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Archives for 10/16/2005 - 10/22/2005

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Sox Win Game, Savage Loses Argument

posted by on October 22 at 9:07 PM

The Chicago White Sox won today. I lost…

Earlier today I wrote, “Still, I’d say they’re fewer racist assholes at a game at Wrigley than at that… that… monstrosity the Sox call home. Plus the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus sang the national anthem at a Cub’s game this year—when’s that going to happen at a Sox game?”

An alert reader responds…

The Windy City Gay Chorus played at a White Sox/Indians game on Sept. 6th of 2003—two years before the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus played at Wrigley. I know because I was there, but proof is here.

Doh! From the Windy City Gay Chorus website:

…in keeping with its tradition of firsts, WCGC along with its sister chorus Unison: Windy City Lesbian & Gay Singers, made history by becoming the first gay and lesbian organization to perform at an Illinois professional sporting event by singing the national anthem at the Chicago White Sox vs. Cleveland Indians ballgame at U.S. Cellular Field on Saturday, September 6th.

Kos on Sox

posted by on October 22 at 1:27 PM

So Kos is a Cubs fan too, and he’s rooting for the Sox.

My brother Billy is a die-hard Cubs fan—actually, he’s a Cubs’ fanatic. Billy has the Cubs’ logo tattooed on his arm, as does my Uncle Jimmy. I’m dying to know who my brother is rooting for. I sent him an email; if he writes in, I’ll post his thoughts. I imagine he’s in despair for one of the reasons Kos contemplated rooting against the Sox:

All the shit my White Sox fan friends will talk for the next 50 years if the Sox win as as the Cubs continue their inevitable failures…

More on White Sox

posted by on October 22 at 1:09 PM

Okay, okay: I know not many people from Seattle really give a shit about the White Sox or the Cubs, but there are lots of former Chicagoans in this town, and we have lots of web readers in Chicago, so these Sox items aren’t entirely useless. A Chicago team getting to the World Series is a very big deal—so big a deal, in fact, that I can’t help but comment.

So I just got this note from a reader about my previous post:

Hi Dan, Well, I’m very happy that you’re cheering to the ChiSox, albeit for odd reasons. I need to have my friend Leonard tell you about the time he was hanging out at the Chicago diner and heard all these Cubs fans fawning all over Ronnie Woo-Woo while he was in there, then calling him a nigger after he left. You are right: there’s plenty of racist bullshit on the South Side. But have you been to a Cubs game lately? My friend Meghan (who is African American) says, “As much as South Side white people scare me, drunken frat Cubs fan frat boys scare me more.)

But passions are running high this weekend. If you want to see my pov, check it out here.

Enjoy your weekend! I was hoping to see maybe they’d stuck in a “Sox” above the “pride” signs on Halsted, but not yet….

Take care,

Claire Zulkey

Hey, those drunken frat boys at Wrigley scare me too—especially when the pour out of the ballpark after nights game and wander up Halstead, gay Chicago’s main drag. But you’re right, Claire, and your point is well taken: some Cubs fans are racist asswipes too. Still, I’d say they’re fewer racist assholes at a game at Wrigley than at that… that… monstrosity the Sox call home. Plus the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus sang the national anthem at a Cub’s game this year—when’s that going to happen at a Sox game?

While I’m interested enough in the game to post about it, and while I’m rooting for the Sox, I’m not actually watching the game—I mean, please. There’s a limit. But I’m in a bar at my hotel in DC and I just overheard a couple of Texans complain about the game. Apparently the Sox are winning…

P.S. Ronny Woo-Woo is a famous Cubs fan. He attends games and goes… “Woo-woo.”

Aw, Shit. Go… White Sox.

posted by on October 22 at 8:15 AM

So, being from the North Side of Chicago and, perforce, a Chicago Cubs fan, I was distraught when the hated White Sox, the South Side team, made it to the World Series. I rooted for the St. Louis Cardinals in the playoffs, and I was prepared to root for the Houston Astros in the World Series. But then I picked up today’s New York Times and learned that the White Sox Manager is Latino and the General Manager is an African-American.

Aw, shit. Now I have to root for the White Sox—not because I like the team or like their South Side fans. The South Side of Chicago is—how do I put this nicely?—full of racist motherfuckers, and the White Sox has always been the home team of Chicago’s racist motherfuckers. Cubs fan worshipped players like Ernie Banks, the Sox had fans like these white trash assholes. So it will be a good karmic punishment/reversal if all the Sox fans in Chicago have to thank a black man—the only African-American general manager in Major League Baseball—and an Hispanic man—one of two Latino managers in Major League Baseball—for leading the Sox to their first World Series championship in decades.

Go… sigh… Sox.

RIP Shirley Horn

posted by on October 22 at 6:26 AM

What an odd and unfortunate coincidence that yesterday, within hours of arriving in the DC area for my 20th high school reunion, I discovered that Shirley Horn, one of the last great jazz singers, and a longtime DC music treasure, had passed away.


Friday, October 21, 2005

This Week in Speculation

posted by on October 21 at 5:45 PM

Well, here I am, at quarter to six on a Friday, indictmentless. Which forces me to write….

THIS WEEK IN SPECULATION

The week began with The New York Times’ huge two-story account of its strange involvement in the CIA leak case—an account that only raised more questions, given that one of the stories, by a team of respected Times reporters, directly contradicted portions of the other Times story, which was by Judith Miller, a not so respected Times reporter who spent 85 days in jail for reasons that are still murky.

(The whole fiasco came a bit full circle this afternoon, whith the leaking of a memo by Time Executive Editor Bill Keller, in which he accuses Miller of misleading The Times and says he wishes he had been less credulous in dealing with her. Which is about as close as the genteel Times gets to saying: Fuck you.)

After the Times stories were chewed over, the week saw more and more and more stories pointing toward Dick Cheney’s office as the source of the leak, and lots of speculation about what the Veep might be forced to do.

Until next week…

If you are finding yourself in need of a good primer on the complicated cast of characters now involved in this mess, click here.

If you want a juicy new development from late today, click here.

And if you want some light reading, click here. (And get comfy with this site—by next week it’s likely to have indictments posted on it.)

White Incompetency

posted by on October 21 at 5:28 PM

Those against race quotas and affirmative action have long argued that such policies lead to unqualified blacks attaining important positions. For them, it’s always dumb blacks replacing smart whites, black incompetency replacing white competency. How rarely (or never) do they mention the history of white incompetency, the most recent and visible case of which has been Michael Brown, who ran a horse agency and FEMA into the ground.

From a recent news report:

On Aug. 31, Bahamonde [the first agency official to arrive in New Orleans before the Aug. 29] e-mailed Brown to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that “estimates are many will die within hours.”

“Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical,” Bahamonde wrote. “The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out.”

