In a related note to an earlier post about the January 7 show at Gallery 1412, this event also marks the release party of Seattle zine Ong Ong.

Ong Ong #2 (Winter) has four layer-stenciled covers, and includes a compilation CD from Seattle experimental-electronic label Dragon’s Eye Recordings, stories about Iceland, Ariel Pink, graffiti, a traveling vegan chef, and lots of art. The publication sells for $5 and can be purchased at this show as well as at Sonic Boom Records, Confounded Books, Electric Heavyland, Left Bank Books, and Elliott Bay Book Co.

The Greg Davis/Sébastien Roux/Bird Show gig that I preview in this week’s Data Breaker is happening at Gallery 1412 Saturday January 7, not January 6, as I printed. I regret the error.

The Seattle Times, which just finished running a very good series on the effects of global warming in the arctic region, today offers this cheery endorsement of snowmobiling in “pristine” Chelan County: It’s “Just Plain Fun.”

Hmmm. Just plain fun? Really?

Most snowmobiles are powered by two-stroke engines which dump 25-30 percent of their fuel unburned out the tailpipe. The air pollution from these dirty machines is so bad that Yellowstone Park Rangers now wear respirators to protect themselves. The piercing noise of snowmobiles can often be heard throughout our parks; studies show that these machines can be heard 90 percent of the time in Yellowstone. And snowmobiles harass and threaten wildlife. Even when restricted to approved and maintained trails, snowmobiles can push bison, wolves, elk, and moose, even the bald eagle, out of their preferred habitats.

Perhaps some of the above information should be mentioned in The Times’ “If You Go” box? As in, “If you go snowmobiling in Chelan County, be sure to enjoy dumping 25-30 percent of your fuel unburned out of your tailpipe, and make sure you notice how that piercing noise harasses wildlife!”

We have this lovely schematic of the Great Racial Chain of Being:

This makes me wonder if the anti-evolutionists are crypto-racists. After all, they’re the ones spreading that ridiculous we-came-from-monkeys misconception of natural selection… and perhaps playing off honky fears of miscegenation and racial contamination.

Regardless, I seriously doubt the footage is any more “outrageous” than the ad.

Last fall, in column after column, I kept filing the same sentence, slapping Mayor Gridlock Nickels for giving the monorail just 4 weeks to fix its finance plan (which was facing a 40 percent shortfall), while Nickels himself was trying to sell a pie-in-the-sky Viaduct “plan” that looked to be about 92 percent over budget—without any timeline for a solution.

I summed up Nickels’s hypocrisy in an article last November:

Even more infuriating, Nickels’s chief complaint about the monorail’s turnaround plan was that the agency only had $1 billion to spend (according to Nickels), but was coming in with a $1.4 billion construction plan—$400,000,000 or 40 percent, over budget, by the mayor’s calculations. But Mayor Gridlock only has $2.4 billion to spend on the viaduct tunnel, and his plan is coming in at $4.6 billion —$2.2 billion or 92 percent over budget! (Can Nickels promise that any bonds the public sells to finance his highway plan won’t have a payback schedule longer than 30 years, another demand he made of the monorail agency?) Hey, Greg, how about we give you four weeks to come up with that plan!?

So it is that I’m psyched to see the Seattle Times today, beating the same drum.

And I love the response they got from Dep. Mayor Tim Ceis: “Give us three to four months.”

Three to four months? God, I wish (former Acting Monorail Executive Director) John Haley—the loud guy from Boston—was still in town. He’d have two words for Ceis: “Fawk You.”

On a related note: In my column today, in which I predict a number of things that are going to flameout in 2006, I cited “the idea that the viaduct tunnel option will only cost $4.5 billion.” Mark my words on that.

Heroic lefty funnyman Jon Stewart has been announced as the host of this year’s Oscars ceremony.

Here’s hoping the March 5 ceremony will be full-blown culture riot, with Stewart dissing the government from the stage and Academy voters hucking the majority of the gold at the gayest Hollywood film of all time.

