was not the little girl on the farm anymore and I had two little boys about 9 and 10 who loved animals like I do although we lived right here in Georgetown in Seattle. It was probably around 1953. No leash laws, all dogs got together to play, fight and whatever dogs do all day when parents are at work and kids are in school. This is about a dog named Frisky. Big mixed breed. The boys put their bikes out close to the alley and a neighbor was supposed to come and do some work on them. Frisky stood straddle of them and no one was going to touch those bikes unless Cliff and Joe were home. lol  But the story I want to tell is the boys would walk to the river to fish and play. They found a duck with an injured wing and it could not fly so they brought it home. I made a little wire pen, put in a little plastic wading pool and shelter. Was not sure how Frisky was going to accept that. He sure was interested but did not try to chase it of get in the pen, but laid by the pen as if protecting it. He would not let other dogs come in our yard at all.  We named her Daisy and after quite awhile another duck would fly down into her pen to visit. We called him Donald. Well Daisy laid a bunch of eggs and they must have all hatched and those babies could get through the wire in the pen and we sure watched Frisky close then. One day he had one in his mouth and I was just sick about it but he was taking the baby back to Daisy. As the babies left Mama, Frishy took them back. So I just removed her little fence from around her. They didn’t need a fence between them anymore. Other people had chickens and Frisky started bringing little chickens home to Daisy. lol I told people just come in and get their chickens. the dog seemed to think that any baby anyone had belonged to Daisy. It was nothing he was taught, but he took the roll of duck protector. It got a little crowed in our yard and I knew another batch of eggs would be laid so we found a friend that lived near a little pond and they took the ducks. Frisky was pretty lonesome for awhile but went back to visiting his dog neighbors. How did he know to help Daisy raise her family? Not anything he was taught. I always thought it was kind of interesting.

Maybe you readers have a story to submit about your dog.

– Lilly

Response To ‘Seattle is Dying’ KOMO News

This concerns the story about the Homeless crisis and what was called ‘Seattle is Dying’ by KOMO News.

Cities don’t die, they are killed by the people running them under the guise of “helping”. If you had stopped the homeless mess when it first started, it wouldn’t be like crab grass growing out of control in the yard. It’s hard to get rid of once it gets going. First of all, you say there is no affordable housing. HOW COULD THERE BE? My little $10,500 house I bought and rented it out for $1.50/month – that was what I call affordable. It was all I could afford when I looked in my wallet and bank account. And yes I was working at a full time job. Georgetown was filled with single family dwellings, school, several stores, boots and hat gas station and even a Valu-mart, but politicians re-zoned it and now it’s mostly condo’s. Guess what they then said? My little house had to pay the same property tax as the new high-rise condo beside it (best use) and my property tax went up to almost $4,000. But worse, you were going to do the renters a favor and make a landlord rent to the first person who stopped by (could be from a homeless camp, that you give a months rent to). We cannot ask him a thing about his criminal past, job or a thing. A landlord can’t even get a damage deposit. I am willing to bet you the farm that if you picked out at random someone in one of those camps and set him up in a nice apt or house, his first month would be taken care of but by the second month, he would have it looking exactly like tent city, and it would cost the landlord a fortune to get them out. We would be racists, bigots, and some more words I cant even spell.

YOU LEADERS CAUSED THE SEATTLE AFFORDABLE HOUSE CRISIS. Seattle is a disgrace with all the homeless and all the big talk and crap and spending millions on studies only to have things get worse. It would change overnight if you cut off ALL THE CASH to them. Anyone in a tent has a choice, JAIL or treatment. Period. You put up a huge circus tent or find some big empty apartment houses or something and anyone is welcome. Soup/Spaghetti would be served 24/7. This would end saying these are poor hungry people with no shelter. If they want something better, they would have to change their ways. They do not want to follow any rules, but we taxpayers have to. They can burn in a burn barrel, but we can’t burn in a nice heater if the air is stagnant. Mayor Jenny said recently she thinks the show ‘Seattle is Dying’ about the homeless is a little biased and they should have shown the good things. No Jenny the story is about how you liberal do gooders have ruined Seattle. And our Governor has the nerve to be running for President.

Opinion Letter: Homelessness in Seattle & Head Tax

Seattle Homeless Head Tax

Opinion Letter – Sent to City of Seattle Council Members 5/16/18.

It’s a sad day when you have to put a head tax on an employer for hiring a worker. To start out at $500 then reduce it is not cutting taxes. That is just to make it sound like you and or the city council are really working hard. We have passed levy’s and most of it goes to studies. Seattle has squandered double the amount of money they would need to get every person out of their tent.

First. you should stop saying affordable housing. Nothing is affordable to someone who does not work to earn it. If you wanted to provide shelter and food for the homeless it should be just the basic. No MONEY or cards to exchange to groceries. You could put up a thing like a circus tent outside the city. Have cots and kitchen going 24/7.

Anyone, can come in and eat all they want, as often as they want or sleep all day if they want as long as they follow the rules. If they cause a disturbance they should go to jail. You can’t hand out what you call rent subsidies and these people go looking at houses and apartments that are for rent. Landlords cant turn them down. they have the money for the first month rent with absolutely no background or credit checks. They pay only $10 damage deposit and that much every month afterwards. No Landlord can hand over the keys under those rules. The first night there (after they pay their $10.00) they can move out, take the stove, fridge, curtains OR have a grand drunken blast and ruin the place. No a landlord can’t even kick them out if they bring in others.

The first thing you have to do is stop the MONEY. This is pure socialism, and has not worked in any country, EVER. I don’t want to see anyone sleeping out in the rain or cold or be hungry, but I also don’t think they “we the people” should have to pay their rent in a nicer place than we live in. Guys in the army live in barracks, why should an alcoholic or druggie live better than the men protecting us. You have it completely backwards. These homeless people know they can come to Seattle where they can get a check to spend and still not have to report to a job and are happy as clams staying drunk and have no intention of trying to make life better for themselves. For sure these illegal’s should not get any help at all except a ride back to where the H—- they came from.

I have lived in my old house for 70 years. Worked all my life. Now all you have to do is have a baby and not marry the Dad and your paycheck will start coming. If you want to drink and do drugs and your parents have to take your child because you are unfit, then they get a check. How can any of this crap make any sense to a politician? You already know all of this, but don’t have the courage to admit it. You want to feel important.
Hope someone reads this before it hits the circular file – but you asked for input. This is mine.

