Attention fans of democracy and Robert’s Rules of Order: Tonight at the Broadway Performance Hall, join your hosts Dan Savage, Josh Feit, and Erica C. Barnett for The Stranger’s Great City Council Debate.

Gracing the stage will be every single City Council candidate, challenger and incumbent, each of whom will face a grueling gauntlet of Q&A on the primary season’s hot topics, from transportation and density issues to strip laws and the smoking ban. Find out why Richard Conlin has always hated the monorail and Jan Drago has always loved dog runs. Learn which candidates’ voter’s guide claims are true and which aren’t. Discover which contenders come best equipped to stand up to the mayor. See Richard McIver, live, in person!

Truly, it will be a civics-issue smackdown of unprecedented proportions. The show commences tonight at 6:30 pm at the Broadway Performance Hall (1625 Broadway). Admission is free. See you there.

P.S. If you require confirmation from an outside source, here’s the Seattle Times blurb on the debate:

A bong and a stripper were two of the surprises Seattle City Council candidates encountered at an election debate sponsored by The Stranger in 2003. The alternative weekly newspaper presents another “Great City Council Debate” on Wednesday at Broadway Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway. The event is free and starts at 6:30 p.m.

The Onion is on fire this week. Check out some of the best damned Hurricane Katrina coverage here.

The hurricane has rejuvenated what can only be described as American Genius. Read the quote below and be re-amazed by America the beautiful:

A more visceral indictment [of FEMA] came from closer to the calamity. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish near New Orleans, said the bureaucracy “has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area.”

“Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot,” he told CBS. “Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don’t give me the same idiot.”

With major disasters like the hurricane pulling people together to help the needy, it’s a reminder how often people forget (ignore, etc) the poor in their own backyard (who can be just as deserving of shelter, compassion, funds). In the spirit of helping shed light on local events centered on helping our own down-and-out, here’s a way to help people in our own city:

FEAST AT THE MARKET FEEDS THE SOUL OF DOWNTOWN’S NEEDIEST RESIDENTS
22-year-old benefit for Pike Market Medical Clinic comes of age

Two decades of food lovers have made a difference for low-income downtown residents and seniors. Each year, about 500 supporters of the Pike Market Medical Clinic donate their taste buds and their goodwill to a cause that satisfies both the stomach and the soul. 

22nd Annual Feast at the Market. This is a progressive dinner through the Market: Each person receives a book of tickets, one ticket for each of the participating restaurants. Diners travel from restaurant to restaurant at their own pace, sampling Seattle’s finest foods throughout this prix-fixe Feast. Favorite former Feast finds have included tuna sashimi salad with green onion pancake, and white truffle risotto with vine-ripened roma tomatoes and fresh basil served with grilled tiger prawns.  New this year, Feasters vote for Best Feast Dish & Best Hospitality.

Continue reading "The Other Needy" »

The entries for my Dick Cheney disaster tour contest are getting good. Here’s one just in from Murphysboro, IL:

Sending Dick Cheney to soothe the hurt of New Orleans is like putting a former horse judge in charge of FEMA.

Remember, the contest rules are simple:

Complete this sentence: “Sending Dick Cheney to soothe the hurt of New Orleans is like….” Then email your entries to eli@thestranger.com and I’ll post the top ten tomorrow as Cheney arrives in the region.

The Bush administration is tossing the media out of New Orleans - banning photos of the dead, closing the borders of the city to TV trucks and news reporters. This is outrageous. Will CNN sue? Will the NYT sue? Will someone challenge this appalling assault on the First Amendment?

Bush doesn’t like the photos or news stories coming out of New Orleans, so he’s going to prevent the news media from doing their job. We got a taste last week of what it looks like when the MSM gets off its knees and stops felating the Bush administration. Will they drop back to their knees now? Or will they send reporters in by boat and by backroads to get the story regardless? Will they take the lying, corrupt, incompetent Bush administration to court?

Don’t just kneel there, MSM, DO SOMETHING.

The mendacious mind of Bush said: “They’re not refugees, they’re Americans.â€�
The true heart of Bush said: “They’re not refugees, they’re [African] Americans.â€�

You’re right Dave. Oprah’s show was incredible. And Oprah’s “from the Astrodome” coverage was vastly better than Couric’s, because it was far less predatory. Oprah never zoomed in and panned across the crowd from high aboveeither she narrated from the concourse, or took the camera down to the field to interview people face to face.