Speaking of Brokeback Mountain: I finally saw it, totally loved it, but didn’t tear up until the final credits, over which Willie Nelson sang one of my all-time favorite Bob Dylan songs, “He Was A Friend of Mine,” which turned me into a puddle.

And while I somewhat agree with the Stranger forum writer who took exception to the wispy guitar interludes of the soundtrack—it’s true, these piddling acoustic texture-washes turned the guys’ summer of hard work and isolation into a bucolic romantic wonderland—there are two reasons I don’t agree.

First, the pair’s summer of hard work and isolation was a bucolic romantic wonderland, one that haunted each of the men for the rest of their lives. And while it may have been a richer artistic choice to show the guys’ love flourish against a harsh natural background unsoftened by soundtrack elements, there have been a million and one richly artistic movies made about gay lives, but exactly zero mainstream, crowd-pleasing films that present same-sex love as romantically ravishing as other-sex love, with all the lingering mist and overdone underscoring that entails, until now.

Hurrah, now throw some Oscars at Heath Ledger, Ang Lee, Michelle Williams, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, and whoever the hell the cinematographer is. (But mostly Heath Ledger, who’s fucking amazing. Sorry, Philip Seymour Hoffman, you must remain a bridesmaid for another year…)

City Council members have been on recess for two weeks, but the council’s two presidential contenders - Richard Conlin and Jean Godden - have been on the job, fearing, perhaps, the kind of fiasco that loosened Conlin’s lock on the position while he was on vacation in December. (Conlin, who had secured a 5-4 council majority for his presidential bid, left town just before Jim Compton - one of Conlin’s five votes - resigned, throwing the council into a 4-4 deadlock, where it remains today.)

Council business, scheduled to re-start in earnest next week, has been put more or less on hold while council members try to figure out what to do. The latest rumor is that Conlin has offered Godden the chairmanship of the coveted transportation committee (which Conlin heads) in exchange for the presidency. But that option would more or less screw Jan Drago, a Godden supporter (and the current council chair), who had hoped to chair transportation herself. (Under council custom, Conlin is expected to resign as transportation chair because he’s served four years in the position.)

On Tuesday, Drago said she “doubt[ed] that [Godden] would do that.” Assuming Drago’s right, another possible scenario is that Godden’s responsibilities as energy committee chair might be expanded, giving the rookie council member more authority over areas outside City Light, such as the city’s IT department.

In a completely different (and I think less likely) scenario, Conlin might agree to give up the presidency in exchange for a higher-profile committee like finance, which is in charge of the city’s budget. (The current budget chair, Richard McIver, supports Godden.)

All this intrigue is sort of comical when you consider what the job of council president really entails: making committee assignments every couple of years, controlling the flow of legislation into committees, and serving as the ceremonial and symbolic head of the council. Ironically, the council president traditionally controls the council’s lowest-profile committee (currently, Government Relations), giving the president less real power than he or she would have chairing a more influential committee like budget or transportation.

From this week’s Economist:

The fall of Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania’s junior senator, is even more eagerly anticipated by the American left. Mr Santorum is one of America’s most articulate opponents of all things permissive. His six children are home-schooled; he opposes stem-cell research; he feels that sodomy should be outlawed; he favours national service. James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family, an evangelical group, praises his “integrity, vision and unwavering commitment to the principles and beliefs upon which the United States was foundedâ€�. Meanwhile, gay activists use his name to denote something indescribable in a family newspaper.

Who could those gay activists be? Why, they’re me! But the word isn’t being used by activists alone. The word was mainstreamed long, long ago.

An alert Stranger and Economist reader named Patrick brought this to my attention. Thanks, Patrick!