A short time later, Brown’s press secretary, Sharon Worthy, wrote to colleagues, in an e-mail containing numerous misspellings, to complain that the FEMA director needed more time to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge restaurant that evening. “He needs much more that 20 or 30 minutes,” Worthy wrote.

“Restaurants are getting busy,” she said. “We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise, followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.”

“OH MY GOD!!!!!!!” Bahamonde messaged a co-worker. “I just ate an MRE [military rations] and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants.”

If Brown had been a black man, we would have never heard the end of it from the critics of affirmative action.

Re: Children of Crackers

posted by on October 21 at 4:27 PM

Eli, your’s is a happy ending:

I predict that in ten years, if anyone is following the plight of these girls anymore, they will be popping out mixed-race babies and writing tell-all memoirs about “My Life As a Racist’s Daughter.”

In the end, these girls are mostly likely going to do something criminal, which is what their upbringing is all about—the men they are forced to admire were criminals, and to realize the kind of pure world their parents desire would require criminal (genocidal) force. I see a very sad ending for the twins. And the blame for this sad ending must fall on the state and not the twins.

Re: Children of the Crackers, & Re: Gross Negligence

posted by on October 21 at 4:19 PM

Charles, I find myself saying the same thing whenever I read about gay kids being raised by Christian fundamentalist parents who want to send them to conversion therapy and so on. This really is one of the saddest things about the world—that children, for no reason except the bad luck of their birth circumstances, get stuck in families that destroy them.

This story is hardly funny. Those girls are being abused by their Nazi parents, and it’s grossly negligent of the state not to protect them from such evident evil and danger.

Of course, the state won’t step in to help these girls, just like it won’t step in to help gay boys and girls who are being abused by their retrograde parents. For all kinds of reasons that sound good in theory, it’s all parents’ right to fuck up their kids in despicable ways. The only solace is that it’s these kids’ right (and perhaps duty) to then grow up and do something that totally shames their parents. I predict that in ten years, if anyone is following the plight of these girls anymore, they will be popping out mixed-race babies and writing tell-all memoirs about “My Life As a Racist’s Daughter.”

Re: Children of Crackers

posted by on October 21 at 3:22 PM

This story is hardly funny. Those girls are being abused by their Nazi parents, and it’s grossly negligent of the state not to protect them from such evident evil and danger.

possibly the saddest I, Anonymous ever

posted by on October 21 at 2:59 PM


Assholes
.

Re: Children of Crackers

posted by on October 21 at 2:22 PM

[Mother] April had decided that Bakersfield was not “white” enough, so she sold her home, and hopes that she and the girls can find an all-white community in the Pacific Northwest.

Let’s hope “Pacific Northwest” means Idaho to April and the fam.

Re: Children of the Crackers

posted by on October 21 at 1:44 PM

Oh. My. God. Definately check out the link Brad just put up to a story at ABC News about Prussian Blue. They’re two adorable blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls who perform “songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds.” The girls’ parents raised them to be wee racist motherfuckers.

Lynx and Lamb have been nurtured on racist beliefs since birth by their mother April. “They need to have the background to understand why certain things are happening,” said April, a stay-at-home mom who no longer lives with the twins’ father. “I’m going to give them, give them my opinion just like any, any parent would.”

April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events. In addition, April’s father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs — specifically the Nazi swastika….

Songs like “Sacrifice” — a tribute to Nazi Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy Fuhrer — clearly show the effect of the girls’ upbringing. The lyrics praise Hess as a “man of peace who wouldn’t give up.”

Sometimes homeschooling is child abuse. But, hey, at least these girls have a mother and a father. They also have a soft spot for Rudolf Hess, sure, but better that than gay parents, right? Perhaps all the rappers could call off their idiotic (and occassionally fatal) fueds and turn their attentions toward these lovelies for a while?

DC Blues…

posted by on October 21 at 1:39 PM

I’m in DC for a reading, and I gotta go buy a clean shirt before I head over to the bookstore. But two things came to mind on the way to my hotel room that I wanted to Slog…

My cab took me past the White House on the way to my hotel, and driving by I couldn’t help but speculate about the clenched butts inside the building. The tension created by drip, drip, drip of Fitzgerald’s investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valarie Plame is almost unbearable for observers—can you imagine what it feels like to be the target? Well, I can. I was indicted once too, Karl, and while the charge wasn’t treason during wartime or obstruction of justice or perjury, being on the receiving end of a felony indictment is like getting an ice-water enema. It’s a shock to the ol’ system. The skies here are gray and the whole city feels like either something dreadful or, depending on your party affiliation, something absolutely wonderful is about to happen.

Also, you can smoke in Washington National Airport? WTF? The place looks a lot like JFK—ugly, gray brutalist—and when I got off my plane I walked into a wall of smoke. Smokers can apparently light up in the bars that line the narrow hallways that lead to baggage claim. Ugh. Then I got to my hotel—a Sofitel, a lux chain owned by the French. My room wasn’t ready, so I had to wait in the bar area… which was filled with smoke. You know how the French are. And it wasn’t just cigarettes. People were smoking cigars. The whole lobby was filled with smoke.

This, of course, put me in mind of the proposed smoking ban and the debate in the forums about our “no” endorsement on the proposed smoking ban.

Re: Dino Rossi = Homophobe?

posted by on October 21 at 1:39 PM

Regarding Amy’s post Dino Rossi=Homophobe?, we can officially get rid of the question mark, and add six exclamation points.

A quick spin around the website of Families Northwest, the anti-gay marriage group whose big fall fundraiser Rossi and his wife are co-chairing, reveals heaps of the smiley-faced bigotry that’s long characterized the most insidious of the anti-gay avengers.

Most galling of all: The bullshit “It’s for the children!” vibe that permeates every aspect of Families Northwest’s mission. “Preserving the definition of marriage is not about denying anyone dignity and equality,” reads the website. “It’s about promoting the best environment for raising children.”

Once again, same-sex couples are cast as the mortal enemy of “the children,” who should undoubtedly remain in the hands of such heterosexual caregivers as Lashuan Harris, the San Francisco mom charged with three counts of murder after eyewitnesses reported watching her drop her three children to their deaths in San Francisco Bay on Wednesday.

Harris has pleaded innocent, only one of her kids’ bodies has been recovered, but with marriage safely restricted to one man and one woman, “the children” remain safe for another day…

Children of the Crackers

posted by on October 21 at 1:27 PM

Wow.

Today in Speculation

posted by on October 21 at 10:25 AM

Today continues the drumbeat of CIA leak case stories pointing toward big trouble for Rove, Libby, and probably others in the Bush administration. Also, today brings the best leak/knife-in-Cheney’s-back that we’ve seen so far: a look into the Blackberry messages of Liz Cheney. If those are coming out, the wheels are coming off, and the suspects in this investigation are turning on each other something fierce. With only seven days left before the grand jury expires, here is…

TODAY IN SPECULATION

* The LA Times, in the mustest must-read of the day (sorry Dan), has documents, quotes, and even blackberry messages showing how obsessed Libby was with countering Joseph Wilson. Keep in mind, while reading this, that Libby is known as “Cheney’s Cheney.”

