Thank you, Dominic. Beautiful and sad day.

Two wonderful people indeed.

RIP, Cheryl dearest. If there's an afterlife, I hope you're there with your fabulous Mama.

Yeah, there was a real Chow Dynasty in grand old Seattle. I miss it more and more each passing year. Say hi to Ruby! And thanks for everything.

Much love and respect.

I was just thinking about Chow today or yesterday. Not having grown up around these parts, I don't know that much about her, but I'm glad she was able to find peace with coming out in the last few months and that she was able to live with who she loved.

When I was in school, I remember Cheryl Chow holding a school-wide, class canceling assembly during which she claimed to be in solidarity with my classmates over some problem we were having. She was all smiles for the cameras, but as soon as they were off, she was cold, uninterested in talking to any students, and quite quickly out the door. She never took any further action on our behalf, nor made any other outreach efforts.

She always struck me as a standard politician, and part of many of the problems the City Council created during her tenure. Her coming out well after it had any relevance, and only when she had nothing left to fear, doesn't make her a better person, politician, or public persona, nor does it make her courageous.

I'm not saying I'm glad she's dead or anything, but I never find myself thinking, "Gee, I really wish Cheryl Chow were here to fix things."

@8: Thank you for your words, and they don't diminish the fact that Cheryl and her mother Ruby were Seattle treasures. I've read similar feedback about Cheryl.

@8, you're absolutely right. I must've been at Garfield with you at the same time. It seems that the stranger has rose colored glasses when it comes to its own. She was pretty unremarkable for a treasure.

The funny thing is, though I'd heard about her doing it elsewhere, I went to Ballard.

Post_Mortem's comments exactly mirror our sense of her when she was at Garfield. A lot of platitudes, a lot of really good teachers leaving. If she had good qualities, being a high school principal in Seattle was not one of them.

Garfield class of '04. Unimpressed by the Chow era. Subsequent respect for her coming out. RIP.

Blair Butterworth was active in many campaigns over the years. He was feisty and loved a good battle. He was our Washington State consultant in the Don't Bankrupt Washington campaign against the Washington Public Power Supply System's out of control spending on trying to build 5 nuclear power plants. The cost rose from an initial $4 billion to $24 billion before it eventually resulted in the largest US municipal bond default up to that time. Blair got involved because he felt it was the right thing to do and he was a key factor in passage of Initiative 394 to require a public vote before bonds could be issued for large public power plants in the future. The initiative is still state law despite several attempts to repeal it in the state legislature.

Cheryl Chow and Blair Butterworth were "wonderful people"??? You should change the title to "Two Sewer Rats."

Anyone who can get elected to the Seattle City Council or the Seattle School Board has to be a corporate shill, and Chow served on both. I'll never forget the time she was campaigning for office when she falsely claimed she was endorsed by both Terry Bergeson and John Stanford - both of whom were also sewer rats, though Bergeson at least had enough class to call Chow on her lie.

And wasn't Chow Garfield's interim principal when the local media framed that teacher (Tom Hudson) who committed suicide? And what about all the rumors about Chow grooming students for sex, even before Principal Al Jones returned to Seattle?

Cheryl Chow and Blair Butterworth were both trailer park trash and didn't deserve a decent burial. Fuck'em.