This may come as a surprise, but I respect Knute Berger. He has a voice, and when he gets on a jag, like his anti-density stuff last year, people read him. Most important, his jags can compel debate. Erica C. Barnett and I, for example, felt compelled to take him on last spring in an essay we titled Moss Backwards after he’d written a series of anti-density columns. I usually don’t agree with the guy, and I think the Weekly is a sad, disengaged paper that needs an overhaul to get back into the news biz, but Berger himself seems to float above the Weekly’s shortcomings, a step removed from the fiasco/identity crisis over there. In short, he seems focused while his paper flounders.

I don’t know him personally. I’ve met him maybe once. We’ve talked on the phone once or twice. But he’s got a better vibe than his colleagues, who seem like insecure basket cases.

So, I was let down to see Knute (“Mossback”) go over the top and kind of parody (?) himself this week.
He wrote:

“Mossback doesn’t like the ways things are going. Too much growth, too much change, too many outsiders trying to grow palm trees—or skyscrapers—in our backyards. I think the only way to turn this thing around is to adopt measures that will turn newcomers off, yet reinforce local values.”

Given how paranoid, weird, sad (delicate) Knute sounds, I’m reluctant to even poke at him. But I’ve got to know: Who are these so-called outsiders?

The pro-skyscraper density crew is Team Nickels. They’re hardly outsiders. They are full-fledged Seattleites: Nickels, Ceis, Lowe, Bichsel, McComber, and last term, Corr. The monorail crowd? Nope. Weeks, Falkenbury, Sherwin, Cogswell. All longtime locals. The downtown developers? Alhadeff. Smith. Goodman. Klise. Local. Local. Local. Indeed, the engine for change seems to be homegrown.

I don’t know what outsiders Berger is talking about. Does he?

Heck, even Berger’s vaunted neighborhood movement is for change. As Erica and I wrote when we challenged Knute in our aforementioned Moss Backwards essay:

Fortunately, Berger is right on another point: The old anti-growth, anti-mass transit neighborhood movement is dying. But that doesn’t mean neighborhood voices are dying. It’s just that the new neighborhood voices aren’t saying what Berger wants to hear. Recently, Roosevelt residents provided crucial support for Sound Transit’s proposal to run light rail through the heart of their neighborhood, rather than along its periphery-guaranteeing dense redevelopment in a mostly single-family area. And Central Area and Beacon Hill residents support the Southeast Seattle Action Agenda, a neighborhood plan that calls for more density in their single-family zones.

So, who are the Outsiders? Village Voice Media? New Times? Mossback, maybe?

This New York Times article about robberies at Washington State espresso stands is hilarious:

The police said the bearded person was actually a woman, Lindsey Nicole Pruitt, 22, of Enid, Okla., who was arrested while wearing a glued-on goatee and who had a fake gun, described as a realistic replica of a Beretta 9 millimeter, stuffed in her waistband. Ms. Pruitt was charged with robbery in connection with a holdup at the Java the Hut in Pacific, Wash., the police said, and was being held on $70,000 bail in neighboring Pierce County.

Ah, Enid, OK. Ah, glued-on goatees. Bank robbers are never this goofy.

Congratulations to Shaun Alexander for being the first Seahawk ever named league MVP.

Also: I normally despise anything from Texas, but the Longhorns’ win last night over USC was one for the ages, despite the miserable officiating. Vince Young is from another world.

Maybe there’s something to the right’s whole “activist judges” shrieking after all?

There was outrage Wednesday when a Vermont judge handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many,many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven.

The judge said he no longer believes in punishment and is more concerned about rehabilitation.

Prosecutors argued that confessed child-rapist Mark Hulett, 34, of Williston deserved at least eight years behind bars for repeatedly raping a littler girl countless times starting when she was seven.

But Judge Edward Cashman disagreed explaining that he no longer believes that punishment works.

“The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn’t solve anything. It just corrodes your soul,” said Judge Edward Cashman speaking to a packed Burlington courtroom. Most of the on-lookers were related to a young girl who was repeatedly raped by Mark Hulett who was in court to be sentenced.

The sex abuse started when the girl was seven and ended when she was ten. Prosecutors were seeking a sentence of eight to twenty years in prison, in part, as punishment.