The Note, that all-knowing insider newsletter, suggests what both the commoners and the cognoscenti might want to glean from the LA Times story:

Casual reader take-away: Scooter Libby was obsessed with Joe Wilson, suggesting possible motive.

Inside reader take-away: Does the White House (that is, Lynne Cheney) know who leaked all of this “private” data, including (oh… my… goodness) Liz Cheney’s Blackberry messages.

* The New York Times has what may be the biggest procedural news, reporting that “Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy.” Does that mean they have been sent the target letters that everyone has been waiting for? The Times doesn’t say, but it sure sounds like it.

The Note says:

Casual reader take-away: The cover-up is (still) always worse than the crime.

Inside reader take-away: The entire Old Media now consider at least some indictments a mortal lock, with all the body language leaning towards some of the more nuclear scenarios.

* The Washington Post finds people in the White House freaking out as Fitzgerald’s footsteps get closer.

The Note:

Casual reader take-away: The White House is in fact braced for indictments and possibly losing the services of Karl C. Rove, but is also planning to fight back if that seems fitting and proper.

Inside reader take-away: History might record that 9/11 job lock produced the burnout that set the Bush presidency down its current path.

* Meanwhile, in what seems a very ominous sign, Fitzgerald has launched his own web site. Already, some popular special counsel documents are up there. Perhaps indictments next?

* And for those of you keeping score at home (or playing Wonkette’s Indictment Bingo), here is a list of all the people who have testified before Fitzgerald’s grand jury so far, including my favorite witness, “Stranger who stopped Novak in the street.”

Tune in later today when I round up THIS WEEK IN SPECULATION.

This Morning’s Must-Read Story

posted by on October 21 at 5:45 AM

It’s in the Washington Post—the folks at the White House are freaking about the Plamegate investigation and the prospect of Karl “Turd Blossum” Rove being indicted. Read it and weep—with joy.


Thursday, October 20, 2005

Why is the Target red?

posted by on October 20 at 8:02 PM

I’m addicted to Americablog today…

So it’s no coincidence that the folks at Target are happily denying women access to birth control and EC. “Target’s CEO is a Massive Republican,” Americablog has discovered. Target CEO Robert Ulrich has never met a Republican that he hasn’t handed a check. He’s given 71K to dozens of high-profile Rs, and just 4K to two Ds you’ve never heard of. Shop elsewhere.

No on 901

posted by on October 20 at 5:55 PM

A reader on our Forums accuses us of being in the pocket of big tobacco. Their evidence? We didn’t endorse 901, the smoking ban. Couple that with our cigarette ads and, well, there you have it.

Are you fucking kidding me? Have you ever read our paper? Here’s just a sampling of what we’ve published about the smoking ban:

It works in NYC and California!

It still works in NYC!

Pass one here!

Pros and Cons

The reason we came out against 901, which we explain in the No endorsement, is this: The initiative bans smoking within 25’ of clubs—on the sidewalk outside. In Seattle (a city that’s scared of strip clubs), that’s a formula for cop abuse. It’s also untenable. We don’t endorse flawed initiatives just because they’re well intentioned.

Dino Rossi = Homophobe?

posted by on October 20 at 5:21 PM

Dino Rossi was pretty slick about not revealing his conservative stances on social issues when he ran for governor last year, painting himself instead as a compassionate conservative.

Now that he’s no longer a candidate, it seems Rossi’s not afraid to let his true colors shine: Rossi and his wife are co-chairs of a November 5 “Fall Dinner and Auction” for Families Northwest, the right-wing group dedicated to keeping civil marriage away from the gays (or, as FN calls it, “Preserving Marriage for Kids’ Sake,” italics theirs.)

From the Families Northwest website:

A movement for strong, healthy families can only advance if marriage is honored and preserved as the union between one man and one woman. Current efforts to permanently alter marriage require that each of us act now.

(p.s. - the event’s keynote speaker is former NFL’er Jack Kemp, whose son Jeff heads up Families Northwest. Seahawks’ quarterback Matt Hasselbeck and his wife are the dinner’s other co-chairs. And you all know about Ken Hutcherson. What’s up with football players being SO devoted to opposing marriage equality?)

Shannon Stewart is leaving Vera.

posted by on October 20 at 4:34 PM

It’s true. Sadly, Shannon Stewart, co-founder of the Vera Project, has just announced that she is leaving. She’s going to stay into the new year while Vera searches for her replacement (so there’s plenty of time for good-byes), and if you think you have what it takes to follow up Shannon’s amazing work, then check out the job posting below.

Continue reading "Shannon Stewart is leaving Vera." »

Wilkerson Video/Audio

posted by on October 20 at 4:25 PM

Referenced in Eli’s post below, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson’s speech and discussion with the New America Foundation is really incredible.

wilkerson

Available in several video and audio formats here.

It’s long, and by most traditional standards boring as hell, but if you’re into this sort of thing—and you should be—it’s amazing. (The really good stuff starts around the 20 minute mark if you want to skip ahead.)

In Other Celebrity News…

posted by on October 20 at 1:24 PM

American Idol champion and self-appointed spokesmodel for functional illiteracy Fantasia Barrino has incurred the wrath of her hometown, High Point, NC, which Fantasia has repeatedly characterized as a small town, where she grew up in the ghetto, in a house without air conditioning.

Well, according to the outraged citizens of High Point, the town is not small, doesn’t have a ghetto, plus Fantasia’s house totally had air conditioning. For details and photos—including indisputable photographs of the central air conditioning unit installed outside Fantasia’s childhood home in the 1980s—check out FantasiasLies.com.

And—whaddya know—when he’s not dodging criminal charges or sponging the blood off his dick, Michael Jackson apparently finds time to vote, or at least register…

Dale Chihuly Has A Posse—That Hates His Guts!

posted by on October 20 at 1:23 PM

This morning I received a tantalizing email hinting at all sorts of iffy doings allegedly overseen by mono-ocular glass-art giant Dale Chihuly. Entitled “Chihuly Fraud Investigation,” the introductory email—which is of vastly dubious veracity—read thusly:

The Seattle Times, the Post Intelligencer and KOMO TV have each launched investigations into allegations we have brought regarding consumer fraud committed by Chihuly Studio Inc. and their subsidiary Portland Press, Inc. Although these news agencies have each acknowledged that the information is very powerful and will certainly lead to civil and possibly criminal complaints they are highly reluctant to publish this story due to Chihulys powerful connections. However it is likely they will be compelled to do so as events develop. Attorney Thomas Osinski of Tacoma Wa. is presently developing civil complaints that could very possibly lead to criminal complaints as well. You can review the entire story along with other details of the nefarious deeds of “America’s First National Living Treasure” at chihulyscrewedme.com.

