Every time I post lobbying reports or campaign finance reports to highlight the influence that lobbyists have on legislation, I get eye rolls from politicians. “Josh, it just doesn’t work that way.”

So it is to my delight that a politician finally agrees with me. Check out House Democratic Finance Chair Ross Hunter (D-48, Medina) quoted in today’s Seattle Times on the Sonics legislation:

Still, some lawmakers questioned the Sonics’ lobbying effort.

When Seahawks owner Paul Allen was pushing his stadium funding proposal 10 years ago, he unleashed an army of lobbyists and made a high-profile pitch in Olympia.

“The Sonics just have not done that kind of full-court press,” said Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, chairman of the House Finance Committee, who opposed the proposal. “I don’t know that they’re serious.”

Hunter said he got more pressure this year to support public financing for a theater-renovation project in Yakima than from the Sonics.

Come on, Sonics. You heard the man. There is hope for you. Just come back next year and spend some money lobbying these guys. According to the Democrats House Finance Chair, that’s the way it works. I wasn’t wrong after all.

Middle-Earth fans rejoice! J.R.R. Tolkien’s new book The Children of Hurin comes out today. The book was compiled from Tolkien’s notes and an almost-finished draft by his son Christopher.

From the AP:

As the tale begins, Morgoth has destroyed a vast army of elves and men and taken one of its leaders, Hurin, prisoner. The dark lord tries to bend Hurin to his will, but the great man defies him. So Morgoth pronounces a curse on Hurin’s children, Turin and his sister Nienor.

Hold your wad, here’s a sample from the book:

“In this way, before the summer had passed, the following of Turin had swelled to a great force, and the power of Angband was thrown back. Word of this came even to Nargothrond, and many there grew restless.”

I’m going Orc hunting after work. How ‘bout you?

• It’s “Country Night” on American Idol (YEEEEEE-HAW! HOW EMBARRASSING!) and Sanjaya will reportedly be singing “Boot-Scootin’ Boogie.” This I gotta see.

• Remember that episode of The Shield (FX, 10 pm) when Vic mashed that drug dealer’s face against the burner on a stove? Tonight’s episode is gorier than that.

• According to USA Today, our fave teen detective Veronica Mars has already been cancelled. BOOOOOO!!!

• Want to stare into the eyes of The Office’s Jim Halpert all… day… long? Buy this painting of him for only $8.50! (I’m going to pretend we’re playing a prank on Dwight! Sighhhhhh……..)

Shorter Mossback: Housing is expensive? Must be the condo owners’ fault!

Longer Mossback (from Skip Berger’s new column on Crosscut):

The folks at the Sightline Institute take great joy in Seattle’s skipping gaily over the edge into becoming a dense Pugetopolis. They and most of the environmental community have convinced themselves that growth is good, as long as it is stuffed into high-rise shoeboxes that someone has dubbed “green.” Look at Portland’s light rail! Admire Vancouver’s skinny towers! Envy San Francisco’s density!

Hmmm… Ad hominem much, Skip? First, I don’t think enviros like Sightline just take “someone“‘s word when they say their housing is “green.” In fact, they have some really specific standards you might want to check out when you’re done sneering. Second, growth is going to happen no matter what we do (and it ain’t gonna happen in North Dakota, as Goldy points out). Skip’s idea of “old Seattle” appears to be a Seattle with no growth whatsoever, but that’s never been the case. Mossbacks like Skip frequently forget that Seattle has been growing steadily for decades (except for a dip in population between 1960 and 1980, the trend has been steadily upward). If the alternative is sprawl on the Sammamish Plateau (and in Skip’s no-growth Seattle utopia, that would be the only alternative), you’re goddamn right I want to see some “skinny towers” in Seattle. And yeah, we fucked up on light rail, way back in the “good old days”—1969, when Seattle voters rejected Sound Move. We’ve been scrambling to catch up ever since. It’s hard to see what Skip has against light rail, since he mocks it without explaining why, but I’m guessing it’s because it makes people want to live here. And that, in the Mossback view of the world, is a bad thing.

The dense ones, however, believe they are on the winning side of history. Time for a “mission accomplished” lap, perhaps, along with the developers and big business interests that willingly greenwash their corporate goals to co-opt labor, enviros, and progressives into supporting urban development policies that roll over the little guy. This is the coalition that powers Greg Nickels’ machine, the mayor who can’t say no to “more.”