Seattle Renters Criminal Records

Seattle City Hall Building

I am putting you on chargeable notice that since I have to rent to murderers (that has plea bargained, like O.J.) Arsonists, People that want to start a meth lab, tenants that have been evicted for non payment and property damage time and time again. There is no such thing as a Rental Application. YOU HAVE TAKEN COMPLETE CONTROL OF MY PROPERTY. Therefore, YOU need to be responsible for it. Going to see if Tim Eyman can get something going but until then anyone that wants to rent from me must bring with him/her a letter from each of you(signed) that you are responsible for any damage, and is like a co signer. I can’t ask how he expects to pay me, so you must guarantee me rent on time every month. My rent is all going to be tripled because my insurance is going to go sky high. So it’s blood on your hands to force this on someone who is trying to live on retirement and make an honest living. I would be afraid to even go into an apartment to show it, not knowing if he is really dangerous. The apartment house right beside me (I used to own it) has had 3 arsons, Easter there was a shooter shooting out of a window about 15 feet from my front porch. so get your reference and co signer papers ready. that is all I need. No applications will be asked for. Just your written assurance that you are responsible for his or her actions. What’s worse is you are putting all the neighbors life at risk. Endangering people who even go for walks around the block. You say asking about their criminal histories or how they expect to pay their rent is discriminating.

THE PEOPLE WHO ARE BEING DISCRIMINATED AGAINST ARE THE LANDLORDS. SHAME. I always went through Rental Research for screening and it worked out. It wasn’t even me who decided who would be best to rent to but for sure I didn’t have to rent to a criminal. No he doesn’t deserve a place to live to the point of thinking WE all are responsible for his bad choices. I will refuse to rent to Mayor Murray because for you to send a referral would present a conflict of interest. But I would not want him around my great grand sons at this point in time.

Now for the mobile home and car dwellers. We already have that in Georgetown. They park a mobile home and the drug buyers come and go. I am enclosing a couple pictures I took thru my front gate Sunday. Is this really what you want all of Seattle to look like? I kept going out taking pictures and this mobile home left last night but another will be back.

Georgetown Seattle Trash

LL

Seattle’s Homelessness, Property Tax, and Pure Stupidity

Seattle Property Taxes and Homeless Issues

Please do not let the Seattle Mayor push a $55 million property tax supposedly to help the homeless, or create another kind of tax, unless he makes a laundry list of exactly what and how every dime will be spent. He (and you as well as the King County Council) come through with a broad brush and hit the sympathy button of voters that you actually are helping someone. You are creating jobs for lawyers, councilors, and do gooders but not the guy sleeping in the street. I think there are more homeless people than ever. No one really knows why but its not the reasons you are stating

I want to give you a personal story of ONE homeless person. MY BROTHER. He was an alcoholic. Handsome, smart and had 11 of us brothers and sisters. Yep we all tried to help him, had him stay with us until his verbal tirades made us kick him out. We loaned him money etc. But this is what he told us all.

He thought we were all stupid to be going to work everyday, working our tails off buying a house (he didn’t think we needed), buying furniture, a car etc. All a big waste of money in his eyes. He liked freedom. Get on a freight train and travel free. He would come to Washington to pick apples and visit me of course. He would go to California to pick grapes or olives etc. He did not get food stamps or welfare. He ate in soup kitchens, missions and anyplace he could sweet talk himself into. He was homeless because he wanted complete freedom from RULES. He did not want to hear about a shelter where he was crowded up like “cows in a barn” (his words). He did not want to be preached to. He worked just enough to buy wine and smokes. No money you would have spent on him would have changed him one bit. He was happy, and you don’t change happy. If someone wanted to go see him you could find him on a hillside in California among a bunch of other wino’s.  Here is how he felt about the counseling and preachers. Some mission here in Seattle made them listen to a sermon before they got food. He had got to be a regular there and this day the preacher got right in his face, thumping the bible and telling him how the bible says it’s such a sin to ride freight trains and be lazy. He stood up and said he had read the bible a lot and never once had he found the word “freight train” in it. He said the preacher should not make up stuff, and stick to the bible and not lie. He said the bible told a lot about Jack Asses as the way of travel, and now the country was being ran by Jack Asses that thought they knew what they were doing. The last time he visited me, my husband was dying of cancer. I had three children and could not stand to hear him rave about how all the work trying to buy this OLD HOUSE had caused my husband to be sick. I told him I would give him a ride to where he belonged and took him down to skid road and dropped him off. Did not give him a dime. He called others saying he was sick and needed money too get help. Another brother he called asked for the name of the hospital or doctor and would send a check to them but with the Country Music playing so loud in the back ground it was obvious what was happening. Last any of us heard until they found him dead in California all alone. All of us chipped in for a casket and a suit to be buried in and a plot.  I still love him. No one could help him because HE DID NOT WANT HELP.

The above was what I sent to the City Council, but since “I was talking and can’t shut up” I will continue and make a story for the Emerald Journal out of this.

I did not agree with my brothers logic and thought owning a home was the greatest accomplishment a person could have. I thought if you worked all your life it was way better than the freedom he talked of. Well I am 93 plus. Lived in my old house for 70 years. We paid $5,500 for it in 1946. I bought a little house right beside it 40 years ago for $10,500 to be able to have a little income with my social security. I should have listened to my brother.

We property owners do not really own our property at all. When the City/County/State can swoop in and make rules that take all ownership away is worse than any criminal could do with a gun. If I wanted to rent out some of my spare bedrooms (have a lot of them) I would first have to have the city tell me if they were the exact dimensions. I would have to have heat installed (no space heaters) etc, in other words it would cost me more so sign up and pay their $175 registration fee and inspections and god only knows what else. Now to the rental. All of my rights have been taken away except two. Yes 2 things I have control over. If you read the landlord tenant rules you will find we cannot discriminate. (that word has taken all sensible thoughts away). We cannot discriminate against male or female, grown ups, or children, convicts, people who have been evicted , alcoholics, drug addicts we can’t ask how they expect to pay their rent after the first month. I Can’t ask for a large security deposit. Transgender, gays, lesbians.  ALL HAVE A RIGHT TO PAY A MONTHS RENT AND MOVE INTO MY RENTAL. I can’t turn anyone away and the city has hired people to go out and pretend they are looking for a place to see if they can catch someone to harass and fine and get a lawyer a job. If I pulled a stunt like that I would be arrested for entrapment. Adult living only facilities can’t turn anyone away that have children. The city calls this discriminating. I call it taking complete control of our property. Unless I can chose who I want to rent to, I don’t own the house. I am not running it for the city. I will never show it to anyone again. I will simply close it up and use it for storage. How will that help keep affordable housing? On top of that the taxes for the rental was over $3600 last year! Now the mayor wants another 5 million property tax to help the homeless. All it is doing is making more people homeless.

BUT LETS NOT FORGET  I said we can turn down people WHO SMOKE (tobacco) (but its OK to smoke dope) and people with pets.

A pet is about all a homeless person has left in the world, and almost for sure he smokes cigarettes. Where are the so called homeless getting the money for booze and smokes? We have a new village for homeless in our neighborhood, located right by the only bus stop we have if we come from town. lol  I am too old to even walk over and look at it, but the city says it’s really good for the neighborhood. They will have a dial a bus to get them where they need to go, a doctor will come check on them, Sure more than I can get. I can’t even get a bus to the food bank if I wanted to go.  They won’t pick me up because I don’t “qualify”.

