I’m watching the (pretty damned spectacular) fireworks emanating from the private party at Gasworks. Did anyone figure out who it was that got married in such a fantastic fashion tonight?

Should Seattle be a center for biotech? “At South Lake Union, we are building a center of excellence in life sciences,” says the mayor. Vulcan has voraciously devoured tax and zoning breaks in the name of biotech in Seattle. Will it work?

Tremendous potential exists in Seattle. Last year the university pulled in over a billion dollars in highly competitive research grants—no minor feat in George W Bush’s America. Grants getting funded in a hyper-competitive environment, only the top 18% or so were funded last year, tells you Seattle is filled with talented and hard working scientists. No other public university does as well. Seattle is geographically isolated in just the right way—1700 miles from Minneapolis and 800 miles from San Francisco, but close enough to the other major hubs to get quick shipments in of reagents—to assure unusual ideas, novel ideas, and heretical ideas can take hold and provide protection against groupthink from the better integrated hubs of California or the East Coast.

Seattle’s real potential ace is the confluence of biotech and computer science talent—second only to the bay area. Thanks to new tools, biologists can generate huge volumes of data. Whoever better processes this mass of data, reaching petabytes nationwide, will lead the next era in biology. Call it systems biology, data mining, bio-informatics, whatever; any place doing it well will rule the field. Rightfully, Seattle should be leading this field. We probably won’t.

So, how are we messing it up?

Continue reading "Building Biotech In Seattle" »

Tune in at 7pm. This week, Dan Savage will be on.

Disagree with everything he says on Slog? Now’s your chance.

That’s 710 on the AM dial.

Patti Smith (LIVING LEGEND) In the pantheon of rock originals, Patti Smith is one of the original originals. Since exploding onto the scene with 1975’s breathtaking Horses, Smith’s spent the past three decades honing her visionary marriage of performance-art poetry and ass-kicking rock ‘n’ roll. Lunkhead lore posits the 21st-century Smith as an admirable shadow of her earlier self, but fuck that: She’s Patti Smith, and tonight, she’s at the Showbox. (Showbox, 1426 First Ave, ticketmaster.com. 8 pm, $25, 21+.) DAVID SCHMADER

More Stranger Suggests for this week.

Just after 11pm last night, two men were shot on the 1500 block of 1st avenue. One of the men was taken to Harborview with life-threatening injuries. The police have not released a motive for the shooting, but the good ol’ puritanical PI seems to have figured things out:

The shooting occurred about 11:30 p.m., and the two victims were reported to be wounded on the east sidewalk in the 1500 block of First Avenue, near Deja Vu Showgirls - a strip club across the street from the Pike Place Market. A block to the south, there was a scheduled concert at The Showbox featuring Devin the Dude, a Houston-based rapper.

It was unclear early Saturday what motivated the shooting, exactly where it took place or whether it involved any of those attending the concert at The Showbox.

Nice work, guys.

UPDATE:

SPD Spokesman Jeff Kappel says there was “nothing to indicate [the shooting] was involved with the Showbox”

He’s talking about bringing back the draft.

A couple of decades after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded—that was the shuttle with the school teacher on board—NASA finally managed to successfully get a school teacher into orbit yesterday. But will they be able to get her back down?

NASA discovered a worrisome gouge on Endeavour’s belly soon after the shuttle docked with the international space station Friday, possibly caused by ice that broke off the fuel tank a minute after liftoff.

The gouge - about 3 inches square - was spotted in zoom-in photography taken by the space station crew shortly before Endeavour delivered teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates to the orbiting outpost.

“What does this mean? I don’t know at this point,” said John Shannon, chairman of the mission management team.

City Attorney Tom Carr has rebuffed a request,
from the NAACP and attorney Chris Carney, to prosecute Seattle Police Officers Marcos Ortiz and David Blackmer for their involvement in Carl Sandidge’s Tasering and arrest in 2005.

Carr’s office believes the case wouldn’t be prosecutable because officers are entitled to use force.

After an investigation into Sandidge’s case, the Office of Professional Accountability recommended the officers receive “supervisory intervention” for their actions.

UPDATE: Sandidge’s attorney, Chris Carney says he’s “disappointed, but certainly not surprised, that the city attorney has declined to file charges in the matter. This illustrates oversight of the police by an agency that is to intertwined with the police is not effective. We’re going to file charges ourselves.”

