Bye Seattle P-I, it's been real.

After 146 years, the Seattle P-I is going bye-bye for good. Apparently, it will continue to live on virtually via the Internets. In fact, being one of the first papers, perhaps not the last, to take this step.

Seattle's only AM paper is/was an every morning institution for my parents. They are bummed, annoyed, pissed and sad to see it go. For as many years as I can recall, they would each read snippets of the paper to each other as they ate breakfast and sipped coffee.

It was their waking up ritual and I thought it was pretty darn sweet. My mom jokes about having dueling laptops on the breakfast table but somehow I can't see it.

I remember my mom going through every single classified ad in the paper each day. Just to see if there was any good deals on "whatever". Now, in the days of Craigslist, the classifieds section is a shadow of its former self and is probably one of the nails in the coffin.

So, for you, Ruth & John, I bid a kind farewell to a jolly little paper. I am sad, for you, to see it go. But, at least we still get the globe. The P-I globe, a beloved Seattle icon, isn't going anywhere!

From the Seattle Times:

"The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the city's oldest newspaper, will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday, its owner said today.

The Hearst Corp. also said it will keep the the P-I alive online "as a new type of digital business with a robust, community news and information Web site at its core."

P-I Publisher Roger Oglesby said in an interview that the online venture would have a professional news staff of about 20 or 25. The vast majority of the P-I's 167 employees, almost all in news, will lose their jobs.

Hearst Newspapers President Steven Swartzsaid in a prepared statement that the site also would have "new columns from prominent Seattle residents; more than 150 reader blogs, community data bases and photo galleries." It also will link to other local Web sites and blogs, he added."

Autism could be connected to the rain?

Very interesting article in the Seattle PI this morning, "Study looks at autism, rain"

Check out the full article if you have the time. This is not, of course, definitive or proof of anything but I thought it was pretty darn interesting.

Here is an excerpt:

Cornell University researchers said children living in rainy counties appeared to have higher reported rates of autism than those in drier areas, after analyzing data from Washington, Oregon and California.

Washington counties west of the Cascades, for example, got four times as much precipitation and had autism rates twice as high as those in the East, according to the study's co-author, Sean Nicholson.

In rain-soaked Seattle, some parents saw these findings as yet another piece in a complicated puzzle. There is no known cause of autism and no established cure.

"I kind of think there is something to the kids not getting enough vitamin D," said LeAnne Beardsley, whose 4-year-old daughter, Keely-Fae, has been diagnosed with autism. "This study really doesn't surprise me at all."

Wow! So does this justify a trip from my beloved Pacific Northwest to a sunny clime during the winter?