Thoughts While Reading The Times

--By CARL E. BRAZIER

NORTH-END war veterans will serve as a firing squad and color guard at the burial of six Seattle-born Nisei in the Veterans Memorial Cemetery tomorrow afternoon. All six of them fought under the Stars and Stripes; five were killed in action; the sixth died in a jeep accident after war's end. It would be a wonderful public gesture if Seattleites attended those burial services in goodly numbers. Don't go just out of curiosity; go in spirit of heartfelt tribute to a group of Seattle boys who fought just as valiantly and just as believingly as did those who were not of Japanese descent.

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REGARDLESS of the merits of objections voiced by many against plans for a "cyclone fence" around Upper Woodland Park, those sketches by a Times artist must have given readers a better understanding of the entire zoo project than has been available before. The park authorities would have done better to have some sketches presented for public study much earlier; the citizenry likes to feel that it knows the details of such public funds. It makes for more sympathetic understanding and lens of controversy when public officials give out information before someone pries it loose from them. Not to stir new strife; but study those sketches carefully. Note that the areas outside the fence on N. 50th St. and Phinney Ave. are to be for auto parking. On those sides of the park a considerable area of apartment houses has developed; that means residents who use the streets for parking purposes. Those parking spaces along Phinney and North 50th may be fairly well filled before the zoo visitors and picnic parties arrive.

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SEATTLE'S housing survey shows 32,000 families hereabout hoping to build or buy new homes within the next three years. Don't be misled by the headlines that said "32,000 hope to buy or build"; it's 32,000 families and that means close to 150,000 individuals. The survey shows further that they plan to spend some 270 million dollars for those homes. Spread that total over the 32,000 families and it means they hope to acquire those homes for less than $8,500 each. That includes land costs, landscaping, etc., which leaves not more than $7,500 for actual costs of the home itself. The reporter didn't say whether the survey shows how many of those 32,000 families will be satisfied with the home that can be built for that figure. It seems a safe bet that 20,000 of those families won't be buying or building in the next three years.

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NATIONAL statisticians report that the average Seattleite buys more food and pays more for it than the average for the rest of the country. Seattle's total food bill averages up $314 for each man, woman and child. Elsewhere in the country, the overall average is $218; the Pacific Coast average is $291. The average Seattleite eats better -- and more -- than other Americans. What conclusions one draws from these figures must be figured out in the privacy of each separate household. To help -- or confuse -- that thinking, the figures in an adjoining column may help. They show that the nation's food price index is the lowest in 17 months -- a decline of 14 per cent from the all-time high of last July. Do your own thinking in weaving the two sets of figures together.