Well, Will at Horse’s Ass responds to this one best, so I’ll just quote him here:

What an unbelievable load of shit. Labor, enviros, and progressives all want more growth inside urban boundaries for different reasons. Union guys who swing hammers get construction work. Environmentalists like the fact that denser urban development is energy efficient and allows people to walk to work. Progressives like it because, well… it’s cool. And we don’t want to move to Auburn.

Exactly. And because, if you accept the fact that demand will continue to rise, increasing the supply of housing is a good thing. Supply doesn’t create demand—it responds to it (thanks, as Sightline’s Clark Williams-Derry points out in his comprehensive response, to “demographic trends … that Seattle policymakers have essentially no control over”). If supply remains static while demand continues to rise, the price of the available housing stock goes up. If the market responds to demand (by increasing the supply of housing), housing won’t suddenly become cheap, but affordable housing will be much easier to come by than it would be in Skip’s no-growth paradise. (Hell, I’ve never had to pay more than $850 a month, and I have a pretty nice market-rate apartment. But I’m guessing Skip hasn’t actually looked for cheap housing in a decade or two.) I’m not saying we shouldn’t have incentives for the creation of affordable housing—we should, and we do. But, as de Place notes, opposing condos qua condos is idiotic:

[T]hink of what would happen if there were no new apartments, duplexes, townhouses or condos in Seattle — say, if the city council passed a law that downzoned all of the land that’s currently zoned for multi-family housing, or put some sort of moratorium on new construction. … Housing close to downtown would reach even more ridiculous levels. Young folks of moderate means would have no option but to move far away from the city center, to distant suburbs where — quite literally — all of the new housing would be located.

Back to Mossback:

We know that these green-backed policies are making the city more unaffordable. They are helping to drive the poor out of town. They are displacing long-standing communities. They are changing the scale of a once-egalitarian city that featured few poor people, few rich people, and a lot of folks in between. This old middle class Seattle is now seen as unsophisticated, not worthy of protection, backward even.

No, “we” don’t “know” that. What we do know is that the poor are being driven out of town by a lack of affordable housing. Building more dense, affordable housing will help remedy that—putting a moratorium on new development won’t. And whether the egalitarian Seattle Skip remembers from the ’70s was better or worse than today’s more stratified city is, ultimately, irrelevant. Cities aren’t like that anymore—anywhere (or at least anywhere people want to live. I hear Oklahoma City’s still pretty affordable). Nostalgia won’t make that model come back.

I loved San Francisco when I lived there in the mid-70s — the era of Patty Hearst, Rolling Stone, Harvey Milk, Tales of the City, Herb Caen, and Italian mayors. I love it still when I visit. But what made San Francisco is something you cannot copy. It has to do with when a city is built, by whom, and when it comes of age. It has a unique essence we couldn’t replicate if we built a thousand Victorian homes on our hills.

So… There is a city Skip doesn’t hate? Nope:

But while many of San Francisco’s charms are intact — it was a city built for pleasure, unlike our nanny town — the city of today is less than it once was. Even in the 1970s, natives, the few you could find, complained that it had gone downhill, had lost it neighborly, even small-town, charm. As [Gore] Vidal observed, the Seattle it always imagined itself to be. Since 1950, San Francisco has not only stolen hearts but robbed bank accounts: Real estate prices have increased at double the national average for the past half century. The New San Francisco is truly a Golden Gated community.

Today’s San Francisco is unbelievably expensive. A city for rich people. Its black population all but driven out. … Has San Francisco’s density and affluence, has its progressive politics, redeemed the Bay Area? Did it save it from becoming a megalopolis? If Seattle doubles its density to match San Francisco’s, if we take down the Alaskan Way Viaduct, if we cater to “knowledge workers,” can we be assured that central Puget Sound will remain less paved?

Obviously, San Francisco is a fantastically expensive place to buy a house. But even this “megalopolis” does have a substantial low-income population—thanks not to a ban on new condos, but to affordable-housing policies that allow poor people to live in the city. (Thirty thousand people live in subsidized or public housing in San Francisco proper, according to the city’s housing office). And while no one’s claiming that “catering to ‘knowledge workers’” will render central Puget Sound magically pristine, building freeways and protecting dying industries rather than tearing down the viaduct and nurturing growing industries like biotech will help destroy the environment and the economy, respectively.