Full story can be found here.

Regarding Pat Robertson’s characterization of Ariel Sharon’s life-imperling stroke as punishment by God for dividing Israel: What a piece of shit Pat Robertson is.

Robertson’s statements crediting God for felling Sharon stink all the more in light of Roberton’s silence following last week’s deadly blazes in Texas and Oklahoma. When anything bad happens to land occupied by good faithful Christians, Robertson somehow manages to keep his yap shut, tacitly laying the blame at the Birkenstock-clad feet of that pagan bitch Mother Nature. But whenever the shit comes down on one of his perceived enemies, it’s the miraculous hand of God.

What a fucker. I can’t wait till he’s dead, and neither can God.

Pat Robertson remains a tool.

(Via Talking Points Memo.)

Neil Simon: Born July 4, 1927 in the Bronx. Still alive.
Eugene O’Neill: Born October 16, 1888 in New York City. Totally dead.

In the print edition of this invented interview with David Esbjornson, I confused the two. I wrote that the Rep scuttled a Eugene O’Neill premiere for an overproduced Noel Coward play.

Of course, the Rep couldn’t have produced a new O’Neill play (or it would be front-page news) because Eugene O’Neill has been dead for fifty goddamn years.

Neil, O’Neill. O’Neill, Neil. I regret my imbecility.

All you radio heads who weighed in on the John Richards salary debate might want to check out this really interesting story by Chris Parker in the current issue of The Stranger. It’s about the future of radio.

Also, the back and forth over John Richards’s income continues… here.

Speaking of female rappers.

A high-profile homophobe was arrested for—can you guess?

An executive committee member of the Southern Baptist Convention was arrested on a lewdness charge for propositioning a plainclothes policeman outside a hotel, police said. Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church, was booked into Oklahoma County Jail Tuesday night on a misdemeanor charge of offering to engage in an act of lewdness, police Capt. Jeffrey Becker said. Latham was released on $500 bail Wednesday afternoon…. When he left jail, he said: “I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police.”

…The arrest took place in the parking lot of the Habana Inn, which is in an area where the public has complained about male prostitutes flagging down cars, Becker said. The plainclothes officers was investigating these complaints.

The lewdness charge carries a penalty of up to one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

He has also spoken out against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist Convention directive urging its 42,000 churches to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual “if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their ‘sinful, destructive lifestyle.”’

What a coincidence: I was doing a little pastoring myself last night.

(Confidential to *: Yes, darling, this story already appeared on Americablog, but I got the link from my pal Rex Wockner in my mailbox this AM.)

Bush not only squandered political capital at home, he also squandered love capital abroad. The situation is getting ugly.

Am I the only one who no longer gives a shit about the survival of the P-I? Pulling this blog post together I noticed that the website TwoNewspaperTown.org is defunct. (I didn’t open the P-I until last night when I read a copy at Fuel while my kid ate a cookie. So I apologize for the untimely nature of this post.)

Goo-goo types and news junkies scream and yell about wanting Seattle to remain a two-newspaper town. The Seattle Times has been trying to pull out of its Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for years (a story that the Stranger broke). If the Seattle Times does kill the JOA, Hearst, which owns the P-I, will most likely close the paper. Keeping the P-I in business would mean getting its own printing presses, business staff, circulation department, etc.—basically all the P-I is today is an editorial department. The Seattle Times handles every other aspect of putting out both papers.

Anyhoo, two newspaper towns—TNTs?—I’m all for ‘em. I always read both dailies when I go home to Chicago—the Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune—and enjoy them in large part for their pronounced differences. (The Trib is a conservative paper that takes itself way too seriously; the Sun-Times is a tabloid that’s crowded with terrifically opinionated columnists.) But I find it hard to get worked up about the prospect of the P-I shutting down—except, of course, for the number of writers who would lose their jobs; and I would miss reading Susan Paynter (who likes the Stranger) and Joel Connelly (who hates the Stranger). Even so, odds are good both would wind up at the Seattle Times.