There’s a part two today, focused on Mississippi. (Which I will not watch while trying to eat dinner. Doing that last night was a huge mistakethe doctor on the show kept finding bodies on the street, lifting their shrouds, and declaring what an awful tragedy it was that they’d been lying on the street so long, their insides were liquifying and oozing out.)

Kerri Harrop, woman about town and superstar Slog reader, has just entered my contest honoring Dick Cheney’s upcoming trip to New Orleans. You can too!

The contest rules are simple:

Complete this sentence: “Sending Dick Cheney to soothe the hurt of New Orleans is like….” Then email your entries to eli@thestranger.com and I’ll post them tomorrow as Cheney arrives in the region.

Kerri Harrop says:

Sending Dick Cheney to soothe the hurt of New Orleans is like going to the Wildrose for a blowjob.

Katie Couric stalking strandees as the Astrodome is one thing, but yesterday’s Oprah was something else. Shot over Saturday-Monday in New Orleans, the show collected a slew of stunning moments, starting with the chief of New Orleans’ largely homeless police force breaking down in sobs while confessing to Winfrey that kids and, yes, babies had been raped in the would-be succor of the Superdome.

At the Dome itself, Oprah was met by military guardsmen under orders to keep her out. Tour guide Mayor Ray Nagin explained that Winfrey really didn’t want to see what was inside. Oprah insisted: “I want to go in, I’m a strong woman,” but still, no dice. Eventually it got ugly, with Winfrey calling bullshit on the whole scene: “Tens of thousands of Americans lived inside there for five days, and now you won’t let one person see what it was like?” After requiring Winfrey to release the city of any and all liability, Mayor Nagin escorted her in.

The shocker wasn’t what Oprah saw inside, but what you couldn’t see: The place was pitch-black. I guess I could’ve imagined this would be the case: The city lost all power, and domes don’t have windows. But realizing that all the savagery we’ve heard aboutthe rapes, shootings, rotting corpses, accumulation of human wasteall took place over four days of complete darkness…it’s so much more horrifying than I imagined.

There were plenty more horrors captured on the show, mostly from the makeshift medical operations on highway underpasses and in the Louis Armstrong International Airport, where patients too far gone for treatment were simply placed in the morgue to “die in peace.” But the darkness of the Superdome, and what was allowed to happen there, is what’ll give me nightmares.

Thanks to Oprah for an amazing, damning show, of which even the smarmiest, star-fucking-est moments were illuminating. Case in point: Matthew fucking McConaughey managed to get to the dead and dying with a camera crew before U.S. aid workers could?

There was a hilarious moment on KUOW this morning. The host, Marcie Sillman, was doing a typically cloying KUOW show about “Your Memories of the First Day of School”asking listeners to call in with memories of autumn leaves and new teachers and scary bus rides. Well, after about three calls of exactly that, she stumbled into a call from a white woman who remembered her first day of third grade when her school in Maryland had just been desegregated. You could feel Marcieand every uptight, P.C. cell in her bodytighten, as the woman proceededbreezily and unselfconsciously to tell a story (“and then there were all these black children in the school”) about getting ambushed in the bathroom by three black girls and getting punched in the nose. “I just stood there and cried and and the girls just laughed and laughed at me. And that was my first day at school.”

Marcie squirmed as the story came with no sweet tale of reconciliation. “I never made friends with her,” the woman said, and then explained that her parents were raised as racistsand told her that you just have to hide your racism.

Sillman stumbled out of the call saying all your first day of school memories don’t have to be tied to complex social issues and people could just call in with stuff like: “maybe you just remember what your new sweater was like…”

Good news from some Seattle groups already bringing in big money for various hurricane relief charities: Bumbershoot raised over $30,000. Photographer Charles Peterson raised over $17,000 in 72 hours by selling a limited edition of his Nirvana prints. And new shows keep getting announced. Jazz fans check this one from Seattle School: Jazz Benefit for New Orleans Hurricane Victims on Tuesday, September 13th at the Zig Zag Café from 8 — 11pm. There will be live jazz from the Brian Kent Trio starting at 8:30, and I’m asking people to come in their New Orleans best attire. There may be other musical guests as well. I’m still looking around. I’m asking for a suggested donation to the Red Cross at the door of $10, but also encouraging gifts of more if people can afford it. The Red Cross will send charitable receipts for any check donation (not cash unfortunately).