But maybe, ultimately, that’s what Skip wants: An environment so ravaged by cars and an economy so pre-modern that people will just stop moving here. And then the urban density proponents’ vision—the “Ecotopia” at which Skip sneers—will be replaced by an ugly, polluted, underpopulated small town where only Mossbacks want to live.

Today Lambda Legal announced that it is filing suit against the city of Bellevue, seeking equal benefits for the city’s gay and lesbian employees and using a firefighters and a 911 operator as the faces of this effort.

And in Oregon, the state House of Representatives approved domestic partnership and anti-discrimination bills.

Really?
Really.
Pulitzer Prize–winning David Mamet?
Yes, Pulitzer Prize–winning David Mamet has directed TWO commercials for Ford.
Car commercials?
Car commercials.

Mamet only directed the commercials. The “dialogue” was apparently written in Mamet’s trademark style by an ad agency.

Watch them at your own peril:

Moorman’s Tour Tales: And his dreams about the Trashies.

DJ Mehdi: Ed Banger’s YouTube treasures.

Hearting the Hackensaw Boys: Before he was in Modest Mouse, Tom Peloso played bluegrass.

Drummer Boys: Speaker Speaker’s Jasen Samford interviews Chris Wilson, his idol.

Combat Rock: Admit it. You think it’s the best Clash record too.

House Party: Simian Mobile Disco want to play at your place.

And now for something cute:

Once upon a time everything we knew about Colorado we learned watching Mork & Mindy. Then one day the American Evangelical Movement upped and move to Colorado, turning Colorado Springs into their batshitcrazy Vatican, and in 1992 Colorado voters passed an anti-gay-rights amendment to their state constitution. (It was later overturned by the US Supreme Court.) Colorado voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004.

So Colorado—it’s a red state, right?

Maybe not. Something is up in Colorado. In the last few weeks Colorado state legislators—did you know that Colorado has a Dem governor and that Dems control both houses of the Colorado legislature?—passed a pro-gay adoption law; now state legislators are moving on a law that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace.

What’s going on in Colorado? I put that question to Noel Black, one of the crazed geniuses behind the late, great Toilet Paper and now Newspeak, and a resident of Colorado Springs. Here’s Noel’s take:

Yes, it’s a good questions why Colorado is suddenly a bastion of pro-gay state legislation like THIS, and THIS.

We’ve got a Dem in the governor’s mansion (Bill Ritter) and a Dem controlled house and senate. In all honesty, I have no fucking idea why this is happening beyond what my “work spouse” (isn’t that a disgusting term!?), Aaron Retka, posted HERE. Pointed out as the obvious, Retka says: Ted Haggard pretty much ruined the credibility of evangelicals everywhere, George Bush and the Republicans on the national level are fuckin’ up the program for lesser neo-cons everywhere, the war is dumb, etc.

Jay Ferguson, a friend who works for the rapidly growing El Paso Country Democratic Party here in Colorado Springs, notes that, “the thing that’s interesting in Colorado is that if you look at it is as a whole, we’re basically divided neatly into thirds between dems, republicans and independents. So it really just depends on which way the wind is blowing.” He believes the numbers show that Colorado will continue to blow even farther blue for forseeable future.

He also pointed out that social issues aren’t on people’s minds right now as much as things like water, and our lack of it. And Ritter ran on energy and water. A lot of the new democratic legislators also ran on issues of energy and they tend pragmatically progressive. Jay also suggested that many repubs may have voted for Ritter and other democratic legislators because if we run out of water, the housing boom will end and wealthy areas like Castle Rock and South Denver are going to be hard hit.

Now, there’s the paradox of Referendum I, which was also on the ballot in November 06 and got beat 60/40 53/47. That ref would’ve legalized civil unions for same-sex couples, and polls at the time suggested that it had about a 50/50 shot at passage. Jay again pointed out an odd fact about the way Colorado voters tend to behave at the polls: We almost always vote no on amendments we don’t fully understand or don’t think can be reversed. Interestingly, says Jay, Ref I simple didn’t motivate a lot of voters and didn’t end up being a wedge at all. So, even though Ref I lost in the election, polls indicated that there was enough political will to begin passing progressive protections for queers in the legislature.