I checked out the website, hoping to glean some quintessential tidbit to characterize the grievances against Chihuly, but the website is clearly the work of an obsessive freak. As such, there are no clear, easy answers, just a ton of freakishly intricate allegations. If this sounds fun to you, happy hunting.

He’s Moss Baaaack…

posted by on October 20 at 12:23 PM

Seattlest rips into Skip “I Hate Cities” Berger for his column about his decision to move back to Seattle. Having Berger back in Seattle decreases our collective IQ, but it also allows Berger to start using “we” and “us” in his pieces about the city again. Berger, then a resident of Kirkland, stopped lying about where he lived after Erica C. Barnett busted him for that “we” and “us” crap a few months ago in The Stranger:

“The city we loved is being choked by gigantism,” Berger recently lamented. “The small, livable, sustainable city we once purported to love is dead.”

“We”? That’s the first of Berger’s misleading statements. Though his columns imply Berger is a Seattle resident, the editor of Seattle Weekly actually lives in Kirkland-an affluent bedroom community 12 miles across Lake Washington from his downtown Seattle ofce. It should come as no surprise that Berger, AKA Mossback, is against density and mass transit: He lives in an enclave of single-family, two-car homes where the median income is $15,000 higher than Seattle’s.

It’s bad enough that Berger laments the death of “our city” while living (and voting) in the suburbs. Worse, his vision for the future of Seattle is dead wrong.

Did Erica’s piece shame Berger back to Seattle? (He dropped the “we” and “us” crap after it came out.) Or perhaps the anti-mass transit, anti-density, car-hugging “environmentalist” couldn’t resist the chance to vote against the monorail in November?

Redmond prodigy’s website is creepy

posted by on October 20 at 12:11 PM

I’m currently being hounded by a publicist for this 7-year-old in Redmond who’s a writing machine. She’s written hundreds of thousands of words of historical fiction, fantasy, contemporary fiction, poems, and essays. She reads two to three books per day. She wants pen pals. She will give you advice on your writing or help you with a research paper. She has a book coming out. She’s been on TV. And now she has this website (note the creepy audio on that main page) full of creepy staged photos of her lying on a bed, pretending to read, and making eggs.

Is it all orchestrated by her parents? This page creepily insists that “Working with her parents, especially her mom, is one of the most comforting and reassuring experience for Adora.” (In the sentence that follows, there’s evidence this website just went up: a grammatical note from someone behind the website — that you, Mom? — that hasn’t been edited out yet.)

Today in Speculation

posted by on October 20 at 12:05 PM

Today doesn’t bring any more predictions of indictments by any certain date in the CIA leak case. Instead, with only eight days left before the grand jury expires, much of the focus is on explaining why Cheney’s office would have been the natural place for this leak to have emanated from…

TODAY IN SPECULATION

The LA Times tells us that the CIA and Cheney have been “long at odds,” and that Cheney’s office was seriously pissed at the CIA around the time of the leak.

The Financial Times tells us, in a pretty amazingly tough story, that the “Cheney Cabal Hijacked US Foreign Policy.”

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

“Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.”

The Washington Post tells us that someone close to Rove told them that Rove told the grand jury that Libby told him… Well, just click here.

And Bush says it’s all just “background noise” to him.

Endorsement Error

posted by on October 20 at 11:42 AM

We messed up the Nov 8 Election Endorsement Cheat Sheet in today’s paper. For Port of Seattle Commissioner Pos. 1 we actually endorse Lawrence Molloy (not John Creighton as the Cheat Sheet indicates). We also misspelled November. Doh! The corrected, printable version is online now.

Off Target

posted by on October 20 at 11:20 AM

Those Target stores—you gotta love `em. They’re so cool, with their funky ads filled with dancing hipsters, their Todd Oldham housewares, their Michael Graves toasters and toilet brushes.

Well, maybe not.

Target allows its pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception. Those tireless defenders of the American way at Americablog are on the case, and this is definitely a troubling development that deserves your attention. When a woman couldn’t get her prescription for EC filled at a Target, Planned Parenthood raised a stink. Target’s response?

From: Target.Response Target.Response@target.com Date: Oct 20, 2005 7:18 AM Subject: Filling Prescriptions at Target

Dear Target Guest,

Target places a high priority on our role as a community pharmacy and our obligation to meet the needs of the patients we serve. We expect all our team members, including our pharmacists, to provide respectful service to our guests, particularly when it comes to their health care needs.

Like many other retailers, Target has a policy that ensures a guest’s prescription for emergency contraception is filled, whether at Target or at a different pharmacy, in a timely and respectful manner. This policy meets the health care needs of our guests while respecting the diversity of our team members.

Your thoughts help us learn more about what our guests expect, so I’ll be sure to share your feedback with our pharmacy executives.

Thanks for taking the time to share your questions, thoughts and comments. I hope we’ll see you again soon at Target.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Hanson
Target Executive Offices

So Target’s position is basically this: If one of our phundie pharmacists doesn’t want to fill a woman’s EC prescription, we’ll send her running all over town, looking for a pharmacist who will—or might. And what if the next store a woman goes to has a pharmacist who’s a phundie too? “Well that’s just tough shit, lady,” say the hipsters at Target. “Maybe you shouldn’t have had sex, you sinner.” Oh, and what about the inevitable Target phundie pharmacist who doesn’t want send a woman who needs EC to a local pharmacist who will fill her prescriptions? What then, Target?

Americablog says…

You have to love Target. They’re willing to hire people who don’t want to do the very job they’re applying for. And their own employee’s bigotry and bias matters more to them than the emergency health needs of their own customers.

Americablog recommends…

Call Target’s press office (hey, we’re new media, and this will get their attention FAR more than calling their stupid customer services number).

Message:
Why is Target supporting radical right bigotry against its own customers? How dare they tell us they won’t fill our prescriptions because their pharmacists thinks we’re sinner? Would they turn away Jews if their pharmacist were a conservative Catholic or Baptist? Would they turn away gays if their pharmacist thinks they’re abominations? Would they turn away people with AIDS because, you know, they’re hardly “innocent”? Demand answers.

Susan Kahn, 1-612-761-6735
Cathy Wright, 1-612-761-6627 or 1-847-615-1538
Paula Thornton-Greear, 612-696-3400
Carolyn Brookter, 1-612-696-6557

Dan says: Call and tell Target where they can stick those fucking Michael Graves toasters. A boycott may be in order. At the very least we should picket a Target or two in the Seattle area. Seattle is solidly pro-choice, and there are plenty of other soul-crushing, big-box stores where we can buy cheaply made crap.

Mayor Gridlock

posted by on October 20 at 11:12 AM

Kids love the monorail, the mayor hates it.