But Seattle’s two daily papers are too similar, despite the half-hearted, inexplicably timid efforts of the P-I’s editors to shake things up, for me to lose sleep over one going out of business.

But as I read the paper last night I was reminded of the other reason why I won’t be too sorry to see the P-I go: its op-ed pages. There were five op-ed columns in the paper: Helen Thomas (syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.); Bob Herbert (syndicated columnist based in New York City); Rich Lowry (syndicated columnist and D.C.-based editor of the National Review); Marianne Means (syndicated columnist based in D.C.); and the only op-ed writer in the paper yesterday who wasn’t writing from the East Coast—Larry David, star of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. David lives in Los Angeles.

Not only are four of the five based on the East Coast, but three of the five columns published in the P-I’s op-ed pages yesterday were already days old. Larry David’s column was originally published in last Sunday’s New York Times; Herbert’s column was originally published in Monday’s New York Times; Thomas’s column appeared in many papers on Tuesday. Perhaps the P-I’s slogan should be, “It’s in the P-I… days after it was in the New York Times.â€�

There are tons of writers in Seattle with tons to say about national and local politics. The P-I should tap some, and not just barf up whatever King Features Syndicate sends ‘em. (Lowry, Thomas, and Means are all distributed by King Features.) And while it might have made sense a decade ago to reprint prominent columnists from the NYT, today people who don’t already subscribe to the NYT read it online. Do we need to read days-old Dowd, Krugman, and Brooks in the P-I? (Yes, the NYT hides their op-ed columnists behind a firewall, but their columns are easy to find online regardless. And the firewall won’t last.) Some locals you might consider: bloggers Stefan Sharkansky, David Goldstein, Dan Gonsiorowski, and Gomezticator (you can find him in our forums). Stranger writers sometimes do a little freelance work: Charles Mudede, Eli Sanders, Erica C. Barnett. Want something safe? Geov Parrish is “consistently progressive.” And I hear Casey Corr is looking for work.

So I tell you what, P-I: I’ll get more upset about the prospect of losing you if you stop filling your op-ed pages—the most important real estate in any newspaper, at least as far as us news junkies are concerned—with leftovers. No more slop-ed pages. Some syndicated stuff is fine—I am, after all, a syndicated columnist myself—but swear to me that you will never again fill an entire day’s op-ed pages exclusively with syndicated material. With a minimum of effort you can find a half-dozen or more interesting local writers with a column or two in ‘em each week.

P.S. Yes, Virginia, you will have to pay local writers to write for your op-ed pages. When I write an op-ed for the New York Times, I get a check in the mail the next week. Once when I wrote an op-ed for the P-I or the Seattle Times—don’t remember which—I asked about payment and was told that it was an “honorâ€� to write for their op-ed pages. No doubt it is—it’s a bigger honor, though, to write for the NYT op-ed pages, and they pay. If you’re not going to pay writers to write, your local op-eds are going to consist of self-serving, staff-generated garbage signed by local pols. (Op-ed columns written for Ron Sims by Sandeep Kaushik, former Stranger staffer, are excluded from that characterization, of course.)

I must say it. I can not hide the pleasure I feel. Police Beat the movie was selected by Amy Taubin as one of the top ten films of 2005 in Art Forum magazine. (She called it a “character study and a cityscape movie.”) Because of the high value I place on the publication and the critic, the 2-year personal investment that went into the fucking project has totally paid off. Not only that, the list included Wong Kar Wai and Claire Denis, the two living directors I most admire. Now Annie, guess who is missing from all of Art Forum’s lists? I want my thunder back!

(Two quick notes: One, this week’s Police Beat column can only be found online; two, the director of the Police Beat movie, Devor, penned an excellent review of the new photograph show at COCA. One other thing, if you want read about my new film project, it’s described at length in this month’s issue of Cinemascope, which is available at all major magazine stores. Lastly for real, do the right thing and go on the art walk tonight.)