This just in, from a disgruntled West Seattle neighbor who’s had one too many frustrating experiences dealing with city bureaucracy:

Dear Friends,

Given the pathetic options that we have available to us for mayor of the City of Seattle, I am nominating John Richards (John in the Morning on KEXP 90.3) as a write-in candidate for the position of Mayor of Seattle in the September 20th primary. For those of you who are not familiar with John Richards, please trust me on this- or you can check him out at the KEXP website www.kexp.org . He’s sort of like a Jon Stewart of the music world. If you are not familiar with Jon Stewart, well, again, please trust me on this. If you do know John Richards, I hope you agree that it would be fun to have John as a candidate for a bit. If so, please join me in trying to get at least 2000 votes for John Richards on September 20th. I realize some of you can’t vote for City of Seattle positions, but if you can please pass the word to any friends or family that live in Seattle, that would be great.

So, in a nutshell, PLEASE WRITE IN “JOHN RICHARDSâ€� FOR CITY OF SEATTLE MAYOR, PRIMARY ELECTION, SEPTEMBER 20TH.

Thanks!!!

One of the highlights of this year’s Bumbershoot was Todd Barry, whom I saw perform on Monday. Barry is a master of meta-comedy.

Continue reading "Todd Barry: King of Meta-Comedy" »

Don’t hold your breath for that Michael Jackson-penned NOLA benefit single, David. The last time Jacko wrote a ditty for disaster relief - the 9/11 response “What More Can I Give?” - it took two years to be commercially released, despite the participation of Beyonce, Mariah Carey, and *N Sync.

I’m starting to get angry at all of the Katrina news coverage live from the Astrodome, temporary home for thousands of New Orleans residents. These people have been through enoughdoes Katie Couric need to zoom in and pan her camera over the crowd every 10 minutes? Sure, there’s little privacy on the Astrodome floor, but do we need to further exploit these people by broadcasting scenes of a person sleeping, putting on a sweatshirt, feeding their baby, or chatting with someone on the next cot?

(And, does Harry Connick Jr. need to subject everyone to a mini concert? Take it outside, Harry, where those who want to listen can come join you. Don’t force the whole crowd to listen to your crooning…)

What will Schwartzenegger do?

Because both chambers of the California legislature voted to give same-sex couples the right to marry.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The measure, which passed with no votes to spare, marks the first time that a legislative body in the United States has approved a bill that legalizes gay marriage. Schwarzenegger has not taken an official position on the legislation but has hinted that he would veto it.

The White House is dispatching the prince of gloom, Dick Cheney, to New Orleans on Thursday to help soothe the region’s hurt. (Insert punch-line here.)

This morning Maureen Dowd is first up to bat in the Cheney trip punch-line contest, with this preemptive swipe:

Later this week (no point rushing things) W. is dispatching Dick Cheney to the rancid lake that was a romantic city. The vice president has at long last lumbered back from a Wyoming vacation, and, reportedly, from shopping for a $2.9 million waterfront estate in St. Michael’s, a retreat in the Chesapeake Bay where Rummy has a weekend home, where “Wedding Crashers” was filmed and where rich lobbyists hunt.

Maybe Mr. Cheney is going down to New Orleans to hunt looters. Or to make sure that Halliburton’s lucrative contract to rebuild the city is watertight. Or maybe, since former Senator John Breaux of Louisiana described the shattered parish as “Baghdad under water,” the vice president plans to take his pal Ahmad Chalabi along for a consultation on destroying minority rights.

But why let Dowd and the surely salivating late night comics have all the fun with Cheney’s trip? This is a set-up so ripe for fun-making, even a Slog reader could do it. So…

A Slog contest:

Complete this sentence: “Sending Dick Cheney to soothe the hurt of New Orleans is like…”

Send entries to eli@thestranger.com, and I’ll post the top ten on Thursday in honor of Cheney’s arrival in the Big Easy. And my fellow Slog posters, feel free to use your competitive advantage to post your entries early.