U-Distict Street Fair
Three quick impressions…
1. We hadn’t taken three steps on the Ave. before we had what looked like a petition on a clipboard thrust at us. The young volunteer, looking so very earnest, asked us if we supported marriage equality. Sure, we support marriage equality. Then we should sign, she said. I didn’t realize that anyone was trying to get a marriage-equality referendum on the ballot, I said.
“Oh, it’s not a petition.”
She was asking us to hand our names, mailing addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers over to Jamie Pederson, one of the four dozen or so people running to fill Ed Murray’s state in the State House of Representatives.
Huh. Weird. Here was a Pederson volunteer at the U-District Street Fair making it sound like Jamie was the only candidate running in the 43rd who supports marriage equality. We had the same clipboards thrust at us four more times by Pederson volunteers, each making the same appeal—”Do you support marriage equality?”—as we made our way up the Ave. Hm. Interesting—and dishonest.
Uh, Jamie? Don’t you think that’s dishonest? Don’t all the candidates running to fill Murray’s seat—Stephanie Pure, Dick Kelley, Lynne Dodson, Bill Sherman, et all—support marriage equality?
When I asked one of Pederson’s volunteers if any of Jamie’s opponents were against marriage equality, she said she didn’t know for sure—“but probably not,” she added. When I asked why she was out there trying to create the impression that the other candidates in the race were opponents of marriage equality, she said, “To get your attention!” Well, it worked. You got my atttention, Jamie—and lost my vote.
Way to be a weasel, Pederson.
2. Washington state has a fucked up relationship to booze. Oh, sure—we want you to drink it, we tax the hell out of it, and there are ads for booze everywhere. But when it comes to kids, we treat it like it’s some sort of toxin. Beer gardens at our street fairs and festivals have to be walled off, no one under 21 allowed inside. Contrast that to, say, beergardens in Germany, where booze and grownups and kids all mix. It’s all so… civlilzed. Barring children from a beergarden means parents with children can’t go in them—and civilized Germany, unlike barbaric Washington state, recognizes that parents are often most in need of a drink.
Anyway, I’m used to seeing walled off beer gardens that I can’t step inside with my son. Ah, too bad for me—I’ll go have a drink at home. But there’s a new development, it seems, in our keeping walled off: The Moat.
That’s the beer garden at Big Time Brewery behind not one but two fences—the better to keep the beer in and the kiddies—and their parents—out. Ridiculous!
Finally, check out the loneliest place on earth—the Young Republican booth at the U-District Street Fair…
These boys seemed mighty ticked when I stopped to take their picture—I guess it wasn’t bad enough that they have to sit there and suffer, but then some smirking asshole had to rub salt in their self-inflicted wounds by documenting their misery. Sorry, boys.
"Smirking Asshole"?
Dan, you are an accurate writer!