Before you voters (tenants included) vote for a new property tax you better realize your rent is high because you have voted in this crap. It has not helped a soul. The Mayor has paid $850,000 for an expert to tell him no one should live in the jungle. Whoopee – who would have ever guessed that in a million years.

Bet my brother is spinning in his grave with laughter. hope so. Now he spent another $100,000 on some survey or study. Not one thing has helped the homeless. Nothing ever will if they don’t want to be CONTROLLED like we are. When the city can send out some women with a bunch of kids to ask to rent at an adult living apartment house to entrap them something needs fixing for sure. A woman had to be a nut case to walk up to a place with kids to a place that clearly said adults only and even ask. WHAT IF a bunch of us old 90 year olds go to a daycare and insist on spending our days there? If they turn me down is that discriminating due to my age or sex? We would like a nice quite nap time, we would like nice soft children type food, and yes a little help changing our pads or diapers when necessary. We would want adult stories read to us. Of course we would expect the daycare to put away the trikes and roller skates and toys we might trip over and would want the children to be quiet.  That sounds really stupid but not a bit different that when adults have raised their kids and want to move into a place where no little kids are running in the hall, babies crying all night. We have been there done that. But we can have an adult only home.

Everyone has their opinion. I want to mention the article in The Seattle Times 3/1/17 by Danny Westneat. He writes about an old school landlord that doesn’t want to raise his rents but now he has to or sell to a rich developer. The Tax bill on one of his buildings went up $1500. That is $750 more on each unit and now it will go up more. But Danny says the homeless are not drawn here because of what he calls Freeseattle. See another of his articles “Homeless have some news for both the right wing and the left” Seattle Times 3/3/17. I do not agree with his findings in this article. He said in November teams of researches interviewed the homeless in the streets and in shelters. He said this debunked the theory that the homeless gravitate here because of Seattle’s liberal generosity. The homeless said they did not come here to score a soggy wonder bread sandwich or a Styrofoam cup of “hot” chocolate and a blanket handed out by a Union Gospel Truck. FYI this weeks Union Gospel Truck will have 20 pairs of warm gloves that I donated to be handed out, plus hats my daughter knits by the dozen and bags of homemade cookies she makes. I baked for them for years but had to give that up when I hit 85. I fully realize our handouts do not make much of a difference but WE TRY and pay for it out of our own purse. I should be able to ask the mayor and each council member to send me some cash to pay for my stuff. lol

What these homeless in the trenches talked about is something different that what I saw on the news. A man living in a tiny house said he gets a check for $700, plus $100 for food stamps.  He lived in a tiny house paid for by property tax dollars. Think he pays $90 a month. That would attract people to Seattle for sure. They come here for some reason, and it’s sure not the weather. I used to own the apartment house beside me. Rent was cheap and they were almost all drunks (real quiet and peaceful). On the first of the month they waited for the mail man. I would cash their checks for them and take the rent (less than $100 a month then) and with all them getting money for smokes and alcohol they could pretty much party the whole month. I really resented the fact that I had to be on the bus for work every day at 6 a.m. while these men, younger than me, partied on my dime. This is not new but we are being drowned in taxes until we no longer can shut up along with the controls and rules. I would like for the mayor or any city council member to answer these questions truthfully.

  1. Does handing an alcoholic money help cure his addiction?
  2. Does handing a smoker money to buy cigarettes help him quit smoking?
  3. Does providing(tax payer’s pay for) a safe place for an addict to shoot up heroin help him kick his addiction?
  4. Does forcing landlords completely out of business by raising property tax so high help the housing shortage?
  5. Does TRYING  to force a landlord to rent to anyone with the exception of a smoker (reg. cigs) or a dog owner help anything?

I never had a problem renting to gays, blacks, or Mexicans or any religion etc. My requirement was that they had a PAYING JOB and had a good work record. All my tenants stayed 5 to 8 years. Only left when they saved enough to buy a place or moved out of state or got married etc.

Now I have to sit vacant. No way “in hell” with I let a convict, drug user, or section 8 person or a bunch of little kids move in. I am alone, live right beside it and only kept it so I could control who lived beside me.

I do not owe a homeless person a thing. I have looked in my purse and if I had money to pay for something I wanted, then I could afford it. I have never had a credit card and if someone doesn’t want to work it’s their problem, not mine, but the city has made it my problem. I have never worked myself up to poverty level in their eyes, but I have to help pay rent for immigrants (legal and illegal).

Our Mayor is so out of touch with ordinary people that its useless to even try to communicate with him. How he got on the transgender kick muddles my brain. No scientific fact says what a transgender person is, but if you look on your birth certificate it will state boy or girl. Since The Mayor is gay and has a gay wife or husband or whatever they can go to the bathroom together. But what if his partner one day decided he felt like a woman and headed in the woman’s locker room would that be OK with the mayor? This transgender mess has opened a can of worms for sure. A CNN reporter said if a man shows his penis in a little 12 year old girls locker room and she is offended it’s her problem and her parents problem for teaching her wrong. Can a man put on a dress and lipstick and get a cheaper woman’s loan to start a business. A boy can if wanted to can play on a girls team or vice versa and ruin all sports. Install some port a pots so a transgender doesn’t have to decide whether he is a girl or boy that day.

We can be anything we want to be. Some days you can feel like a girlie girl and some days you can feel like a tom boy. This transgender crap (using the only printable word here) that our Mayor endorses shows he has to be SICK. I am not talking gays and lesbians, they use the bathroom that suits their birth, but a transgender is not a scientific fact at all.

We don’t even know what AGE means. When that monstrosity of Head Start for kids passed, most people took for granted it was for little preschool kids. WRONG.  Read my past article in the Emerald City Journal about what a joke that was. It covered for babies in the womb to 24 year old kids. Back to rentals – I hope landlords get together and take back their property. I am too old to lead the fight. I don’t plan more than a day ahead, but my old brain is telling me that MY BROTHER WAS RIGHT. Foolish to have worked all my life to buy a house and a rental to be told by the city who can live in it.

One more thing as an example. I charged $850 a month for my rental. It’s a cute two bedroom house. I also live on social security which is $1,200 a month. The city says if someone says they are on social security I have to rent to them. Well I am a shining example that that will not work because with $1,200 social security a month income I could not afford to rent my OWN little house.  I could not pay $850 in rent and that is way to cheap and then pay the utilities and other expenses to make it each month. I barely make it on my SS check with the tiny bit of rent that is left over after property tax and insurance.