HorsesAss Reports that David Irons Attacked His Mom in Early 90s

posted by on October 20 at 10:47 AM

HorsesAss has a potentially explosive story about Republican King County Council Member David Irons allegedly hitting his mom during a rage in the early ’90s. I haven’t done any reporting on this myself, so I don’t know how seriously to take this report. Irons isn’t quoted in the HorsesAss post. HorsesAss, AKA David Goldstein, did call the Irons campaign, and they wouldn’t respond.

Guilty Me

posted by on October 20 at 10:24 AM

This account and criticism of a recent event I moderated at Intiman Theater is accurate and fair. But the reason why I left the event in a hurry (after I ended it abruptly) is because I wanted a drink. I was no mood for coffee and cookies. It was 9 pm—way, way past the hour I usually start drinking wine.

Suggested Reading

posted by on October 20 at 8:54 AM

Americablog is on fire today, and there’s tons of great stuff at AndrewSullivan.com. Also, check out this item on Radar’s website—apparently the Republicans are writing off a certain senator from PA. While Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum was once seen as a potential presidential candidate, now it looks like Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum won’t even be able to hold on to his senate seat. Hm. I guess I won’t have Rick to kick around for much longer.

Every Child Needs A Mother

posted by on October 20 at 8:35 AM

“Every child needs a mother…”

That’s what a religious conservative screamed at me once on the radio when I was discussing gay male couples who adopt children—couples like me and the boyfriend. It didn’t matter to the caller that many same-sex couples adopt children that have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by their biological mothers and fathers. (We also adopt children from women who haven’t abused, neglected or abandoned their children; they know they can’t parent and do the deeply loving thing and place their child for adoption at birth.) Every child needs a mother, he kept repeating. It’s a line you hear frequently from opponents of same-sex couples adopting kids. And the line—”every child needs a mother”—pops into my head every time I see a headline like this: “Mother Accused of Throwing Kids Into Bay.”

Weapon of Choice

posted by on October 20 at 7:43 AM

The last time I heard a story about a woman getting her drink drugged was a couple years back-but it was straight from someone who was the victim of such a lame (and dangerous) maneuver, so it couldn’t hurt to pass along this anonymous email I got this week.

Jennifer,
Hey, I’m a woman who goes out to a lot of rock shows here in town, and lately I have heard a few stories about women being slipped date-rape drugs at shows. It’s something that seems to go around from time to time… Could you possibly mention something in your column about this? Maybe a warning not to take a drink from a stranger, unless you’ve seen it come directly from the bartender’s hands? I’ve seen women get really dangerously sick from date rape drugs in the past, and I hate to think that they’re on the scene again. Thanks, and you be careful, yourself. —A Friend—


Wednesday, October 19, 2005

It’s Hardball in the Seattle School Board Races

posted by on October 19 at 4:30 PM

A mysterious (to me anyway) independent expenditure group, Strong Seattle Schools, has formed and dumped a stunning $45,000 total into the three Seattle school board races: $15K to Jane Fellner (running against Stranger-endorsed Mary Bass), $15K to Linda Thompson-Black (running against Stranger-endorsed Cheryl Chow), and $15K to Stranger-endorsed Michael DeBell.

In a down-ticket race like the school board, this kind of cash flow could spell touble for Bass and Chow.

Seattle’s Smaller Weekly Watch

posted by on October 19 at 3:42 PM

For the week of October 20-26, 2005:

The Stranger: 116.
Seattle Weekly: 96.

The last time Seattle Weekly put out a 96 page paper on this week of October? Way, way back in 1996. The Stranger at this time in 1996 put out a 64 page paper.

More Than Fiction

posted by on October 19 at 1:33 PM

If you haven’t done so already, you must read the story about the assaulted Seahawk in today’s Seattle Times. The discovery of the dummy in the convicted killer’s bed (not long before the convicted killer’s corpse was discovered by a jogger in Seward Park—his death being connected with his assault of the Seahawk in the final hours of his life), represents one of the those fantastic moments when reality surpasses the stuff of fiction. (Quick note: the dead man found in Seward Park was convicted in 1994 “for shooting another man five times following a dispute over a craps game in Seattle’s Pratt Park.”)

Ollie, Can You Hear Me?

posted by on October 19 at 1:02 PM

An excerpt from an upcoming interview with Hany Abu-Assad, director of the verging-on-great suicide bomber drama Paradise Now:

“Movies shouldn’t have messages … they should raise questions, not tell you to think that or think this. Hopefully [my movie] is allowing you to have a dialogue with yourself, to make you want to know more, not to answer questions. I will leave messages for the postman.”

Anybody know of a way to pipe this into Oliver Stone’s ears while he sleeps? Assuming he ever actually does?

Another List: Best Magazine Covers

posted by on October 19 at 12:45 PM

Given that mags are supposed to capture the zeitgeist, this new list of the 40 best magazine covers of the last 40 years is mostly off. John Lennon in 1981 is number 1? John Lennon had nothing to do with 1981. Yeah, he was murdered in Dec. 1980, but he had very little to do with the times. It’s sorta like the infamous Life mag cover from ‘66 that had Louis Armstrong on the cover…which was some bizarre double reverse unwitting racist thing…ie, Life’s attempt to be “black” in the black-power 60s. (Thankfully, that one didn’t make the list.)
Anyway: I can’t believe the “Is God Dead?” cover from ‘66 is only #12. And where are all the ‘79 hostage crisis covers? And what about Dr. J ?

Today in Speculation

posted by on October 19 at 11:34 AM

Well, yesterday’s murmurings of indictments being handed down this morning in the CIA leak case proved to be wrong. And I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to reach the limit of my obsession with the pre-indictment phase of this drama. If this were a book I would throw it across the room at this point, because the build-up to the climactic moment has just gone on way too fucking long. The grand jury’s term expires Oct. 28 — will that mean nine more days of this teasing escalation of leaks, theories, and too-good-to-be-true predictions?

In honor of this unbearable state of affairs, I’m starting a new Slog feature called… Today in Speculation.

TODAY IN SPECULATION:

The New York Times hints that indictments are probably coming, but not this week.

The New York Daily News has liberal bloggers in a froth with this exclusive story.

And Raw Story (which I love because it often posts unfinished stories that is says are “DEVELOPING HARD”) today says another person in Cheney’s office has flipped *.

* If you don’t know what we mean by flipped in this context, you are officially not obsessed.

Tune in Friday when, if we don’t have indictments by then, I will, with a heavy heart, wrap up THIS WEEK IN SPECULATION.

Wilma Grows to Category 5 Kill-Storm

posted by on October 19 at 9:41 AM

And the hits keep comin’: This morning, hot new Hurricane Wilma grew into the most intense Atlantic storm in recorded history, described by the Associated Press as “a Category 5 monster packing 175 mph wind that forecasters warned was ‘extremely dangerous.’”

