This cautionary tale about waterfront tunnels, written by Boston urban designer Thomas Oles, ran in this month’s Belltown Messenger. In it, Oles convincingly compares Seattle’s proposed Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel to Boston’s disastrous Big Dig, noting that the transportation engineers who designed that monstrously expensive (and notoriously leaky) waterfront tunnel have recently acknowledged that “tunnels-surprise-will do nothing to reduce congestion, that traffic has already reached the levels predicted for the end of the decade.”

Oles continues:

Now I learn that what I fled in Boston is about to happen in Seattle, even involving some of the same actors. And cost overruns, graft, and faulty construction in Boston? Not to worry, right?-these are the products of corrupt East Coast political machines, of politicians with Italian names and friends who can get your legs broken. This is so much feel-good, back-patting Northwest pabulum: Large tunnel projects invite corruption and almost always run over budget and past completion date, and our local politicians are just as corrupt even if their personal style is more yoga-and-hiking-boots. To an ignorant observer it might seem the viaduct proposal is designed to assure that the project fails as spectacularly as possible while giving the most meager public benefit, continuing the proud lineage of transportation debacles-the bus tunnel, Sound Transit, and the Monorail-in Seattle over the last two decades.

In many ways the tunnel, with road capacity not at issue, is even more egregious than the Central Artery Tunnel: For the sake of 100,000 cars that could be carried on a series of large city streets or a shoreline boulevard like the universally admired Passeig de Colom in Barcelona, the Viaduct “solution” will create a 180-foot-wide new rip in the city at its south end in Pioneer Square, as well as leaving a piece of elevated expressway-historic preservation Seattle-style?-for tourists at the Pike Place Market.

In the face of all their obvious shortcomings, there must be some other reason why officials and planners love tunnels-and, for that matter, subterranean parking. Really. it is not a matter of faster trips to the airport, or more cars, or greenbelts, or any of the rest of it. What tunnels do for us is this: They mask the physical and moral ugliness of what Margaret Thatcher called the “Great Car Society” by pandering to our nostalgia, by sustaining our illusions of urban cleanliness and order. They are like the modern toilet designed to let us forget that we shit.

In response to this post about Twelfth Night of the Living Dead, one reader posted a zombification of Hamlet (“To be, yet not to be, is that the question?â€�) and another posted this zombification of the opening scene of Twelfth Night:

“(Enter ZOMBIE DUKE ORSINO, ZOMBIE CURIO and OTHER ZOMBIES, ZOMBIE MUSICIANS attending)

ZOMBIE DUKE ORSINO
If man-flesh be the food of mine, eat on;
Give me excess of brains, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That brain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my gums from the sweet teeth,
That feed upon a man with violence,
Stealing and giving offal! Enough; no more:
‘Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O necrotizer! how quick with flesh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the grave, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abasement and gored eyes,
Even in a minute: so full of haste is frenzy
That it alone is zombie-tastical.

ZOMBIE CURIO
Grr! Arrgh!”

I want congratulate these keen readers for furthering the noble cause of zombification of the arts. There oughta be a grant for that.

John Kerry needed 41 votes to force a filibuster on the Alito nomination.
He only got 25 because 19 Dems broke ranks.
Our Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, split on the vote w/ Cantwell breaking ranks.

That is: Cantwell voted to end the debate (no filibuster) and Murray voted to keep debating (yes filibuster).

Cantwell says she’s voting against Alito tomorrow morning, though, on the grounds that his record on privacy (abortion) and executive power is lame.

I’ve attached a full roll call on the filibuster vote below.

Continue reading "Cantwell Doesn't Support Filibuster, Murray Does" »

That’s the line of reasoning put forth by a new ad campaign concocted by the Washington State Department of Health, designed to promote abstinence among Washington’s horny, horny kids.

To its credit, the ad campaign claims to be aiming its message on the value of delaying sex at “youth between 10 and 14”—who, call me old fashioned, really shouldn’t be having sex yet.

But with icky-poo commercials such as this, the end result looks like more fear-based, hyper-simplistic bullshit.

Sure, there’s an argument to be made that, during the tumultuous years of puberty, super-simplistic reasons for postponing sex are exactly what kids need. But our well-funded government groups have to be able to do better than this…

It’s hard to argue that it’s not Christians themselves who are doing the most damage to Christianity in this country. From today’s Washington Post:

More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients’ rights.

About half of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and “morning-after” pills because they believe the drugs cause abortions. But many are far broader measures that would shelter a doctor, nurse, aide, technician or other employee who objects to any therapy. That might include in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians.

Because many legislatures have just convened, advocates on both sides are predicting that the number debating such proposals will increase. At least 18 states are already considering 36 bills.

The Stranger is often accused of being anti-Christian. We’re not—we’re just anti batshitcrazy Christians who assume their beliefs trump the health and freedoms of others.

Plenty.