Carney says he’ll file a complaint next week.

Somewhere far below, Dan mentioned something or other about some schmoe getting busted for porking a goat.

Lucky fucking goat.

Warning. Do not watch this.

Comments? Questions? Mitt Romney? Anyone?

Documentaries are the stars this week—August is a dumping ground for mediocre big movies, so it’s a good time to experiment with cinemathèques and art houses.

In On Screen this week: the Iraq occupation doc No End in Sight (“From the initial invasion, to the months of looting, to the disastrous disbanding of the Iraqi military, de-Baathification, and the current[ly failing] troop surge, the film is a step-by-step guide to building an insurgency from the ground up,” says Lindy West)…

… the wacky but not quite fantacky Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust (note to Stephen Holden: Gwyneth would have made an insipid star); another doc, Ghosts of Cité Soleil, about pro-Aristide gangsters in Haiti’s largest slum (“a flash of glamour too terrible and too politicized to burn very long,” I wrote); Daddy Day Camp (“Take your kids to see Ratatouille. Fuck, take ‘em to see Underdog! Just please, please, please do not take them to Daddy Day Camp,” begs Megan Seling); Live-In Maid (“an unusually sensitive and fascinating portrait of what money and work mean to women of a certain age,” says Jen Graves); Molière (“Because it’s a pure fantasy, the film offers the viewer no education; because it’s not a work of art, it offers the viewer’s soul no enrichment,” says Charles Mudede); Rocket Science (“The director of this wholly unoriginal indie flick, Jeffery Blitz, also made Spellbound,” Charles observes); and Rush Hour 3 (“lazy, lunky, and spectacularly stupid,” says Bradley Steinbacher).

For limited runs this week, which include the SIFF alums Bamako (a mild drama/heavy globalization thesis from the extremely interesting director Abderrahmane Sissako) and I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal (an interesting character, but the film doesn’t quite do him justice), Traffic (Jacques Tati’s penultimate film, and the last to be distributed theatrically), and Twisted Flicks: Cat-Women of the Moon (actually, I think I’d rather see this one with the original dialogue), see Get Out.

Gay dad?

A new Meetup Group—FeatherBoaFathers—is ready to meet all your gay dad Meetup needs. The group is for gay men with young children that want their kids to see other families that look like their own. It’s also for dads that want to “have fun while investing in their children”—and, no, I’m not sure what that means exactly. (Margaritas concealed in water bottles?) The group was founded a couple of weeks ago, and their events have been very well-attended. Their next Meetup is at 11 AM in Cal Anderson park on Capitol Hill, and 46 members are planning to go.

It’s time to get together!

We’ll meet up at the Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill near the playground. Blankets, chairs, brunchables to share will make this a wonderful way to meet each other.

Please share this information with other dads that you know whether single, coupled with a newborn or a toddler.

More info here.

In the City Council’s internal newsletter, Legis-Letter, clerk staff archivist Julie Kerssen regularly writes a “Who Knew? Archives Find of the Month” column.

This month, in what seems like a dig at Mayor Nickels’s nightlife crackdown, Kerssen rerports on the pending Rock and Roll Riot.

Who Knew? Archives Find of the Month

Several Clerk Files from 1957 contain letters from teenagers (all girls) protesting the city’s refusal to allow Elvis Presley the use of the Civic Auditorium, apparently over concern about potential unruly behavior by youth attending the concert. The arguments took several tacks, with some following the fairness angle. One girl wrote, “What did we teen-agers ever do to deserve this? Nothing!…Why have we teenagers of Seattle been refused when teen-agers all over the U.S. have not?” Many contended that Seattle’s youth were being condemned based on what those in other cities had done. An Elvis Fan Club member asked, “Are we the kids in the other towns? No we are not…Then why are you afraid we’ll start something?” Another girl attempted to reassure the Council that “so many kids want a chance to see him, that they wouldn’t let a riot start.”

Others defended the music itself. A girl from Renton argued, “The reason some people don’t like him is usually because he has a different way of singing, and people don’t like anything that’s different.” A Seattle teen wrote, “Elvis has a good ‘beat’ to his music. It’s different. It isn’t this drawn out mushy slow music.” Another argued, “Think of when the Charleston was the craze and the teen-agers were crazy over Sinatra!”