At present, Wilma’s wailing around the Cayman Islands and parts of Cuba, and is expected to pose a “significant threat” to Florida by the weekend.

Read the full report here and prepare to hear about nothing else for days.

Now that global warming has decided it’s time to kick humanity’s ass, let me take this opportunity to apologize for the cumulative hours I spent as an adolescent, blasting out new-wave hairdos with a can of ozone-depleting Aqua Net. It wasn’t worth it.

NW Women of Country Music

posted by on October 19 at 9:15 AM

One of the most vexing things about natural disasters - aside from the obvious problems, like death and wanton destruction - is their complete disrespect for deadlines and schedules. Thus, news of this fine benefit for victims of Hurricane Katrina reached my in box too late for inclusion in Border Radio, but merits some publicity nevertheless:

THIS SATURDAY, October 22nd
Experience Music Project features
NW Women of Country Music: a concert benefiting the victims of Hurricane Katrina

With performances by: Christy McWilson (The Pickets), Shiloh Lindsey, Ruby Dee and the Snake Handlers, Jennifer Lynn, Heartbreak USA

The show takes place in a new venue on the 3rd floor of the SFM (hmmm… how very Westworld). Doors at 8:00 PM. Tickets are $13.50 in advance, $17.00 DOS.


Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Bill O’Reilly on The Daily Show

posted by on October 18 at 11:08 PM

O’Reilly: We’re not playing it for giggles like you—‘Let’s make fun of the hurricane!’
Stewart: I will say this: We do add insult to injury. But, you add injury.

Stewart trounced him and it was over too quickly. O’Reilly was on pimping his book, The O’Reilly Factor for Kids. Yes, for kids.

Ride of a lifetime

posted by on October 18 at 8:33 PM

Did anybody see this crazy crash yesterday? An 88-year-old man in a station wagon flew off the roof of the Harvard Market and landed a story below on Broadway with only minor injuries. And no pedestirans were squashed in the process. Nuts! The facts don’t quite add up, either. Someone’s foot must have been on the gas pedal.

Norwegian Drum ‘n’ Bass God Slays Seattle

posted by on October 18 at 4:40 PM

This show somehow eluded me before I could hype it in the print version of The Stranger, but I highly recommend checking out DJ Teebee (Torgeir Byrknes) at the War Room Tuesday night. He is the last drum & bass producer who’s really impressed me, and his DJing skills have earned respect from the scene’s foremost tastemakers. Seek his Black Science album, too.

I Believe The Children Are The Future

posted by on October 18 at 3:57 PM

That’s why tomorrow night at the High Dive in Fremont, I’m hosting a benefit for CASA, AKA Court Appointed Special Advocates, a visionary organization devoted to helping abused and neglected children navigate the social service system. I first wrote about the group (which was founded in Seattle, and has since gone nationwide) in a Last Days item from 2004:

FRIDAY, APRIL 8: The week continues with a well-timed tip from Hot Tipper Lara: “If you are going to print all those horrible stories of abuse in Last Days, maybe just this once you should print something about people who do something about it.” Specifically, Lara suggested, the folks at Washington State CASA (that’s Court Appointed Special Advocates for children), where Hot Tipper Lara happens to work as promotion and publication coordinator. “April, after all, is National Child Abuse Prevention Month,” wrote Lara, but Last Days doesn’t need a federally appointed month to bestow praise upon motivated do-gooders, which the workers at CASA most definitely are. A quick tour of the group’s website (washingtonstatecasa.org) revealed enough instances of mundane work leading to miraculous results to earn Last Days’ admiration for keeps. From helping desperate individuals navigate the legal system to facilitating the most beneficial matches of available resources to victims’ needs, the volunteers at CASA are devoted to the notion that every kid deserves a home free of clobbering, neglect, and inappropriate groping, and are just the sort of pragmatic idealists the future depends on.

As for this week’s benefit, it’s to raise money for the national CASA’s Hurricane Relief Fund, which is helping local CASA programs serve abused and neglected children in areas clobbered by Hurricane Katrina. Among the night’s offerings are live performances by the Lawnmowers, the X-Ray Eyes, and Alicia Dara, along with various raffles and prizes and the low-impact hosting skills of yours truly.

It all goes down tomorrow night, October 19, at 8:30 pm at the High Dive, 513 N. 36th St. in Fremont. Hope to see you there.

Crypto Radio Signals from the Incredibly Strange Half-World of the Dead

posted by on October 18 at 3:45 PM

Here’s Time Magazine’s list of the greatest English-language novels published since 1923. (1923 is when Time started appearing on news stands.)

Three cheers!!! Philip K. Dick’s Ubik is on the list.

salty sea licks

posted by on October 18 at 2:33 PM


Tom Reese’s photo
of the ocean’s edge (Elliott Bay) on the cover of today’s Seattle Times is stunning. The caption reveals the secret to how it was shot: “through a camera held inside a partially submerged aquarium.” Brilliant.

Antioch Bible Church in financial trouble?

posted by on October 18 at 1:56 PM

No wonder Antioch Bible Church rents space at Lake Washington High School, instead of building their own damn church. The church’s homophobe pastor, Ken Hutcherson, explains that they’re in financial trouble (and demands that church members break out their wallets) in an email to the congregation today:

We have recently been faced with some financial challenges. As a result, there has been concern expressed regarding money spent on events that we have led, such as Mayday for Marriage in Seattle, in D.C., and in Olympia. All of these events are scattering aspects of the ministry, and as such are an integral part of Antioch’s core mission. However, I have assumed the responsibility personally for raising or paying for these particular scattering ministries at a cost of more than 1.7 million dollars, so that our tithes and offerings should cover our gathering ministries.

Our gathering ministries’ costs include Sunday School, materials, monthly bills, support salaries, pastors’ salaries, adoption ministry, missions, paper, copiers, phones, and costs necessary to operate a portable church. As your Pastor, it is my responsibility before God to make sure that these needs are taken care of by teaching our congregation to be obedient in our giving. The reason we do not have enough money to do all the gathering ministries, including the paying of our staff on a regular basis, is because there are many in our congregation who are being disobedient in their giving. I have put up charts to let you see that 80 percent of our people are giving between zero and $5 a year. A church our size should be averaging well over $100,000 a week, and we are averaging around $50,000 at best.

Maybe his congregation has been “disobedient in their giving” because of this:

I would like to respond to some criticism that I am getting to [sic] political.

The entire letter is after the cut.

Continue reading "Antioch Bible Church in financial trouble?" »

Nickels Chickens Out AGAIN

posted by on October 18 at 1:48 PM

Tonight, Greg Nickels was supposed to participate in a debate, sponsored by the 43rd District Democrats, with mayoral challenger Al Runte. A week ago, Nickels bailed. His campaign manager, Viet Shelton, says Nickels wanted to spend time with his wife, Sharon, who’s getting back into town after a few weeks away tonight. (The debate, don’t forget, is ONE HOUR long - and Nickels presumably knew about the time conflict when he agreed to do it in the first place.)