Once again—hello, straight people? The Right’s war on sexual freedom isn’t just about taking down gay sex and abortion. They want to criminalize sex, period, not just gay sex. From today’s Kansas City Star:

Kansas AG lauds teen-sex ruling

Bolstered by an appellate court ruling, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline on Saturday said he would demand anew that all health professionals report cases of underage sexual activity.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a federal district judge’s order that had blocked the state from enforcing a law requiring reports of consensual sexual activity among children under 16…. “These laws are important tools to bring child rapists to justice,â€� Kline said.

An attorney for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which had obtained the initial court order, said the new ruling will not take effect for at least two weeks. Also, a trial focusing on another part of the legal challenge to the reporting requirements is scheduled to begin Monday in federal court in Wichita.

“The gravest concern is that a lack of confidentiality will drive adolescents away from health care they need,â€� said Bonnie Scott Jones, an attorney with the center, a nonprofit organization that is active in abortion and reproductive health-care laws and policies.

The legal dispute over reporting requirements stems from an opinion that Kline issued in 2003 about a 1982 state law. Kline said that doctors, nurses, social workers and other licensed professionals are required to report cases of sexual activity involving an adolescent under 16, even if it was consensual activity between two persons of about the same age.

Sexual contact with or among children under 16 is against the law in Kansas. Kline contends that even consensual sex is harmful to children.

This is so fucked up I don’t even know where to begin. Suppose a 15 year-old contracts a sexually transmitted disease from, say, another 15 year-old—are they going to seek treatment if they fear being reported? Or arrested? What sexually active teenager will confide in a therapist in Kansas? What about high school seniors, age 17, dating high school sophomores, age 15? Arrest them too?

Some teenagers are sexually active, as much as it pains the right wingers, and they need access to birth control, condoms, and responsible adults who can help them access health care and good info. This is just nuts—nuts.

And, hey, my sex advice column runs in Kansas, and I occassionally from people under the age of 16 who are sexually active. Am I required to report them to the police now too?

The deadline for sending us a Stranger Valentine is fast approaching. Just jot a note to your lover and we’ll print it in our February 9 issue (for free!). C’mon, spread some mushy, messy love around.

From Editor & Publisher (via Rawstory): The White House routinely regulates photo journalists’ access to Bush and stages pictures of the president to (assumedly) present him to the public in a less moronic light.

A review of Associated Press archives found that during the entire eight years of the Clinton administration, only 100 handout photos of events were released to the press. During the first five years of Bush’s presidency, more than 500 have been distributed.

The key is that each of these events was closed to news photographers.

…Veterans who criticized the practice said it both limits real news coverage of the president and allows the White House to choose only those images it wants people to see… But the opposition to White House-manufactured images is not just a press access issue, photographers contend. They point out the power such an arrangement gives the White House to literally control news.

Why would the Bush administration want to literally control the news? Maybe because Bush has a face that literally dares you to take it seriously. Jesus, they’re regulating photos of him and this is still the crap we see?

I’ve got a beef.

Consider, if you will, the trailer for Annapolis. (Believe me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t for a good reason.) Take a few moments afterwards to reflect, and/or towel off.

Ok, you remember all the shots of the fighter planes flying about all higgedly piggedly? Tyrese yelling dramatically for a medic? The money shot of the battleship blowing up? Here’s the thing: none of these are actually in the movie. My legal knowledge is limited to repeated viewing of From The Hip, but doesn’t this violate some sort of Truth in Advertising law?

In better news, behold the downright shivery teaser for the astonishingly-might-not-suck remake of The Omen. (Mia Farrow as the demonic nanny? Right on!)

Oh, and the greatest trailer ever? Yep, it’s still Cliffhanger.

Overheard after seeing Die Wandlung at CoCA, (an experimental performance goulash of gutter dandy costumes, butoh dance, cirque noir makeup, German expressionist text, and clanging percussion on found objects—it was as confusing as it sounds):

“That was intriguing.”
“Woulda been better with zombies.”
“You think?”
“Oh yeah—everything’s better with zombies.”

Too right:

“Twelfth Night of the Living Dead. The Bard meets George Romero: Cross-dressing zombies in the sixteenth century. Who’s a man? Who’s a woman? Who’s living? Who’s dead? Hilarity ensues.”

(From Yankee Pot Roast.)

I’ve been on a John Cassavetes kick in the last week, and I have to say, he’s good. (Hi everyone, I’m Christopher, sorry I’m late to the party.) I rented Faces and watched it at my neighbor’s apartment while my neighbor had a passive-aggressive conversation in the hallway with his on-again off-again girlfriend; appropriately enough, Faces alternates between passive-aggressive marital meltdown and out-and-out shrieking, and ends with an extended shot of a dissatisfied couple smoking on the stairs of their suburban L.A. house. (I am a tool of the tobacco industry, an enemy of the smoking banners — I like watching people smoke in movies.) The next night I watched Shadows, which is a tense tone poem about a bunch of awkward young musicians and one particularly manipulative beautiful girl, and just about every shot is absolutely necessary. (The whole thing is blissfully about 80 minutes long.) And then a couple days ago in San Francisco a friend invited me to a Cassavetes film festival, which was just him and a few friends watching a Cassavetes DVDs on a laptop. On the night I joined, the movie was A Woman Under the Influence, which, again, I realize is very famous and has been seen by all, but I’d never seen it. Gena Rowlands loses her shit for 2 and a half hours. It’s unbelievably great. If you’ve never seen any of Cassavetes’s movies, that’s where I’d start. (Although I have many more to go. Next up: Husbands.)