What is almost funny (but not the ha ha kind) this may stir up so much fuss that each council member will have to hire another assistant. Not sure how many they have but all they do is make rules for taxpayers to follow. I consider them a sort of welfare case. They produce nothing and live off taxpayers. If half of them quit we would never know the difference.

I hope this gives you readers something to think about and hopefully write your opinion for the Emerald City Journal, even if you do not agree with me, as well as to the mayor and city council members.

Lilly Marek

Seattle Council Adopts plan for Best Start for Kids

kids-playing-seattle

Last year the voters approved a levy, Best Start for Kids. I want to state right here I did not study that levy at all. I did not even bother to read it. I knew I was going to vote NO. I automatically vote no on any scheme the council (King County or City) dreams up because it’s like deciding which Rat Hole to pour your tax dollars in. They had no plan as to how to spend it or what to spend it on, but now a year later they are still trying to figure it out. Instead of saying we need so many dollars for what age group they just said “kids”. I tried to Google it to find out what is considered a “kid” without any success. We have infants, toddlers, children, etc. but nothing for “kid”. I never thought anymore about it until an article came out in the Seattle Times, Sept 20,2016, that The Metropolitan King Council set guidelines on how to spend $400, million in new tax revenue for child development programs.

Well hold on to your hats because you will learn what a kid is. Here is how the Council is dividing up your tax dollars. They have $400 million to play with. About (not sure what “about” means here) half the money will go to PREGNANT WOMAN and children under five. WOW, that is a mighty early BEST START. They are going to help these ‘KIDS” before they are ever born. My guess would have been the whole wagon load of $400 million would go to kids under 5. There are programs for pregnant woman and they should not be included in this levy. Then it says “about” a third will go to children ages 5 thru 24. Another big WOW here. I used to be pretty good in math but if ABOUT half goes to pregnant woman and kids under 5, then “about a third” to ages 5 thru 24. What is it a third OF?

If you are already confused about your tax dollars it gets worse. The REMAINDER (no one has a clue how much) will go to community programs, data collection and evaluation. How are they going to round up these 24 year old KIDS. Some are fighting over seas. Some are sitting down at the corner bar, lots are in jail. I have two sons and by the time they were 24 they had finished their Army and Navy service and were married with children. If “kids” can vote and go in a bar for a beer at 18 and join the service I think they are a lot to old to be included in a “fresh start for kids” $400 million boondoggle. Maybe the times article is wrong but I don’t think so. Hope some of you inquire.

This data collection and evaluation can get mighty expensive. It can however, provide a lot of jobs for in laws, girl or boyfriends or relatives or someone the city needs to give a favor too. Very little if anything will actually Help any Kid. This adds to property tax, and in turn makes rent higher. Then they create another boondoggle to register all landlords to see why rents keep going up? It’s an endless tax and spend. Look at the money spent to somehow help homelessness. The people still have no homes but man the expensive advisors (Mayor paid one expert $850,000 to tell him its not right for people to be in a place like the jungle). So with $400 million to screw away on Best Start for Kids we can hire many experts, planners, advisors, and maybe even a new assistant to each council member to keep track of this CRAP. Voters please wake up and if you are like me if you are undecided just vote NO.

Your comments and remarks would be much appreciated.

Lilly Marek

Seattle Landlords Face New Rules

Seattle new landlord rules

Seattle Landlords don’t just face new rules, they actually have had their rentals taken away from them. Biggest land grab I ever heard of. The only thing now that a landlord has, is his name still listed as the owner and has to pay the inflated property tax or they will take it completely away form him. I believe this is a set of rules that will fall under its own weight. I want to state my source of information is taken from the Times paper and from emails from the Mayor and some city council members. I want to make it clear that I AM NOT MAKING THIS STUFF UP. Even the Mayor and Council members know this wont work but are trying to make the tenants dependent on them so they will vote for them. They have promised the tenants a little too much this time all at once trying to make them think they actually care about what they call discrimination. Don’t even know what that word means anymore. Absolutely anything a landlord does now he will be discriminating and can be sued. WOW They have just hired two new staffers to the tune of $200,000 to enforce the rules and the Times says the city will have to ramp up its sting operations. Might as well laugh here, wont help to cry. lol

Tenants must be dancing in the streets. The tenants union must be getting a lot of new members. Boy oh boy they are going to show those greedy old white landlords that they are in charge. Some old sayings are still true today. “Be careful what you wish for, it might come true”. Here is what the tenants have got from these new rules. From the day a landlord puts his rental on the market he loses all control of it. The tenants are running the rental business, not the landlord that owns the property. I have no idea what a new application will look like but the old legal applications are no good anymore. FYI I have a pile of applications that I have always had out for people to pick up and fill in and leave. I look them over and the ones that I think can afford it I contact them and they come back for a personal interview and a through look through the property. Then they have to pay $60 and I send it all to a company called Rental Research. They get the $60, not me. They can tell immediately if someone has a real poor rental record, if they have been evicted, if they have a criminal history, and if they have a good record of employment. Some people simply don’t make enough money to make it possible to pay the rent and have anything left to live on. NOT A LANDLORDS PROBLEM.

Here are what landlords CANNOT ASK ANY PROSPECTIVE TENANT.

New Ordinance:  http://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2802901&GUID=1B597DBF-2FC5-4766-BAC5-F5E8F511F3D6&FullText=1 (Ordinance 125114)

  • Has he ever been evicted.
  • Does he have a criminal record.
  • Does he have a good work history.
  • If they show up with a months rent they can’t be turned down. You have to rent to first come, first served or you are discriminating.
  • You can’t ask for a lump sum damage deposit (too hard on the tenant) He can pay it a little each month. IN OTHER WORDS WE CAN’T GET A DAMAGE DEPOSIT OF ASK HIM/HER A THING TO BASE WHETHER TO RENT TO HIM/HER AT ALL.  I have always charged  a damage deposit up front of a thousand dollars. This is to insure they wont move out the first night with the washer, dryer, fridge and stove. After they stay five or six years I have never kept one dime of the damage deposit. I expect to have to replace the carpet and paint. But to let a guy move in that you don’t know a thing about with maybe $10.00 on a damage deposit, it would take him 100 months to pay that. Dream on.

The prospective tenant is entitled to move in if he depends on unemployment benefits, social security, child support payments, veterans benefits, and any other assistance programs. No employment record good or bad is needed.

I stand corrected if I am wrong here, but anyone I know on social security gets around $1100 a month. This is NOT enough to pay rent, utilities, and have anything to eat. Unemployment benefits don’t last forever and child support payments are worthless. If child support payments have to be honored then the guy paying the child support should have to be the ones agreeing to make the rent payments. Also, just because you have a paper showing how much child support you are supposed to get doesn’t mean you get it. NOT THE LANDLORDS PROBLEM.