It is intersting that the Dems will be holding their convention in Denver in 08. I think they see Colorado as a model for state tipping.

Noel

This is Mark Hollis:

Let’s begin with the birth of architecture. One old theory goes that architecture was born when a clearing was made for a god to appear. In the 20th century, another theory (this time ontological, rather than architectural) proposed that for being to be disclosed to the self a clearing needed to be made. The clearing at this point of history was for a human being and not a supreme being. But deep in the 20th century, long after the death of god (Schopenhauer) and the death of man (Foucault), the band Talk Talk made a clearing of rock music for a part pagan/part Christian spirit to appear in. The rock song is “I Believe In You,” the outstanding track on The Spirit of Eden (1988).

In “I Believe In You,” the drum beat is wide open, and melodies (from the electric guitar, harmonium, and organ) float in and out of this space. The singer, Hollis, calls out to a spirit, letting it know that a clearing of music has been made for it. And a spirit does appear! In fact it appears twice! The first time, it’s a faint, blue orb of a boy’s voice. Its volume increases a bit…and then it altogether vanishes. By the sound of their instruments, we can tell that the members of Talk Talk are startled by this occurrence, this miniature miracle, but the beat doesn’t stop. A few more measures, a few more melodies, a few more calls from Hollis, and the boy angel returns in full glory. It’s a glowing alto of prepubescent purity, a sky bliss of blue, a heavenly whole mouth open. The spirit is there before the rock stars and it doesn’t vanish until the song ends in peace. The clearing is closed and has remained closed ever since.

There’s a poll out there. (I think I’m sparring with Goldy about it.) But I’m not sure we’re disagreeing. I’m not even sure what he’s saying. I’m saying: I think it’s unfair and self defeating to be required to vote for roads to get mass transit.

Anyway, the whole thing started cuz Goldy published the results of a Sound Transit poll on the joint light rail/roads measure (61 percent in favor) to disprove the notion that it would flop in November.

Problem is: The data isn’t so solid. When the pollsters tested the negatives (see questions 54-60), they basically just toss out some boiler plate anti-government, anti-tax stuff like “Taxes are too high already, we can’t afford another $16 billion,” rather than offering up the real negatives like: Oh, despite this $16 billion package, there’s not actually enough money earmarked here to finish the 520 project. Oh, and, if you knew that mainstream environmental groups were coming out against this package, would you still vote for it?

If they had asked those kinds of questions, the positive numbers would have surely come down.

Additionally, they don’t test the real ballot title. Here’s the real ballot title: “Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID) and Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Prop. #1 Regional Roads and Transit System.”

Go to question #15 to see the title they tested. It’s all about the great projects the measure would fund. Pollster wonks tell me testing the real title makes a big difference.

More important, I’d like to see stand-alone polling done on a light rail ballot measure and a roads ballot measure. My guess is that light rail would do just fine and roads would not. So, why are we voting for roads?

This video is so funny.

It stars Will Ferrell and a small child screaming at him.

I would just post it here, but unfortunately it does that annoying “auto-play” thing, and we couldn’t turn it off. So you’ll have to click on the link to enjoy. But it’s worth it, I promise.

I can’t stop laughing.

And thanks to Danny O. for the link.

Killing time, killing space: Turns out Cho Seung-Hui was a playwright.

Here is a page from his short play Mr. Brownstone.

Here is a page from his short play Richard McBeef.

Where is the Seattle company that will produce these works immediately? They’re both crude, but Mr. Brownstone, I’m guessing, was written later. It feels more mature and has more surprising language. Mr. Brownstone, the villainous math teacher is described as “such a wicked old flapper.” The kids sing—and parse—the Guns ‘n’ Roses song. One character sighs: “After a long, ravishing day at school, we just want to be left alone.”

I like that phrase—a long, ravishing day.

Whatever with polls. But, for the first time, a majority of the U.S. believes we will “lose” in Iraq.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is up late one night when he starts to slip back in time slowly, just a little bit, so that he sees the war movie he’s watching on TV in reverse. From page 74:

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby…

The teachings of Alexyss Tylor, reportedly a kooky superstar on Atlanta public access, here discussing the threat of doggish men turning women into dildo-wielding come junkies. (NSFW audio, so use your headphones and watch to the end—the last few seconds are priceless.)

(Thank you, Nick and Nico.)

This week: John Derbyshire of the National Review.

