Stuart Anderson, successful cattle rancher, restaurateur, author, television personality and entrepreneur, is finding that a comeback at the age of 89 is turning out to be more challenging than he had expected. It’s not because of age so much as it is the economy and changes in the restaurant business. The man who built Stuart Anderson’s Black Angus from a single location near downtown Seattle in 1964 into a chain of 110 steakhouse restaurants across 19 states before selling the chain in the late 1980s was lured out of retirement by a shuttered Black Angus in Rancho Mirage, CA.

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There’s nothing that could make residents of places like Washington, Oregon or Montana feel better about how their states are being run than to be plunked down for a few weeks in California and get an amusing and bemusing look at the dysfunctional workings of the nation’s most populous state. Everything about California is big, and that includes the massive budget deficit that has been the focus of governor-again Jerry Brown since he was sworn in a year ago as the literal political-comeback kid.

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Former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ likely decision to seek the Democratic nomination for Washington Secretary of State may represent a sobering reality to the three Democrats already announced and campaigning. But it’s also a bit of cold water on the hopes of those who figured he’d seek to regain the city’s top elected position next year from “the accidental mayor.” While Nickels has given himself until Valentine’s Day to make up his mind about a race that he says he didn’t really begin to contemplate until “over the Holidays,” it was clear during a telephone interview that he’s already thinking about what he would seek to accomplish in the office. The chances that he will decide not to run are remote.

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Nine years on from Michael P. Anderson’s death on the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia, the fund-raising effort to ensure continuation of the annual program at Seattle’s Museum of Flight aimed at inspiring at-risk children of color to dream big dreams is nearing its final stage. In fact, the effort launched for a hometown hero by Spokane business leaders following the Feb. 1, 2003, shuttle disaster, along with the major assist from African-American pilots of Alaska Airlines and a financial commitment from the airline itself represents fulfillment of a big dream in its own right.

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You didn’t need to be a fan of Newt Gingrich to feel bad for the guy because of all the political dirt dumped on him during the Iowa-caucuses campaign. And you didn’t need to be a foe of Mitt Romney, who fared well in Iowa Tuesday, to find his avoidance of responsibility for the deluge of attack ads aimed at Gingrich distasteful. And you don’t need to be a schooled political observer to sense that the Iowa mess was only the undesirable opening salvo of what is likely to be a dirt-encrusted presidential campaign over the coming months, particularly once we enter the general-election phase. So to the electoral masses, Iowa likely brought a new level of disgust with the way politics has come to be defined, and the hunger for something, and someones, different.

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As Robin Pollard steps down from her role as the key executive overseeing Washington’s fast-growing wine industry, she can reflect on a five-year tenure during which the size and influence of the industry have grown dramatically. And because the growth of wine has come with little of the economic downturn experienced in other markets and other sectors, she describes the future as “very bright.” Part of that bright future will be an expanded focus on national and international visibility in 2012 as the commission marks its 25th anniversary and the Taste Washington event, designed to create a destination attraction nationally, will become a two-day gathering in Seattle.

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To those who think that benefit auctions for charitable causes may be losing their appeal, Kip Toner, who for more than three decades has been in the business of getting folks to raise their paddles, has news for you. Toner, who’s KTBA, Inc. (Kip Toner Benefit Auctions) is 20 years old this year, says auctions have become an increasingly important part of charitable organizations’ annual fund raising efforts. And he predicts that the importance and the number of auctions will continue to grow for those non-profits, perhaps even because of the current economic challenges.

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Susan Preston, whose image as a leader in clean-energy investment has grown in her years overseeing the nation’s first angel fund for seed and start-up clean energy companies, has reason to look toward 2012 with optimism. And she dismisses the criticism of those who would deter federal efforts to spur such investments as “purely political. Preston, general partner in the nearly four-year-old California Clean Energy Angel Fund (CalCEF), acknowledges the high-profile bankruptcy of solar-power start-up Solyndra may suggest improvements are needed in federal energy-loan guarantee programs.. “But you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water just because some politicians are using the bankruptcy to make political hay,” Preston said.

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Sixty disadvantaged kids and their personal elves board an Alaska Airlines 737 900 “Santa One” Dec. 10 at Spokane International Airport for a Fantasy Flight to “the North Pole”and a visit with Santa. It’s an event that could be described as the place where the real magic dust of Christmas has been scattered, because this special trip is unique in the world. The children, between the ages of 4 and 10, are selected from programs for homeless and underprivileged kids in the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, ID, areas for this once-in-a-lifetime fantasy adventure to Santa’s home.

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Former Washington Congressman Brian Baird’s long quest to bring a small note of integrity to the dysfunctional legislative body from which he retired a year ago has finally, with a 60 Minutes episode titled “Honest Graft,” gotten a bit of national visibility for an idea whose time has long since come. And it’s possible that, as irate citizens across the country seek ways to express their frustration at the implications of the abject failure of the so-called supercommittee to come up with any agreement, Baird’s idea may become a focal point for citizen action.

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