That just touches a few of the new really important rules that makes it so a landlord loses all his rights to his property completely. I want to state here that as a landlord I am not and never will be Mother Teresa. I think it’s fine if you want to give someone free rent but it should not be forced on you. Before this batch of rules were published a week or so ago, the city started the scheme over a year ago. Every person with a rental, had to register their rental and pay $175.00. THEN we are told we have to pay for an inspector to come and look it over and tell us what he/she thinks needs to be done. It has nothing to do with what the tenant or the landlord might think. How is that fair? The city encouraged at that time for anyone with a Mother in law or fixed up garage to make them available to rent. Prior to that they had shut down the mother in law units. lol But heck we can get $175 dollars each so the more the better. That was a legalized shake down, and if that wasn’t bad enough they now put out the landlords new rules. Can you imagine having a nice little apt connected right to your house and you have to take in the first person that wants a place to rent? He/she can have a criminal history, a past of evictions, no job history of any kind. OMG what were they thinking? They want the tenants to vote for them and be dependent on them. There are more tenants than landlords so this is democracy gone wild.

The Times published a nice tid bit. Big rich developers wont have a problem. They will never have to have any of these tenants that would fail any kind of a fair application. They just pay the city a big chunk and use it as a tax write off and laugh all their way to the bank. But the paper says they are wondering about enforcement. It says the City will have to ramp up its sting operations. They are having to hire two new staffers to the tune of $200,000 to help with the enforcement of just the first come first serve rule.

A landlord with a duplex that he thought was a good investment will have to take first come first served, no questions asked. Clean the place up really good and pay for the city to inspect it. The landlord will need to make any changes they tell him too and lets say he gets a guy that wants to practice his drums, and maybe have a little band practice, or a guy that wants to move in some junkers and work on cars in his yard, or a lady with a bunch of little kids to run through his flower beds. lol

This is not even fair to the good tenants out there and I have rented my little house out for 40 years right beside me. My criteria was getting someone who had a good job that was near by because I figured they would stay the longest. Most have always been here 6 years or so, til they get married, or buy a house of their own. It’s a big job to get a place ready to rent. I pay a cleaning lady $600 to scrub it top to bottom and hire someone to make any repairs necessary. I can’t afford to rent to someone who will only be there a month or two. As for the first come, I want to give you a good example. I had my for rent sign out, applications in a pile, cute little two bedroom house with a bath fitter bathroom. I turned lots down right at the top because there was no way they made enough to stay afloat if they paid their rent. Some were two people wanting to share the rent. I learned this wont work. One will pay his half, but the other wont, and it’s an on going fight and you never get all your rent. It costs approximately $4500 to do a legal eviction. Out of a big stack of applications I chose a black guy. City seems to think we don’t want them as renters. I chose him over lots of others because he had a good job nearby and could walk to work. It was a perfect fit. But under first come first served he would have lost out. So you are not helping blacks that are hard working and honest.

One more little scam is the rent vouchers. I had two woman with them come look. One was a little black lady with a small child. She loved the place, big yard etc. but my rent was $850 and she was allowed $1400 for rent. That is three hundred a month more than my social security check that I worked 68 years for. lol Instead of being happy and saying she wanted the place, she did not want to give up the $1400 she was allowed. I told her to go find a nicer  place but she said mine was the nicest she had looked at and maybe we could make a deal. There was no deal to make if everything was on the up and up. She implied that I could cash her voucher and take my money. Give her the change. I thought something is wrong here. We taxpayers are paying your rent not letting you get extra cash on top. I said my rent was $850, cash or check only so she left. Later called wanting to come back and make a deal, I hung up. Sooooo. They get this voucher and then try to find something cheaper and get the landlord to cash it and either take a kick back for himself and give her the rest to spend by trying to do a little under the table wheeling and dealing.

I think the only protection a landlord has is to not rent out his property. Sell it or leave it vacant (they may make that illegal too). You cannot hand over your keys to the first person who staggers in with the cash (heck the buddies at the corner tavern could all chip in, then come party once he got moved in). They could move out the fridge, stove, and mess it up in less than a week. A bum is a bum, a scammer is a scammer, a good renter doesn’t mind having his past checked out.

The city wants to make it easy for tenants to not be turned down but when my tenant moves, I am going to never rent it out again. I will move into it myself. It’s better than my house and I will use mine for storage. This will not increase the number of rentals in Seattle. This will not help good reliable tenants who will be at work and the welfare gal will be first to come, but you have to finish your shift. The day of reckoning will come and actually then renters will lose the most. When they head out with their list rules to show old Whitey they are in charge, old Whitey wont have anything to rent.

I think this violates the law of contracts somehow because we can’t make any agreements with the tenants at all this way. A little landlord is like a little business so if that set of rules can be enforced on us the little car dealer down the street that sells cars, with nothing down should not be allowed to ask a prospective buyer anything. He cant ask him if he has been in jail for running a chop shop, He cant ask him if he has ever had a car repossessed has a job or what his employment record is. Unless it is on all businesses then they are DISCRIMINATING against landlords.

FYI. I don’t feel anyone is entitled to a thing they didn’t work for. You are where you are because of your choices. I don’t feel sorry for the little black girl with 7 babies. She learned when she got pregnant the first time what caused it. After years of welfare and housing vouchers, help with utility bills has just made them expect the government to provide for them. The government has no money. They have to take it from the taxpayer to give to you. I did not work all those years and end up with a little rental to supplement my social security check thinking oh gee just cant wait to let a criminal or someone who has never gone to work a day in their life move in. My motto is unless I am married to you, gave birth to you, or adopted you I OWE YOU NOTHING. Somehow the government wants to say that blacks and LGBT people are better than us ordinary whites. They get to go to the head of the line. They get the favored treatment. They are no better or any worse and the playing field should be level. If the government wasn’t trying to control us to win votes we would not even have a problem.

Please readers, think about what I have written carefully even if it does not affect you today, think about what a person living alone in a house might get hit with. You might be required to take in a homeless person. Don’t laugh, its no worse than what they just did to people who own a rental. Remarks will be most welcome.

LILLY

Vote no on the $930 Million dollar Levy in November

Seattle Levy Vote No

LIONS (transportation levy) TIGERS (Tunnel flooperoo), & BEARS (Seawall) – OH MY
Your tax dollars are heading right for the RABBIT HOLE(Taxpayer sinkhole)

The very reason to vote NO for the transportation levy is the city/county/state etc have no idea what they are going to spend it on. That is just to large an amount to ask for with all the problems they are having with the money they have been given to build a tunnel and a seawall. When they passed the car tab fee raise they admitted afterwards they didn’t know whether to buy new buses or shorten time between trips etc. In other words we gave a huge chunk to “kids to go to toys R us” and decide what THEY WANT to spend it on. Not fair to taxpayers to pay for ten years on a $930 million dollar levy and we won’t even know as they spend it where its going. They are still doling out favors from the Bridging the Gap we have been paying on for years. Right in my neighborhood they just handed out $1.3 million to start a festival street in Georgetown. So they have had plenty of money and don’t know what to do with it. Make them split the $930 million up into different levy’s. How much for streets, how much for bridges, etc. Their record of the Tunnel and Seawall should be enough to make you know they can’t handle taxpayers money wisely if they are not held accountable for anything. The City Council and the Mayor have lied to us and to each other and that should weigh in too.