However, one girl conveyed a different message than she intended when she wrote, “I want Elvis Presley to come to Seattle because we have never had a Rock and Roll riot in Seattle before, and I think it would really be fun.

Last week, while Seattle skaters were fighting over Seattle Center’s scraps, Portland had a skateboard art show and half-pipe, set up in front of CITY FUCKING HALL!

Maybe if Seattle’s City Hall Park was turned into a skatepark, it’d take care of the crack problem.

The race to fill moderate Republican Norm Maleng’s spot as King County Prosecutor (Maleng died in May) is between two Democrats who are facing off in the primary, Keith Scully and Bill Sherman, and Maleng’s longtime chief of staff, Republican Dan Satterberg.

Trying to coast in as Maleng’s heir apparent, Satterberg is pitching himself as a mellow, moderate Republican.

That would ring much truer if Satterberg’s main consultant wasn’t Polis Political Services, headed up by Stan Shore.

Stan Shore is the infamous GOP consultant who landed in the NYT several years ago for cooking up a rotten Republican scheme.

Shore got caught organizing and paying for a Green Party nominating convention—and paying the filing fee for, and convincing, a young Green candidate to enter a hotly contested state legislative race to siphon votes from the Democrats.

Simultaneously, Shore’s wife was pushing a Green candidate in a King County Council race where one of Shore’s clients, Republican oddball Pam Roach, was running against Democrat Julia Patterson.

The PI reported at the time:

Han [18-year-old Green Party candidate Young Han] said Shore and Donovan contacted him after learning he had intended to run. They took him to lunch and urged him to run, and Shore gave him a $250 campaign contribution — all without revealing that Shore was a professional Republican political operative. Han now says he will give that money back.

The outraged editorials at Shore’s crass partisan trickery were forthcoming. And the Democrats called for an investigation.

So far, Satterberg has paid Shore’s Polis Political Services $2,000 for his consulting work.

Should we expect a Green to show up in the general?

Stay tuned for Satterberg’s comments on Shore.

UPDATE:
Satterberg reports that he had to throw a campaign team together pretty fast in the wake of Maleng’s death, and having never run for office before, turned to Shore, who he’d met in 1996 when Shore worked on Maleng’s gubernatorial run. He says he likes Shore’s sense of humor, and he was not aware of the Green Party stunt from 2001. He says Shore is doing mailings, letters, and yard signs for him.

Gong Li voted China’s Most Beautiful Person!
If Li is the most beautiful person in China, this automatically means she is the most beautiful person in the known universe.

Zhang Ziyi was voted the fourth most beautiful person in the universe:

Li Yuchun got second:

This is Zhang Ziyi in the movie Banquet:

This is the heart and blood of Beijing:

In this week’s Stranger, bright red fliers for this weekend’s Lake Fest were lovingly tucked between the pages of the Chow section.

I’ve had a copy of the ad staring me in the face but yesterday, I noticed a peculiar listing in the bottom right corner of the flier:

6-9pm Rochambeau Tournament

What, what, what???

As far as I knew, Rochambeau looked something like this:

Apparently not.

I called the Lake Fest people to see if they were going to have a real-live nut-kicking competition.

They aren’t.

Their version of Rochambeu looks like this:

Although they will be holding a game of kickball. Tee hee.

Am I the only one who didn’t know Rochambeau was just a silly name for rock, paper, scissors?

UPDATE: For more on the history of Rochambeau, go here.

Ok. On Monday, y’all went crazy because I posted photos from The Montana Testicle Festival and I put little black bars over all the naughty bits.

And these are NSFW, I repeat NSFW.

Testy Part One

Testy Part Two*

*Cameo by Matt Powers at the end. For you, Mr. Poe.

by Rebecca Tapscott

Affordable housing is a major issue in Seattle right now. And the landscape is not good for middle-income, low-income—and by definition—young people.

The cost of a single-family Seattle home has risen nearly 100 percent in the past decade, pushing young would-be buyers to rentals outside of the city.

Additionally, increasing rents on King County apartments (up nine percent this year), magnify the trend.

On a related note, developers are reaping the financial rewards of converting low-priced rentals to condominiums that now sell for $250,000. The high returns have resulted in a 450% increase in conversion rates since 2004—and a potential loss of 3,900 low-cost rentals. (All the candidates told us they supported the condo conversion cap that Seattle unsuccessfully shopped in Olympia last year.)