This isn’t the first time the mayor has ducked out of his campaign-related duties: one week ago, Nickels’ campaign manager called the Stranger to cancel the mayor’s endorsement interview, saying we were “too mean” and probably wouldn’t endorse him anyway. A few hours later, the mayor changed his mind and agreed to come to the interview, but claimed he was only available for a tiny window late Friday afternoon - the one time Runte couldn’t make it.

Richard Kelley, head of the 43rd District Ds, said the group changed its format to allow Nickels to send a surrogate; if he doesn’t, Kelley says, all the mayor’s time will go to Runte. “The people in the district will have to come to their own conclusions” about the mayor’s absence, Kelley says.

Extortion Factory

posted by on October 18 at 1:46 PM

This is all over the Internets today: Jack Thompson, an anti-video game activist, wrote a letter to the Seattle Police today, asking for their help in arresting the guys at Penny Arcade, a local site featuring a web comic about the gaming industry.

Some background: Thompson hates video games like Grand Theft Auto, among others, and he recently posed a challenge to the video game industry to craft a game that targets the gaming industry (the game would feature a vengeful father goes and kills video game execs). He offered a $10K donation to “the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc’s chairman, Paul Eibeler,” maker of Grand Theft Auto.

Okay.

So then people made the game he requested. And Thompson reneged on his $10K pledge, declaring that his original challenge was simply satire.

Which brings us to Seattle. From the guys at Penny Arcade:

You know what, Jack? We’re going to be the men you’re not. You said that your insulting, illusory ten thousand dollars would go to the charity of Paul Eibeler’s choice. We’ve got a good guess that he’d direct your nonexistant largesse toward The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, a body that has raised over six point seven million dollars over the last eight years. We’ve just made the donation you never would, and never meant to. Ten thousand dollars’ worth. And we made it in your name.

You’d think that’d be the end of it. But it’s not. Thompson got all upset at Penny Arcade, to the point where he sent a letter to SPD Chief Gil Kerlikowske this morning, alleging criminal harassment and calling Penny Arcade an “extortion factory,” while failing to mention Penny Arcade’s generous $10,000 donation in his letter.

No word on whether the SPD plans to storm Penny Arcade.

Fearfully Made

posted by on October 18 at 1:22 PM

File under “Oh My Fucking God”.

First, the video. (click image to view)

1005_lil_markie_264x220.jpg

Okay, a mulletted, baby-faced preacher singing a solo duet in his own voice and the affected voice of an unborn fetus named “Lil’ Markie”. That’s a little bit weird and creepy.

That’s nothing.

Try this (audio only) track, titled “Diary of an Unborn Child”. Listen until the end if you can possibly bear it.

Now THAT’S weird and creepy.

???

posted by on October 18 at 1:14 PM

This can’t be true, can it?

Re: Nickels’s Ugly Photo Ops

posted by on October 18 at 1:07 PM

Yesterday, I reported that Mayor Nickels devastated the city’s photography budget by running up costs with ribbon-cutting photo ops—forcing the photography dept. (rather than the mayor’s office) to foot the five-figure bill.

Individual City depts., like the mayor’s office, were supposed to pay for photo work themselves, but the mayor’s office wouldn’t go along with the “buy back” formula, and so the program folded.

Thanks to Team Nickels, the two city photographers (Eric Stuhaug & Ian Edelstein) lost their jobs. Then, Nickels’s campaign turned around and paid a measly $10 bucks to the city clerk for a CD of the pictures. The campaign is now running the photos in Nickels’s reelection fliers.

Noteworthy asterisk on this tacky tacky turn of events: The decision to stiff the photo dept. was made by Nickels’s then-communications director, Casey Corr.

Must See TV

posted by on October 18 at 11:03 AM

Bill O’Reilly is Jon Stewart’s guest on The Daily Show tonight.

The Republican implosion

posted by on October 18 at 11:02 AM

This comment in the current New Yorker made my morning. At the end, he schools the Democrats. It’s great, it’s optimistic, and he’s right.

You made it to Tuesday and you should go out tonight.

posted by on October 18 at 10:58 AM

Last time NYC’s Gogol Bordello stomped through town, they put on a fantastic, political, witty, sweaty show at Neumo’s complete with gypsy-anarchist theatrics and flag-waving circus-punk fly girls. They’re back tonight at Chop Suey (9 pm, $12). I recommend you go.

Unless, of course, you aren’t in the mood for loud, and the whole world seems much too mouthy and political and harsh today, in which case you should join me for escapism at Noc Noc ($1 beers and New Wave, no cover).

New Laser Fantasies

posted by on October 18 at 10:39 AM

It’s good to see local bands picking up on the Stranger’s push for performances in odd places and booking their own events at the Seattle Laser Dome. The Divorce held one of two CD release shows there and now the Ruby Doe, Bullet Club, and DJ Curtis are playing there on Friday, November 18th.

The Waiting Game

posted by on October 18 at 10:36 AM

As everyone waits for the indictment shoe (or shoes) to drop, Reuters reports that the big day may be tomorrow.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post and the New York Daily News say the special prosecutor is narrowing in on Cheney’s office.


Monday, October 17, 2005

Meet the Against Me! Stripper

posted by on October 17 at 5:04 PM

Last week, I posted the Hot Tip I’d received about the naked man who thrilled onlookers before being apprehended by police outside last Thursday’s Against Me! show at Neumo’s.

Today in the Stranger Forums, I found the first-person confession of the stripper himself!

Read his impressive narrative (complete with his naked dreams for the future) here.

Now I Am Drunk

posted by on October 17 at 3:40 PM

Our forums have been remodeled a bit and now include the potentially awesome category Now I Am Drunk, to which you may only post if you are inebriated. I’m going across the street for several shots of the ridiculously delicious Van Gogh Dutch cocoa vodka, and then I’m going to test it out.

Team Nickels’s Ugly Photo Ops

posted by on October 17 at 11:46 AM

While this one’s not an official ethics violation (last week, you’ll remember, the Seattle Ethics & Elections Commission found the Mayor guilty of violating city rules for using city resources to assist his reelection campaign), Miss Manners oughta ding Team Nickels for the latest tacky stunt that’s come to our attention.

Nickels’s campaign fliers feature tons of photos of the mayor in action—showing Nickels making stops all over the city: at the Green Lake clean up, at the Volunteer Park dedication, having dinner at Fire Station 9, kicking off the Ave. revitalization project, at the Greenwood Library Re-opening… etc….

All these pics were taken by the city’s two staff photographers. It’s not unethical to use photos produced by the city for campaign lit (The Nickels campaign bought the photos fair and square from the city clerk for the nominal $10 fee), but thanks to the Nickels administration, the guys who originally took all those photos lost their jobs with the city.