A completely unrelated story brought up my reason to write this article. The headline said, “School districts attorney to retire”. He wants to spend more time with his family. In the fine print it tells how he has been on administrative leave since February because of undisclosed reasons and was on leave when he gave notice he was retiring. His name is Ron English. It said investigation is closed. I.e. he has been on paid leave but when time to face the music he retired. He will have a clean record and can just more on to another job, and all is forgotten. Same thing with Lois Lerner at the IRS. When you are caught red handed just retire. The reason this jogged my memory is about the ex Governor Gregoire when she was pushing the Hi Way 99 Tunnel. The public didn’t want it. they wanted a surface street, but the governor raved and ranted about how she had studied the contract and the taxpayers never have to pay for any cost over runs, or any problems along the way. She stressed over and over that is was an iron clad deal. Almost like cross my heart and hope to die promise lol but she knew it was a lie but she would be long gone and not accountable or have to do any explaining at all.

Now on to the tunnel. It was forced on the taxpayers. As of June the state has paid $1.04 billion (with a B) of its $1.35 billion tunnel contract which included the price of the machine. Berth’s price new was $80 million. For all of that money what do we have? Bertha sitting in her grave a/k/a knows as the tunnel. This broken down machine has traveled 1,083 feet of its 9,270 foot path. Insurer’s are now saying Bertha’s design was inadequate from the start. They are refusing to pay $143 million to repair an $80 million dollar machine. Its like spending $20,000 to fix a $10,000 new car. We would go for the lemon law and get rid of the lemon for sure.

Oh well, not to worry. If Voters are stupid enough to pass the $930 million levy in Nov. the Mayor can just piddle it away trying to get the work at the tunnel going again. Lawmakers approved $2 Billion tunnel project to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct that they said would fall down almost immediately but that was several years ago and the tunnel has made it even worse and the also forgot to give much thought to buses. Now they realize with the money almost gone the tunnel design will actually hinder buses. When they try to exit to downtown Seattle they will have to weave across two lanes of general traffic. The Mayor will have some experts look at it(we pay them high fees). The viaduct is sinking, streets are sinking, water pipes are bursting. Those are just the things we have found about accidentally with some good reporters work. The stuff we are not hearing about is far worse I am sure. This is the only chance to get Bertha out of the tunnel(if that is even possible now), because if she gets moving she will be under historic buildings and no place to build another repair pit if she breaks down again. This has been a total sinkhole for tax dollars. No one person is accountable. They will start to sue each other and it will cost millions in legal fees, fines and penalties. Don’t be fooled as to who pays for all of that, WE THE TAXPAYERS. No lawmaker, worker or expert will have to pay a dime. If they do find someone they can sort of blame he/she will retire to spend more time with their family and get a pension or bonus for the hard work they have given.

Now to the Seawall. Seattle Times headlines were, “Mayor said the $71 million in cost overruns can be covered with unallocated source of funds”. Where were those funds sitting when he asked for the amount for the seawall?. He asked the taxpayers for $71 million more than he needed. We have been paying higher property tax for him to stuff under his mattress or put in his piggy bank. NOW IS THE TIME FOR TAXPAYERS TO ASK HOW MANY MORE MILLIONS ARE SITTING IN UNALLOCATED FUNDS before we pass any more levy’s. Of course Murrey calls this unfortunate and is going to hire experts to look into what his other experts must have missed. Are you getting the pattern here? Clowns running the circus, monkeys running the zoo?

Voters approved a $290 million bond measure. As of today the cost is $410 million. They have not even started on half of the seawalls length. Mayor Murray knew of this back in June but did not bother to tell the City Council or public.

Do not pass the levy no matter how much you are for transportation or tunnels or seawalls until someone (God only knows who) gives us a clue as to where our levy money is going. That is way too much to let clowns like we have just blow it away on cost overruns, a tunnel that will probably never be finished, a sea wall that may never be finished. Make them break it down where the money they want is going to be spent. make it in millions not billions. There is no way they have a real plan for that much money.
LLL

Lilly Marek: Great Depression and the Barter System

President Franklin D Roosevelt great depression

Once upon time a long time ago a little girl was born in the little town of Victor Montana. Population 250 (some people said the census bureau that came through must have included the dogs too, lol).  This is not meant to be my life’s story, but since I was born in 1923 right before what they called the “great depression” and grew up during the depression I thought you might enjoy how people got by with absolutely no money, no refrigeration and still managed to live.  Remember this is through the eyes of a little girl. It looked entirely different to my parents who had to wonder how they were going to feed 12 kids (I had 11 brothers and sisters).  it is not meant to be the story of my life at all, just how I saw it. My first memory is wanting to go to school. I was all alone with my parents since I was the baby. I started school in 1928 and before I was 5 years old. Here goes. We were the Marek family.

We had a huge ranch. We were self supporting in raising all the food for the humans and for the animals. Had large hay fields,  put up hay for all the animals. Field of oats, field of wheat. My father took a wagon load of oats to a mill to be made into oatmeal for us to eat. He had a huge grainery to put oats in bins to be fed to the animals. He took several loads of grain to the mill to be made into flour and stored the rest for chicken feet etc. We had a huge orchard and a huge garden. The cash crop was from the dairy cattle. All of us had to milk cows. We had what was called a separator. You poured the milk into this huge container on top, turned a crank (by hand of course) and it separated the cream from the skim milk. Mama kept back what cream or whole milk we needed for the day for making cottage cheese or cream for butter etc. The cream can was set in a little ditch that ran through the yard right from the mountains. It was ice cold. The Creamery man came daily to pick up the cream. I have no idea what or how he paid but that was the only money coming in except for steers my father sold in the fall. My mother canned everything from the garden and we had what was called a cellar. You filled it with apples, carrots, squash and other things to last all winter. We also had what was called the ice house. In the winter you sawed large squares of ice from a shallow pond and filled this building with ice. When we butchered or shot a deer etc it was hung in the ice house. Of course it was not cold enough to keep meat more than a few days so this is how that was handled. I didn’t know why so may neighbors came to our house on butchering days. One would take a side, one a hind quarter for example. No money exchanged hands but when that neighbor butchered my dad would get a hind quarter from the guy that got one from him etc. They all staggered the butchering so we had fresh meat almost all the time. Of course we had chicken for fresh meat and lots of trout all year round. Everyone helped everyone.  The person who got meat and had no animals to butcher traded so many days work to my father. When it was haying time lots of neighbors came to work for us. No money changed hands so that took care of the fresh meat for him as well as help for us.   A man came through with a thrashing machine to separate the oats and grain from the fodder. Not sure how he got paid but the neighbors who got meat and other farm produce from us came to help too.  I think some of them got some grain for their chickens or ducks, not sure about that. It was the only way any of us could have survived. My Dad needed help, and they needed food.  We could not use up a whole steer or pig before it spoiled. I didn’t think of us as being that poor, even though we had no running water, no electricity, and no car. Actually, looking back as a grown up and understanding how people actually starved to death I was a very lucky child. I had good food, a warm place to sleep, and a goodnight kiss from both parents. I am thankful I was born then. The only car I saw was the mailman on the road once a day. If someone died or some other news he left a note in our box. We had no newspaper, no TV or radio. And we had a big school bus that picked us up and brought us home.