We looked into public records to check out this year’s candidates’ housing status: Where they lived; the value of their house; or (horrors) were they a renter? One candidate has a home valued over $1 million (Bruce Herrell) and two were renters (Lauren Briel and Scott Feldman.)

We don’t want to persecute candidates for owning fancy houses in nice neighborhoods. But we are interested in how their living experience might influence what they think about housing issues. For example, for those candidates that live in single-family homes—are they willing to support legislation that will increase density at the cost of neighborhood comfort?

We also asked them to guess the average rent on a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle (correct answer: $1010.

*This slog includes only council members we could reach for comment.

POSITION 1
Joe Szwaja
Status: Homeowner; Neighborhood: Ravenna
Total home value: $447,000
Rent guess: $800

“A lot of the programs we have now are good programs with good sounding titles—[but] they don’t really prioritize the money very well.” Szwaja discussed a multi-family tax break that provides subsides to developers to provide affordable housing in areas like South Lake Union and the University District, where he claims it already exists. “It gets a lot of wealthy developers money to use it in a way we don’t need to subsidize.” He suggests requiring developers to provide low-income housing to be eligible for subsidies.

Jean Godden
Status: Homeowner; Neighborhood: Viewridge
Total home value: Total: $756,000
Rent guess: $1000

Godden shut down Szwaja’s proposals, saying that when the Council tried to provide subsidies for low-income housing, developers wouldn’t take the bait. In response, the Council changed the requirements, trying to spur development, even if it produced slightly less affordable homes. “It was just a practical matter,” she says. “We are in a growth period—and it’s wonderful to have full employment, it’s wonderful to have a place where everyone wants to live, but it makes land more expensive.”

Lauren Briel
Status: Renter; Neighborhood: Queen Anne
Rent guess: $1200 to $1400.

Briel clearly explained that Seattle’s affordable housing problems are caused by a lack of incentive for builders to construct affordable apartments. Since building condos pays off, they buy condos instead. She says, “I haven’t talked to any builders, so I don’t know specifically what tools they need but [lack of incentives is] the issue we need to address.”

Robert Sondheim
Status: Homeowner; Neighborhood: Queen Anne
Total home value: $305,000
Rent guess: $850

Sondheim also advocates the “incentives for builders” route. He expressed concern that the middle class and arts community are suffering from this surge in housing prices, and says that on the City Council he would work to provide affordable housing in central neighborhoods, like Capital Hill.

In a follow up phone interview, he added an additional idea. “We can build affordable housing in the way of condos and apartments, but for people to find affordable housing they really have to leave the city. One possibility no one is really talking about is improving transportation so that people can find affordable housing outside the city and get back and forth efficiently, and that would be a solution as well.”

Continue reading "Where the City Council Candidates Live; What Their Property is Worth; and What They Think About Affordable Housing" »

The Eagle Soars and the Lion Sleeps: The war in Afghanistan produces record poppy crop.

Godspeed, Lion: United States to purchase $60 million weed-whacker. Catastrophic as coca eradication efforts in Colombia? Probably.

Same Shit, Different Price: As patents expire from the ’90s pharmaceutical boom, low-cost generic prescriptions to dominate the market, cutting into profits of poor multinational drug-pushing conglomerates.

Same Shit, Different Name: Indian court blocks attempt to patent slightly modified versions of standard drugs.

Take My Taxes, Please: California pot dealers offer Schwarzenegger $1 billion to bail out state from deficit.

They Need a Witness: Washington Dept. of Health announces hearings to set new medical marijuana guidelines.

Strange Love: Hustling Canadian pot activist adores angry American presidential candidate.

Who Would You Appoint? Vote ________ for shadow Drug Czar!

Don’t Lead Cartels Without It: American Express to pay $55 million for failing to prevent drug-money laundering.

What He Said: Counterpunch skewers drug law reform organizations for poor legislative strategy, rich fundraising tactics.

It’s supposed to be a surprise, people! So no more complaining about the fact that this private party—which currently occupies a significant chunk of the park—is also taking over the top Kite Hill because “the hubbub” is going to ruin everything!