As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can’t hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren’t bad.

Yes, yes, I know it’s easy to say these things: but didn’t the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It’s true—none of us knows what he’d do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I’d at least take a run at the guy.

Stupid victims. Why didn’t you man-up?

UPDATE: Christ, here’s another one. From Nathanael Blake at right-wing booby hatch Human Events:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture. Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage. And not a one of the healthy young fellows in the classrooms seems to have done that.

When Kip Kinkle opened fire in Thurston High School a few years back, he was taken down by students, led by one who was already wounded. Why didn’t that happen here?

Like Derb, I don’t know if I would live up to this myself, but I know that I should be heartily ashamed of myself if I didn’t. Am I noble, courageous and self-sacrificing? I don’t know; but I should hope to be so when necessary.

I don’t know if you’re “noble, courageous and self-sacrificing” either, Nathanael. But I do know your post makes you a walking colostomy bag.

If Garbes’ review of JoAnna’s Soul Cafe got you hungry for gumbo, honey-dipped fried chicken, and such, but the parenthetical prices got you mournful about the state of your wallet, get yourself to the Rose Pedal Cafe, for Ms. Helen is back. (One of her previous returns is documented here.) The name of the place puts you in mind of riding a bicycle made of flowers directly into Ms. Helen’s loving embrace, does it not?

Condos are evil, screams the condophobe. Oh, blow it out your mossy butt says Will over at Horsesass:

Truth is, Skip’s no-growth heroes (Brian Derdowski being one of them) were never for zero-growth. They just believed growth should pay for itself. And, growth should be funneled away from undeveloped areas and into cities. You know, like Seattle. So Skip’s anti-growth beliefs are really just a part of the problem. After all, if a young couple can’t buy a townhome in Seattle, they’ll buy a house in Sammamish.

We know that these green-backed policies are making the city more unaffordable. They are helping to drive the poor out of town. They are displacing long-standing communities. They are changing the scale of a once-egalitarian city that featured few poor people, few rich people, and a lot of folks in between. This old middle class Seattle is now seen as unsophisticated, not worthy of protection, backward even.

The middle class folks who bought houses in the 50’s have sold them in their old age. Houses that went for 20 grand back in the old days are now 900k investments that have paid off. The middle class of Seattle’s yesteryear has cashed out.

Skip is against growth inside the city. He’s also against growth outside the city, as he’s favored growth management far and above the current law. Where does he want growth? Fucking North Dakota.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

The serial killer has been replaced by the mass murderer. The serial killer works in time, whereas the mass murderer works in space. The reason for this transition? New DNA technology and increased surveillance (or infoscape systems) have made it more difficult to kill many over time. Without DNA technology Ridgeway would still be a free man; and as for Pickton—who is alleged to have killed over 20 women in a wide area of time—because he erased the visible traces of his victims (they were eaten by his pigs), the case against him is largely built on DNA evidence. But corresponding with significant improvements in DNA technology, there has been significant improvements in weapon technology (the rate of rounds, the power and speed of bullets, and so on). From the advancements made in both technologies results the shift from killing in time to killing in space. All of this is a matter of adaptation for the killer.

It looks like I’m not the only editor/perv that finds the American Idol inexplicably alluring. (Actually I find his allure is entirely explicable.) The editors of Maxim Magazine—the magazine for straight boys that lack Internet connections but still require jerk-off material—has named Sanjaya their “Girl of the Day.”

You’ve no one but the Devil’s lawyer to blame for this androgynous American Idol stowaway, who, despite being detested by the judges, somehow remains in the hunt for the show’s coveted prize as this year’s top 40 footnote…

Yeah, somehow Sanjaya remains in the hunt, week after torturous week. Somehow.

The Stranger is proud to announce the First Annual Pride Parade Awards. We’re still hammering out the details—but now that it’s a sure thing I wanted to get the news out right away so that people can get their asses in gear and create some kick-ass floats for this year’s pride parade. The Stranger will be awarding four cash prizes recognizing the best floats or marching contingents. These prizes will be handed at Seattle Center immediately after the parade…

Gold/First Prize: $2,000
Silver/Second Prize: $1250
Bronze/Third Prize: $1000
Honorable Mention: $250
Honorable Mention: $250

And, yes, the winners will also get medals to wear around their necks and everything!