You see, Nickels’s office refused to pay the estimated $33,000 that went into all those mayoral ribbon cutting photos, charging the work to the city’s Fleets and Facilities budget instead. That’s not the way the city’s photo program was intended to work. City offices—like the mayor’s office—were supposed to spend money from their own budgets to cover photog costs. The mayor’s refusal to participate in that “buy back” program—after running up the photography dept.’s costs with all those ribbon-cutting photo ops—caused the program to go belly up. As a result, the city print shop was closed down and the two photographers lost their jobs.

Ah, but their photos live on, promoting Nickels in his reelection campaign literature. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Power Lines

posted by on October 17 at 11:16 AM

Last week, I wrote a pretty technical story about a pending Seattle City Light contract that could have negative consequences for the Kalispel Indian reservation in Northeastern Washington.

The council is going to approve the contract anyway, but the Kalispel’s legal team was happy about this accompanying statement from the city council’s City Light chair, council member Jean Godden, which may be used to hold the city accountable if the Kalispel continue to get a bad deal:

Councilmember Jean Godden Full Council Talk Points—

C.B. 115344 — Boundary Project Agreements with the Pend Oreille Public Utility District

Council Bill 115344 authorizes the Superintendent of City Light to execute three agreements relating to the Boundary project. Two of the three agreements included in C.B. 115344 will replace now expired agreements between City Light and the Pend Oreille Public Utility District (PUD) relating to the delivery of power and compensation for impacts of the Boundary Project on the PUD’s Box Canyon generating facility. The third agreement among the Bonneville Power Administration, City Light, and the PUD will result in the addition of a new transmission path.

Continue reading "Power Lines" »

Barjacking: Coming soon to a bar near you

posted by on October 17 at 11:11 AM

This just in from Dirty Bunny, ringleader of Seattle’s Guerrilla Masquerade events:

What do you get when you take the Guerrilla bar take-over concept to the next level? Barjacking.
Legend has it that a group of 150 or so folks in Portland planned a complete bar takeover for 2 months, mapping out the bar with CAD drawings, tracking the staff schedules, determining where all the electrical sockets were, and organizing DJs who could set up in a matter of minutes. When the night came, the first 75 people swarmed the bar and blocked the view of the one bartender. The next 50 cleared every seat and table and moved it to the side. The final 25 set up the decks and started pumping the beats. The bartender was freaked out and called the owner down. The owner, as you might imagine, was overjoyed to have his bar (and cash register) full. At the end of the night, they left and never did it again.

A group here in Seattle is starting the organization process to make a Barjacking happen here in the coming months. They already have DJs and CAD drafters on board, but need a lot more interested people to make this happen. To get involved, send a blank e-mail to barjackers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com or go to launch.groups.yahoo.com/groupbarjackers.

Whatever Happened to Baby Roy?

posted by on October 17 at 10:27 AM

As if being mauled by your beloved white tiger wasn’t bad enough: According to a lawsuit filed by his former security guard, Roy Horn, recovering Vegas entertainer and latter half of “Siegfried &”, allegedly suffered further harm at the hands of another would-be friend—Siegfried Fischbacher, whom the lawsuit accuses of keeping the recovering Roy doped up against his will, and firing the aforementioned security guard after he attempted to protect his boss.

For the straightforward story, check out the MSNBC report.

For the splashy tabloid version (which has much dirtier details), check out Extra!.


Sunday, October 16, 2005

Spike Lee Takes On Katrina

posted by on October 16 at 1:31 PM

Director Spike Lee is planning to do the right thing.

The New York Times vs. Judith Miller vs. Patrick Fitzgerald

posted by on October 16 at 12:25 PM

The New York Times today publishes two hotly awaited articles about the newspaper’s role in the CIA leak case. They are absolute must reads for anyone following the larger leak investigation story — which could result in indictments of high Bush administration officials as early as this week.

The first article is an investigation by three of the paper’s most respected reporters into Judith Miller’s mysterious actions over the last two years while a special prosecutor tried to figure out who leaked her the identity of an undercover CIA agent. Here’s the quote everyone will be talking about until the indictments come:

Ms. Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify and reveal her confidential source, then relented. On Sept. 30, she told the grand jury that her source was I. Lewis Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff. But she said he did not reveal Ms. Plame’s name.

And when the prosecutor in the case asked her to explain how “Valerie Flame” appeared in the same notebook she used in interviewing Mr. Libby, Ms. Miller said she “didn’t think” she heard it from him. “I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall,” she wrote on Friday, recounting her testimony for an article that appears today.

This, as many people are noting today, strains credulity. As Arianna Huffington, one of the most dogged Miller critics, put it:

When the Plame case broke open in July 2003, these notes were presumably no more than a few weeks old. But who had revealed Plame’s name was not seared on Miller’s mind?

This is as believable as Woodward and Bernstein not recalling who Deep Throat was.

The second New York Times article is Miller’s first-person account of what she told the special prosecutor, why she went to jail, why she then agreed to leave jail and testify, and what she made of her often cryptic communications with Libby over the last two years. There are many fascinating things about her account, and how it directly contradicts portions of today’s other Times story, but in terms of potential indictments, this is the most interesting:

When I was last before the grand jury, Mr. Fitzgerald posed a series of questions about a letter I received in jail last month from Mr. Libby. The letter, two pages long, encouraged me to testify. “Your reporting, and you, are missed,” it begins.

Mr. Fitzgerald asked me to read the final three paragraphs aloud to the grand jury. “The public report of every other reporter’s testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame’s name or identity with me,” Mr. Libby wrote.

The prosecutor asked my reaction to those words. I replied that this portion of the letter had surprised me because it might be perceived as an effort by Mr. Libby to suggest that I, too, would say we had not discussed Ms. Plame’s identity. Yet my notes suggested that we had discussed her job.

This, alone, seems like it could be enough for the special prosecutor to try to indict Libby for trying to coach a grand jury witness in advance of her testimony.

Lots and lots more to analyze and question in these two stories. As usual the bloggers are already on the case, here, here, here, here, and here — and, with a call from an Editor & Publisher columnist to fire Miller now, here.

“Fountains of Wayne Hotline”

posted by on October 16 at 12:20 PM

If, as per my Border Radio suggestion, you caught “insurgent country” loudmouth and all-around-great-guy Robbie Fulks at the Sunset last Valentine’s Day, you heard him debut a hilarious parody called “Fountains of Wayne Hotline.” A former Nashville pro songwriter himself, Fulks dissects the FOW power-pop blueprint - and the hell that is customer service help-lines - brilliantly. This unreleased gem is now available as an exclusive download on iTunes. Granted, this is a novelty song, so you probably won’t play it a million times, but it is a send-up of the highest order (think Tom Lehrer-goes-Nashville), and 99 cents well spent.