Several large, white tents resembling the shells of the Sydney Opera House went up earlier this week, followed by lighting and sound equipment. Performers were to rehearse today and Saturday in preparation for the party Saturday night. And a large head sculpture will be placed today at the top of Kite Hill to create the look of temple ruins, according to Gary Tucker, a spokesman for The Workshop, a Seattle event company responsible for the private party.

Oh, and there’s going to be fireworks—which the whole city can enjoy.

This party’s culmination will be an eight-minute fireworks display at about 9:45 p.m., Tucker said. The display will include a blast from a propane cannon, which will shoot a ball of flame over the gas towers.

Slog tipper wussyboi sends a link to a YouTube video of a propane cannon from a recent Burning Man as an example of what we might be treated to this weekend…

Beautiful and so good for the environment!

Hey, I have no beef with this big, pricey private party in Gasworks Park—waiters and caterers and party planners gotta eat too—and we all get to enjoy the fireworks from the open-to-the-public areas of the park. Right? And some of us can enjoy ‘em from our boats, presumably, and our kayaks and canoes, which we can sail right up to the edge of Gasworks Park.

Hey, some of us might even be able to crash the party. Which would be cool—because it wouldn’t really be a big blowout party if some folks didn’t show up and try to crash it…

Stranger contributor Trent Moorman emails…

Here’s a video of a parking cop in the International District. He comes by every day at 5:55 and writes tickets. Even if you’re only 3 minutes late on the meter sticker, you’re getting ticket. Meanwhile, there’s a park across the street where crack dealers sell drugs, in plain view.

You get a ticket for being 3 minutes expired, while the crack dealer operates hassle-free.

I had my camera handy when he came by yesterday. While he was scrounging for his next car to ticket, I asked him why he doesn’t do anything about the crack dealer fifteen yards away. He told me he’s not allowed to do anything about the crack dealer. He said he’s not a sworn officer, and he doesn’t have a gun. He can only radio it in. But wouldn’t radio it in. He suggested that I call 911. I told him he was the one with “Seattle Police” on his shoulder patch, but he shrugged, rode off, and continued to write tickets. The crack dealer continued as well.

The GOP is trying to stir up a bit of trouble in the already hot Democratic scrap between Darcy Burner and Rodney Tom—both vying to be the Democratic nominee from the 8th Congressional District.

Burner is the former Microsoft manager who lost in a close close race to incumbent GOP Rep. Dave Reichert on Seattle’s suburban Eastside in 2006. Tom is a former GOP state Rep who changed his status from R to D and took out GOP incumbent Luke Esser for a state Senate seat in 2006. Tom’s campaign is in its nascent stages. Burner, riding high of her strong showing in 2006, has nearly $200,000 on hand. Burner is running left. Tom is running centrist.

I’ve pasted the GOP press release below, but here’s the deal: Responding to Burner’s recent attack on the Democrats (she busted on her own party for voting with the GOP on last week’s surveillance bill)—the GOP trashes Burner as a Commie and then puts the spotlight on Tom. They want to see if he’s a Commie too. The controversial bill—the “Protect America Act”— gives the Bush administration the authority to circumvent FISA, the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, which traditionally mandated a warrant process to obtain wiretaps. No more.

It should be pointed out that Burner is not so out of sync as the GOP press release would have it. As I posted a few days ago, the entire Democratic Washington State delegation was against the surveillance bill.

So, where’s Tom?

I asked him this morning. He said he would have voted ‘No’ on the FISA bill. “As we fight the war on terrorism we cannot undermine the very freedoms we’re fighting for,” he said. “I have seen no proof that the existing warrant system that we used for years before 9/11 was hindering us.”

Tom says the FISA bill was too broad and pointed out that an amendment to explicitly connect surveillance targets to al Qaeda was cut from the bill.

Tom disparaged the vote for the bill as a “Pavlovian response” on the part of Congress to let Bush do whatever he wants to fight terrorism.

Continue reading "Rodney Tom Says He's Not a FISA Dem" »

Mike Jones is the male escort—former male escort—who outed Ted Haggard, shortly before the 2006 mid-term elections. A good friend of George W. Bush, Haggard was the founding pastor of New Life Church, a mega-church located in Colorado Springs, and the head of the American Association of Evangelicals.