Who’ll be judging best floats? Stranger ‘mos—me, Eli Sanders, David Schmader, Amy Jenniges—along with Ed Murray, Jamie Pedersen, Sally Clark, and other notable ‘mos to be named later.

A few years back some local folks offered cash prizes for best entries in the pride parade—and mad props, as the kids once said, to them for their efforts (especially you, Greg)—but there was never much excitement about those awards. That was probably because the prize money didn’t to go the “winners,” but to a community-based non-profit chosen by the winners.

Not anymore: Pull together a kick-ass float, a great marching contingent, or stunning individual costume and you—your group, your bar, you and your creative friends—can do whatever you like with your prize money. You can spend it on boys and beer or girls and Gatorade. Or, hell, you can give it a community-based non-profit of your choosing. But it’s your prize money. It’s our way of rewarding folks who go out of their way every year to make the Seattle’s Pride Parade bigger, better, and more spectacular—the best party in town—and encouraging more people to get in on the fun.

More details to come—watch for news on Slog, in The Stranger, or over at the SeattlePride.org. But start brainstorming with your friends now about what you’re doing for the pride parade this year. Go for the Gold!

Originally posted last Friday, moved up to keep spreading the word.

The Prayer Warrior, in D.C. today on a lobbying trip, pauses to reflect on the Virginia Tech tragedy but then pushes forward with his efforts to prevent hate crimes legislation…

Dear Prayer Warriors,

Due to the terrible tragedy at Virginia Tech yesterday, the decision was made to cancel the press conference regarding the hate crime bill. As God is so gracious and sovereign in all His ways, He has allowed us to give individual interviews to various TV and Radio shows here in the DC area. Please continue to pray for the families of those who lost their lives in the shootings at Virginia Tech and for the family of the young man who did the shooting. God will make something good out of this.

At 11:00 AM PST, 2:00 PM EST, I will be addressing the Conservative Group of Congress regarding the hate crime bill and all that it will do to negatively impact churches, if it is passed. Please pray that I will be God’s voice to speak the truth and that they will hear the truth and act accordingly.

Thank you again for your prayers, they are fervent and righteous!

Pastor Hutch

Only the most masochistic TV viewers (like me) watch Dancing with the Stars every week — primarily because we are still not-so-secretly wishing for HEATHER MILLS’ prosthetic leg to go flying off into the crowd like so much NASCAR wreckage. And while our wish didn’t come true last night, Heather’s fakey leg did turn against her at the end of her routine, sending her bouncing on her butt. Naturally, the judges thought her fall was ADORABLE and praised her bravery for so elegantly landing on her ass. Ummm… hey judges… she’s got a fake leg, she’s not RETARDED.
Let’s go to the video! (BTW, her partner—who is retarded—got his chest shaved, hence all the “oil and hair” jokes. Ew.)

(MUSIC) One shouldn’t appreciate Ted Leo just for his badass guitar playing and knack for writing passionate and intelligent pop songs that’ll make you think and dance. You’ve also got to admire a man who can pull off a bright-pink T-shirt with white jeans and still look completely hot and not gay in the least (not that there’s anything wrong with that). See preview. (Showbox, 1426 First Ave, 628-3151. 8 pm, $15, all ages.) MEGAN SELING

That’s what Jeff Jahn over at PORT is calling the new plans for an exhibition program that will overhaul the Oregon Biennial and instead turn it into the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards: an authoritative, curated, $10,000 award-ceremony with an in-depth, small-roster exhibition attached.

The decision by Portland Art Museum director Brian Ferriso, chief curator Bruce Guenther, and Northwest curator Jennifer Gately sounds like it will certainly ramp up the museum’s biennial in scope and excitement. Portland carves out a place of authority for itself with living artists this way; it’s a position Seattle or Tacoma could have taken, but didn’t.

Selections begin not with an open call, but with a nomination process.

The Museum will invite a select group of respected arts professionals, including regional curators, scholars, dealers, writers, artists, and critics, to nominate visual artists based on the quality of their work, innovation, skill, relevance to community or global issues in the arts, continuity of vision, commitment to their practice, and level of development in their career. Nominees may be both emerging and well established artists currently living and working in the Northwest, defined by the Museum as Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

“What excites me most about this new approach is its organic, community-oriented nature that engages with the region’s great wealth of arts professionals. In essence, the program’s success is a reflection of them and the result will be something that has the potential to be highly regarded nationally, much like San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s SECA Award,” said Gately.