Other people in “town” traded their talents for what they needed. I will just include one family. Other families had different talents and service they bartered to survive. I will talk about the Olson family Johanna and Ole.  He was a chimney builder. I don’t know how they managed to live in Victor. We had tin stove pipes going out through a hole in our roof, and he built us a chimney of bricks. It sure cut down on the fire danger and we could have a hotter fire. He got credit somehow for meat, veggies and eggs. I remember my mother telling Mrs. Olson she still had a months worth of eggs coming. Not sure how many eggs that was but the Olson’s had 12 children also. As a personal note here, two of the Olson boys married two of the Marek girls.

Back then we had a lot of hungry men come through who were really REALLY hungry and tired. Now they would be called homeless, back then they were called hobo’s. They wanted a meal and a place in the barn to sleep to rest up so they could travel on looking for work. They offered to split wood, or do anything. My mother never refused them. She made them a big plate of food and always packed them a lunch when they were rested enough to move on. We never made them do anything. Mother would say a prayer for them and always said “but for the grace of God” this could be my son.

Things begin to slowly change. At school they gave us a cup of hot chocolate in the afternoon and sometimes a little box of cream of wheat we could take home. Dad complained and said where are they getting the money to pay for that? He had trouble getting enough cash to buy us kids all a tablet and pencils.

There were fewer hobo’s coming through.

We little kids could work for neighbors so we could earn a few pennies. Labor then was 50 cents or a dollar a day but mostly piece work. We got to keep the money we earned and could either save it or if we spent it but it had to be on clothes. One of the Olson boys that married my sister started what they call a truck garden. Rows and rows of onions, radishes for example. I got a job weeding rows of veggies, then when they were big enough to harvest we did what they called (bunching them) you pulled ten radishes and put a rubber band around them. We did the same with onions. He had a pick up truck then and took them to stores. That was his cash crop. Another man had a huge strawberry patch and us little kids picked his berries for so much a box. Our goal was to pick enough to earn 50 cents a day. He had cash to buy other stuff he needed.

It worked great. We kids had jobs and they made a living. One year my brother in law didn’t plow his field. He said someone from the government offered him more money not to plant that he could earn from planting. Made no sense to hard workers but it was called the Conservation Resource Program. He didn’t have to work but all the little neighbor kids lost their jobs. Didn’t seem very good to me. Not many hobo’s came anymore. On the school bus we could see men standing all along the road leaning on a shovel, doing absolutely nothing. We learned this was due to the Workers Progress Administration or WPA. This was in 1932 and 1933. It was the start of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s, New Deal. To me and lots of others it seemed like a bad deal. We talked to the men leaning on their shovels when we would wait for the school bus. They got boxes of what was called “commodities”. These boxes had coffee (we could hardly afford to buy it) big cans of beef similar to these nice cans we buy at Costco now. Little cans of deviled ham, and cans that were like spam but not called spam. In fact most cans had no labels. We would trade the men with the commodities of our fresh stuff and fresh meat for their little canned stuff which was like a candy treat to us little kids who had never had any “store bought stuff”. By 1932 most banks were closing and people lost all their savings.

The Olsons and the Mareks all could play an instrument of some kind so together they built a dance hall, called Pine Ridge.  I even got to play the piano in the band part of the time. People paid $1.00 a couple to dance on Saturday night. The band got paid whatever was taken in at the door and one night I earned $5.00. Then the truck gardener Olson started to build wooden toys because hints of war was starting and there was no metal for toys. I then got a job painting toys for him. One of the other Olson boys that married a sister of mine had the thrashing machine. So if you are ambitions and not lazy you found a way to make it.

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do. My Mother died. I was 13. Dad was almost blind and us girls got jobs with neighbors cooking and cleaning their houses etc and staying with our married sisters or brothers occasionally. I did manage to finish high school (only one in my family to do that). By 1940 5 million farmers were on subsidies.

Franklin D Roosevelt won the election from Hoover in 1932 and was trying to get his New Deal going. By the next election in 1936 he won his second term by the biggest landslide of any president and his New Deal was off and running. It was the start of the government intrusion into how we run our lives. This story is not about politics. You decide if it was better or worse.

Just two other things need mentioning here. Health Care, and Criminal Justice.

1.  We had no healthcare,  My mother had no pre natal care. No babies were delivered by a doctor or nurse, No babies had a doctor exam or shots of any kind. (yep we all got the mumps, measles, and whooping cough and survived. My mother had 12 babies, everyone lived, not a one had attention deficit or any health problems of any kind. No one died young, and that sure is a better record that what we have today with all the doctor visits and shots.  You form your own opinion. We had no dental care either. According to rules and regulations today I.e. don’t drink coffee (my first solid food was homemade bread soaked in coffee). Raw milk, fried food at every meal. Now eggs are supposed to be so unhealthy (I ate several a day). Everything was fried in lard. Why did all 12 kids grow up so healthy. 12 out of 12 is mighty good score. I will be 92 in three months. I live alone, take  care of my self, have none of the old age afflictions except hearing and eyesight which comes with old age no matter what you do or eat. Still eating my eggs, fried food, drinking coffee all day. Still have my long and short term memory (I think). I should be dead or sick according to the best medical advice. Took boiled eggs in a little lard bucket (lunch bucket) to school to sit in the hot class room, but no one died from that. WHY?

2.  The only crime we had was cattle rustlers occasionally. You shot to kill anyone you saw trying to round up your cattle. If a new man moved on to a ranch that had been abandoned and all of a sudden had a herd of cattle, the ranchers paid him a homcoming visit to see if his heard had THEIR BAND on them. They knew they hadn’t sold him any. Our Marek brand was Lazy Heart, Half Circle, J.  If you saw your cattle there, you had a right to shoot him. There was no sheriff to come and arrest him or you. It was completely obvious what happened. He did not get a free lawyer and a long trial and appeal. It was overwith. The best part of that system was NO REPEAT OFFENDERS.