After a long, drawn-out process (and a brief witch hunt), New Life Church announced the appointment of a new pastor on July 31. Brady Boyd, the associate pastor of some godforsaken mega-church in Texas somewhere, starts manning the pulpit at New Life Church at the end of the month. After the appointment was announced Jones wrote to Boyd and requested a meeting. He wanted to ask Boyd if New Life Church would continue to preach homophobia and engage in anti-gay political activities. After three emails, Jones finally got an answer from Boyd: “No I cannot meet with you please contact my attorney.”

Then a New Life attorney started calling Jones.

“He asked me why I would want to meet with his client,” says Jones. “I told him I would like to discuss some issues privately with the pastor. I told him they need to meet with me, that I wanted to discuss some issues regarding homosexuality and his new church.” No meeting was offered, but there were more follow-up calls from the attorneys. “Boyd can’t read between the lines,” says Jones, “but his attorneys can.”

And just what exactly is going on between the lines?

Jones visited New Life Church in January of 2007, a visit he wrote about in his book, I Had to Say Something. “I have never said this to the press or to anyone,” says Jones, “but I saw a lot more than gay art work in the church. I saw several familiar faces. If they have learned nothing from this last year and continue with the hate and damnation, then I guess I will have to write, I Had to Say Something, Again.”

New Life’s lawyer did offer to respond to questions that Jones submitted in writing. No dice, says Jones, who insists on a face-to-face meeting with New Life’s new pastor. “Who else is in a position to go down there and confront them?” asks Jones. “I am not afraid to do it.

“I do not want any more individuals or families to be ruined,” Jones adds, “but we must have honest discussions.”

Last night in Cape Town:
A fashion show with some serious Cape Town honeys. Enjoy with the fresh sounds of Cape Town house.
What a bella belly.

The flower of her bad self.

African queen, now we are sharing the same dream.

Seattle’s numerous sidewalk-less neighborhoods could soon join the civilized world if Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD) get their way. DPD spokesman Alan Justad says the city wants to require developers to build sidewalks in front of new “urban villages,” a fancypants term used to describe condo and townhome developments.

Sidewalk construction was previously required for all large construction projects, but now developers may have to install them around smaller townhome developments too.

Even if DPD’s proposal goes through, neighborhoods still won’t get full-on block-long sidewalks. DPD is only requiring sidewalks to be built in front of new development, so sidewalks won’t be built in front of older properties. “There will be gaps in the sidewalks,” Justad says.

I get at least five questions a week about pegging—or straight woman fucking straight men in their straight butts with strap-ons. When I saw that SF-based sex blogger and author Violet Blue had a new book out on pegging—The Adventurous Couple’s Guide to Strap-On Sex—I invited Violet to jump in and play guest expert in this week’s column. Check it out here.

Violet is a columnist for the SF Chronicle—yes, Virginia, daily papers are different in Sodom by the Bay—and her latest column offers up a hilarious guide to conservative sexual fetishes. A sample…

Homosexuality: easily caught on a toilet seat. This is the world’s best excuse for dwelling on fags and bondage, and you’re carte blanche to talk to as many people about it as you want when you “warn” them with lurid details about the homosexual menace and sexual torture. Just the threat of getting some on you is exciting all on its own, but it’s even more titillating to imagine what these leather-clad people are doing with each other. Of course, what’s imagined is as far from reality as possible, but that’s the point: the homosexual scenario is where you explore your nastiest homoerotic fantasy (Fire hydrants! Great Danes! Ralph Lauren tablecloth weights!)

BDSM (or ess and emm) is for evildoers. The BDSM exchange is where you project your wildest edge-play ideas. (Serial killers, helpless victims, and pasty guys with mullets who give the name Mistress Bitchslap at Starbucks are all possible components in your fantasy scenarios.) Everyone at Fox News knows that BDSM where consenting adults get tied up and spanked for sex is one and the same with torture. (Like in Vietnam, NOT like Abu Ghraib because “we don’t torture.”) Except the outfits, that’s the only difference, though uniforms are always optional alternatives to 1980s studs and leather. You can easily convince your minions and followers that your enemy du jour is a homosexual pedophile by bringing in the whips and chains; only bad people “force” others to do things. Especially sexual things, which you should linger over for as long as possible. Everyone knows that normal people never, ever have any hint of power exchange in their sexual encounters.