The first week of my discovery of Cassavetes ended yesterday, in one of those uncanny synchronicities, with the Sunday New York Times Book Review piece about the filmmaker’s first “genuine biography.”

The New Age docu-drama What the Bleep Do We Know?!, which gave new meaning to the term “cult favorite” upon its release in 2004, is being reissued in a pumped up “directors’ cut” edition this Friday at Uptown and the Neptune. You can read my review in the forthcoming Stranger, but while you wait, I’d like to offer a snippet of Caitlin Moran’s review from the always-hilarious London Times:

Prime Bleep ideas include the notion that unhappy thoughts are responsible for cell degeneration, ageing and death, and that negative thinking affects physical matter on a sub-atomic level. To illustrate this, photos appear of a Japanese “experimentâ€� in which bottles of water were labelled “loveâ€� and “I hate youâ€�. The “loveâ€� bottles had “producedâ€� water-crystals, which, under a dark field microscope, look like beautiful, harmonic Venetian mirrors. The “I hate youâ€� bottles, however, “producedâ€� ugly crystals which — students of evil and discord will be intrigued to discover — greatly resembled cheese on toast, served with a splash of Lea & Perrins. Bleep saw this as evidence of the quantum power of thought, while missing the real big stories here — WATER HAS STARTED TO READ, and CHEESE ON TOAST IS EVIL.

All Satanists hail cheese on toast.

Jesus would drop everything and watch this right now.

They’ve talked about expanding for a while, but over the weekend made the announcement that they won’t be staying in their august 1911 building, a former provincial courthouse on Georgia and Hornby streets. Where will the gallery go? Not sure, but directors seem to have ambitious plans and want to stay downtown. The full story is here, from the Globe and Mail.

Also this weekend, the gallery opened the first comprehensive survey by Vancouver artist Brian Jungen, known for sculptures and installations that turn common materials into totems, like this mask fashioned from Nike Air Jordans.

The Jungen show is up through April 30.

From those intellectual titans at The National Review:

GO STEELERS! [Michael Novak] So it’s steeltown America on the rise, the rough and the ready, not a rich team but always fighting and always playing smash-mouth, and running hard, and slashing… and I love it that their opponents this year will be wearing the colors of —hard to comprehend this — Hamas! Couldn’t be a better opponent, who will probably be favored. …. Pittsburgh is the city of the Deerslayer, and the American flag, and always the highest casualty rates in American wars … This is the city where they make steel, the first and the best on any continent. They make steel with white-hot heat, and fire, and rolling mills, in open spaces where men sometimes fell into molten steel, or molten steel spilled on them, and the smell (my old, now dead uncle once told me) was one you never forgot…This is Tough Town U.S.A., tough and vulgar and often mean … and where people have heart, and don’t quit. They don’t ask for a break, and don’t expect one, because they haven’t experienced many. Last quarter, seven minutes to play, and down fourteen points? That’s life! … All of us here are used to it, so lower your head, plow straight on, and be determined not to be stopped, until you win. I love the Pittsburgh spirit. ’ Against Adversity’ is its middle name. Here they pronounce it ‘grit.’

It’s bad enough that all the media can talk about leading up to the game is Pittsburgh, acting like Seattle doesn’t belong there, but now our Hawks are being compared to Hamas?

A new study finds “that supporters of President Bush and other conservatives had stronger self-admitted and implicit biases against blacks than liberals did.” Tell it to New Orleans.

Via Drudge.

Last week’s passage of the gay civil rights bill ushers in a new era in Washington State politics. Read my take on what it means for the major political players, and for further progress on gay rights in this state, here.

Meanwhile, yesterday Tim Eyman announced he will be filing an initiative and a referendum seeking to repeal the gay civil rights bill. (A referendum would require fewer signatures to get on the ballot.)

I sent Eyman an email two days ago with a simple question: “Why are you doing this?”

Still haven’t heard back.

It seems to me that he’s on dangerous ground here, if he cares at all about his reputation. It’s one thing to be known as the man who took on car tabs. It’s quite another to be known as the man who appealed to people’s fears in order to take away basic protections for a minority group.

That will put him in the company of… Well, read the language in his most recent email, and it’s pretty obvious who he’s now in the company of:

For weeks, we’ve been inundated with phone calls, faxes, and emails from supporters appalled at the arrogance of Olympia concerning House Bill 2661. Politicians are deciding based on special interest group pressure and their own reelection calculations. The voters have watched this disgusting display of arrogance and selfishness for weeks. The issue has become hopelessly politicized.

Politicians aren’t thinking about what the voters want. Let the voters decide.

Today’s first word: “evacuees”