October 2006

At age 82, Stan Lee is proving to be somewhat of a super-human. Among some of his activities, he attends comic conventions signing books, works on movie productions (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is slated to be released in 2007 and Stan is listed in the writing credits), he had a reality TV show called Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, he runs his own entertainment company called POW (Purveyors of Wonder) and he’s writing Stan Lee meets… to commemorate 65 years with Marvel Comics.

One doctor is applying a defibrillator while another is removing developers and tossing them into a waste can.Larson and his wife, Toni Carmichael, who own a place on Orcas, are members of the campaign steering committee.”Having spent time on the island off and on since I was a kid, it’s amazed me that to this day it’s been able to retain as much of its unspoiled beauty as it has,” said Larson, who grew up in Tacoma.To donateFor more information and to donate:www.saveturtleback.comThe San Juan Preservation TrustBox 327Lopez Island, WA 98261360-468-3202″My sense of why this is so is because many, if not most, of the people who live here are like-minded in their appreciation for the island’s intrinsic beauty and disconnect from the kind of blight we all see around other parts of the state, where farmlands are converted into shopping malls, rolling hills have become housing developments and sprawl goes unchecked.”Turtleback is owned by the Medina Foundation, a Seattle-based philanthropic organization started by the late Weyerhaeuser tycoon Norton Clapp….  Private gifts total about $6 million so far, and the San Juan Preservation Trust has added $1 million.If the goal isn’t reached, the groups probably would borrow the remaining money and consider selling pieces of Turtleback for development, said Tim Seifert, executive director of the San Juan Preservation Trust.No new development is planned on the mountain’s slopes or summit, beyond carving out hiking trails and possibly a small cabin for the caretaker.More than 540 individuals have donated to the campaign, some inspired by the gift of Sue Cooley, of Seattle, and her son-in-law, Bob Cooley-Gilliom, who are matching individual donations up to $1 million.

Pickle’s creator Brian Crane is helping Habitat for Humanity by auctioning off a closet door painted with a four-panel Pickle’s strip.  The action, according to E&P, will take place on Oct. 18.

Every once in a while an article comes along that makes me shake my head and wonder if there was nothing better for the newspaper to publish, and here is a case in point from the Chicago Tribune who, in an effort to write a health story, took Hagar the Horrible and Broom-Hilda – analyzed their health shortcomings and then found a real nutritionist, dermatologist and dietician to advise them on how to shape up.

Dallas Morning News columnist Mike Peters writes a column that reads like an obit for Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks.Almost overnight, Mr. McGruder was a self-made social commentator, eager to shake our easy assumptions about race.”I don’t write The Boondocks for black people,” he told me in 2003….  I’m trying to make white people see and think about black people.”He did.