Working with a special guest curatorial advisor from outside the region, Gately will review the nominees’ materials and select finalists whose studios she will visit. The Museum is pleased to announce the curatorial advisor for this inaugural exhibition will be James Rondeau, Curator and Frances and Thomas Dittmer Chair of the Department of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

By December Gately plans to present her findings to the Museum’s curatorial staff and announce the award recipients. The number of recipients selected will vary depending on the quality and scale of work. The work of these artists will be will be featured in the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards exhibition opening in June 2008. At that time, the recipient of the first Arlene Schnitzer Prize will be announced.

“This approach will provide an opportunity to experience a greater number of works by a given artist than is possible in survey-style biennials, thus allowing for a deeper understanding of the artists’ concerns and creative practices,” said Gately.

According to Jahn’s post, the nominees who are shortlisted and who get studio visits with the curators will be announced, a la Turner Prize. (The museum, Jahn writes, is still deciding whether to publicize the nominating committee.)

I’ve written extensively about what I thought were the procedural contradictions and tediums that sucked the wind out of this year’s Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum.

The Seattle Art Museum’s only comparable effort is the annual Betty Bowen Award, which doles out about $11,000 to an artist in an entirely private process. Michael Darling, SAM modern and contemporary curator, is already making the Betty Bowen more appealing by setting aside room in the downtown museum for a solo show for each year’s winner. But what about the selection process there? I hope Darling and other art professionals get the chance to become more active in that, too.

Don’t sleep with gay men that use crystal meth.

Men who have sex with men and used crystal methamphetamine in the last year were five times more likely to test HIV-positive than MSM who did not use the drug, according to preliminary data collected by the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, the Los Angeles Times reports. The center also found that 25% of the 6,360 MSM it tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in 2006 reported using crystal meth at least once, compared with 18% of the 5,300 MSM tested in 2005. Mike Rizzo, the center’s manager of crystal meth recovery services, said 43% of people newly infected with HIV report some meth use. “There’s no doubt in the minds of most experts that meth contributes not only to the transmission of HIV but other” STIs, Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said.

Ahem: This is not a Nancy Reaganesque, just-say-no message. We want you to say yes to other drugs, better drugs, less destructive drugs.

Via Towleroad.

The gays!

We’re so welcome in Virginia, you see, the state with the most draconian anti-gay laws in the country. So Fred Phelps and the rest of the gang from the Westboro Baptist Church are planning to picket the funerals of the victims of yesterday’s shootings.

Via Sullivan:

Imagine that this kind of massacre happened every day. Imagine a police force that was far too small to even respond to most of them. Imagine this occurring repeatedly for years until the perpetrators and their accomplices became the de facto power-brokers throughout the land. Imagine the shootings also being accompanied by the brutal torture of victims. Imagine families never having finality on whether their own siblings or parents or children have been murdered or not.

This is Iraq today. Now think of the justified rage many feel at the VT campus police chief and university president for misjudgments. Now imagine them presiding over several more massacres in the same place. Ask yourself: why do we not feel as enraged by those responsible for security in Iraq? Are those victims not human beings too? Are they not children and mothers and fathers and sons? Are we not ultimately responsible for them, having destroyed the institutions of order in their country? Now go watch John Bolton tell the victims to go help themselves.

Virginia Tech Massacre: Gunman, identified as student Cho Seung-Hui, murders over 30 in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

Iraq: Democratic Congress squares off with Bush over war funding.

Darfur: Sudan allows 3,000 UN peacekeepers in, stalling immediate sanctions.

Sonics: Tax subsidy fizzles out in Olympia.

2007 Pulitzer Prizes: The Oregonian’s report on stranded family wins for breaking news and The Boston Globe’s coverage of Bush’s signing statement strategy wins for national coverage. And in music, good god, man the Pulitzer list also includes — Ornette Coleman!?!

2007 Fortune 500: Wal-Mart and Exxon top the list. Washington companies include, in order by revenues: Costco, Microsoft, WaMu, Weyerhaeuser, Paccar, Amazon, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Safeco, Expeditors Int’l (?), Alaska Air, Puget Energy, Expedia, Plum Creek Timber (?), and Potlach (?)

Sen. Barack Obama: His personal income drops to $991,296