I will end this by saying I hope you have found it interesting and you make your own opinions about life then and now. If all of a sudden our power grid is sabotaged and you have no water or food, I hope you can work together to help one another. I can’t even picture it and glad I won’t be around. The mind set these days seems to be try not to have to work at all (you are rewarded with a welfare check, free healthcare, and a house) and without government to provide you with those things – I hope you have a plan B. But if you are smart if you loot a grcery store instead of taking three big TV’s (you won’t have power to use them) you take canned goods to tide you over. My guess is someone will burn the store down and ruin even the good food. Hope I am wrong. Good luck out there. REMEMBER, the government has nothing to give you. It has to take it from a wage earner to give people a welfare check, affordable health care, and a affordable house. The word “affordable” should be determined by the person getting it. If you don’t want to work YOU CANT AFFORD ANYTHING.  People filling that welfare cart are getting fed up and if the cart tips over empty, do you have a plan? Your parents are the only one who were ever responsible for your housing and health until you were grown and it’s up to you now to figure it out. It worked for the Olsons and Mareks.

Sharia Faith and Laws

Seattle's Mayor Ed Murray

I have tried to steer away from writing about religion or homosexuality in my previous writing’s. I believe each person has a right to believe how they want. But all of a sudden I am forced to mix the two because of our openly gay Mayor Ed Murray really slid off the tracks coming with the idea that Muslims can use Sharia law in Seattle while the rest of us must follow the rules and regulations America has in place. I will get the subject of gays right off the table to start. This has nothing to do with MY view on gays or gay marriage in this article, but how can an openly gay Mayor even feel safe talking to these so called peaceful Muslims who are taught to hate him. They are taught that they should kill anyone who does not accept Islam. Islam says homosexuals must be executed. They throw gays off buildings. These guys he is pandering too would not hesitate to blow themselves and him up if they decide they can’t control him.

NOW: The point of this article is about the Mayor even considering letting the Muslims use any part of Sharia for contracts or anything else. Let them go worship how they want, who they want, spread out their rug and pray, no problem. To think the mayor would even listen to a Muslim tell him he is against paying interest. My story really spreads now. I think everyone hates to pay interest, and look at the foreclosures because people paid interest for years and never got the principle down at all and lost their homes when the prices fell. They could not even sell them. Now, the Muslims say they want to buy homes but don’t want to pay any interest. It’s against their belief. Well I say go home where your Sharia law is in place. We are under American law here. Even Muslims with high paying jobs want interest free homes. Well why don’t you get all of Seattle together and say, “lets have a showing of hands of how many would like to buy a house, interest free”. Geez shoulders would be jerked out of place hands would go up. This is beyond crazy. You cannot give a special break to a Muslim because it’s against his or her faith. I can completely understand how he/she doesn’t believe in paying interest. Then the thing to do is rent until you save enough to pay cash.

I want to add in a personal note here. My Fathers parents were from Bohemia. My Father and Mother were both born in America but my Dad really drummed in into all of us kids. Never, never buy something that you can’t pay cash for. That was over 90 years ago. The only credit card I have ever had was an Arco gas card. My husband and I saved and saved while we were renting and bought a little fixer upper FOR CASH. Paid $2500 for it. We owned that little house at 306 Lucille street. We fixed it up really nice after work and traded up and got this old fixer up (I wont put my address here) in Georgetown with a little cash added. I am still living here, I have never paid interest or a house payment in my lifetime. So if I can do it the Muslims can do it. I have never gone into a furniture store and bought a thing on credit. I had to charge something at Sears one time in order to have them deliver it or something, but paid it right off.

My Father always said if someone holds a mortgage or note you can lose what you have anytime. I never forgot it. Of course we never had anything that others might call nice and I got most everything I have at “junk stores” and half price sales. Let the Muslims do what I did. I am living proof you can own a house and not pay interest. BUT YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHAT THE MAYOR IS CONSIDERING. I hope there is such an outcry of working whites with high mortgages the Mayor will get the message. He can’t even think it’s fair, or legal but wants to pander to the Muslims and maybe get a few extra votes. Does Sharia law let them vote. If they are going by their Muslim religion about interest I do not believe it allows woman to vote. So mayor Murray look into that. You can’t pick and choose what part of the law you will let them use and my advice would be not to go on any roof parties with your partner and a bunch of Muslims and make them mad, because according to their religion they can just toss you over, no problem. Do you agree that part of their faith is good, or just give them an interest free mortgage.

Back to 90 years ago. My Father homesteaded. Started with a log cabin and did a lot of add-on’s. No mortgage payments. He made most of our furniture and our mattresses were filled with fresh clean straw every fall after the grain was thrashed and taken to town to be made into flour. There was 12 of us little kids and we little girls got to pick out the flower sack they would put the flour in and Mama would make our dresses with that. ( I will write an article next week on how we managed during the depression) Electricity finally came through but Dad could not afford to hook up and was afraid to sign up for anything. So all my years at home were without running water inside, no electricity, no phone and we cooked and heated with wood, from our own forest. Now Dad religiously preached to us about hard work, never go in debt, and I have followed it to this day. Worked from the time I was 13 until I was 70. But I see now he was against paying Utility Bills. I didn’t catch on that it was like a religion with him and I went astray. I have been paying for lights, water, gas, and garbage pick up for 70 years at this same address. The price goes up every year. Since I know now it is against MY religion I want to start a little church with its own laws. I am going to call it the Bohemian Fairness Church. One thing it’s against is having to pay any utilities. The City owes us water to drink, lights to light our home and I would be willing to heat with wood but they keep having burn bans so had to put in natural gas. I want to form a group who are also against paying Utilities. If Muslims can write their law we Americans can sure as heck make our law that it’s against “our religion to pay utilities”. We wont cause the Mayor any harm. He can be gay and I want him to know that his other really really stupid rule of transgender toilets was in place in my days. Yes Mr/Mrs/Ms whatever Mayor we had a transgender bathroom. It was a free standing wood building. It was made of wood and had a cute crescent moon over the door. There was so many of us (6 girls and 6 boys) no way could we go one at a time so it had 4 nice holes cut in a bench over a pit. 4 of us girls could potty at the same time. Then the boys. NEVER did we go in the same time. But it still was for both boys and girls. Mayor should be proud of me for that.

I hope there is a huge out cry against the Mayor pandering to the Muslims. They either follow every one of our laws, rules and regulations like the rest of us do or they get deported. We don’t follow their religion and I don’t even want to hear about it. I hope this article gets some attention and they contact the Mayor as to what they think of the Sharia law that they can buy a house here and not pay any interest. We don’t (or shouldn’t) change our way of life. Just like I will always put out a Nativity set. If it bothers them I say is look the other way or go the hell home. You came here, we didn’t drag you here. You are free to leave, the sooner the better.

Lilly Marek

1 2 3 … 12
Go to Top