The computer is an evil voodoo box of pornography. The Internet is like the real world, except MUCH scarier. This type of edge play is for conservatives who like to feel out of control, who maybe have to be the person in charge in their everyday lives but fantasize about helplessness and surrender. It’s also a fabulous punishment tool, as guilt can be a more powerful mistress than Fleshbot.com. Naughty thoughts you have can be guiltlessly channeled into public humiliation of your enemies (those bad sex people that give you those weird feelings) in gay cure blogs, anti-porn websites, anti-sex email campaigns against cable advertisers, and the occasional reporting/expulsion of a member from a social networking site for not “thinking of the children.”

Read the rest by clicking here. Violet’s blog can be found here.

‘Solaris’ (FILM) Like our planet, the planet in Tarkovsky’s Solaris thinks. But its thoughts are produced by a sea that covers its surface, instead of primates with large brains. The sea’s thinking affects human thinking. It acts on the human brain in much the same way a hallucinogen acts on neural receptors. The astronauts begin seeing the dead, seeing women floating above their beds. Solaris is science fiction in the condition of music. (Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 267-5380. 6 and 9:15 pm, $5—$8.50.) CHARLES MUDEDE

More Stranger Suggests for this week.

So I’ve been watching a bunch of 80’s grossout T’n’A comedies lately, in preparation for next week’s commendably filthy Superbad. Occasional parachute pants overload aside, it’s been a surprisingly enjoyable experience, ranging from the pneumatic Shannon Tweed highs of Hot Dog: The Movie! to the bleak Bergman lows of The Last American Virgin. (That ending! In the car! With the rain! And the James Ingram! Jesus Christ!) After what I witnessed this morning, though, I think I’m done. This … thing just can’t be topped, or bottomed.

The movie in question? 1979’s King Frat, a Canadian Animal House ripoff about a farting contest where the participants run the risk of getting disqualified for (god forgive me) “drawing mud”. In anticipation of your question: Yes, the climactic bout is available on YouTube, and no, you really shouldn’t watch it, at work or otherwise.

So, anyway, my questions: Has anyone out there even heard of this thing? Any examples of particularly crass highlights from other movies in the genre? Will the theme song (“King Frat! King Fraaaat!”) ever leave my head? Am I going to hell? Will this be showing when I get there?

Not even this: Seminary To Offer Women A Degree in Homemaking.

Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation’s largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.

It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a concentration in homemaking. The program is open only to women.

The program will offer female seminary students classes in meal preparation, “textile design,” and “clothing construction” (seriously?). Its purpose, according to seminary director (and former head of the Southern Baptist Convention) Paige Patterson, is to reinforce the “Biblical” model for the family, in which the husband leads and the wife obeys. “We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God’s word for the home and the family,” Patterson told the Baptist Convention earlier this year. “If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed.”

Less radical Baptists than Patterson have expressed horror at the idea that female seminary students have no higher calling than serving as unpaid household domestics for their husbands. However, they shouldn’t be surprised: Patterson’s views on women have been remarkably consistent over the years. In 2004, when he took over the seminary, Patterson said explicitly that women would not be allowed to serve as pastors, because the Bible says women must follow, not lead:

“It means voluntarily to line up in the right order that God has given, and the husband is loving his wife sacrificially as much as Jesus Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, so that all the husband can think of is, ‘Honey, what can I do for you? What can I do to serve you? How can I make your life better?’ And all the time she is submitting herself to her husband and saying, ‘You just lead and, honey, I’ll follow.’ Would you tell me how any kind of fight could develop in that situation? It will just be heaven on earth. That’s all. God knew it and He wants the church to be an example of it. That is the reason He said ‘no’ to a woman having a ruling or teaching position over a man.”

More recently, Patterson lamented that too many women are going to college, “threatening the family” by getting an education. Seen from that perspective, Patterson’s just doing his part to make sure Baptist women stay ignorant, knocked-up, and submissive.

From Slog commentor MyDogBen:

I saw this tonight when I came home from QFC on 15th.

Just another day on 19th Ave E.

I’m guessing something to do with BlahBlahBlahBang (A Pistol Fit in One Act), WET’s takedown of Hedda Gabler, which will happen at On the Boards this December. (And if you haven’t checked out OtB’s new season, do. It looks hot.)

Hot!

Kittitas GOP chairman Mathew Manweller, one of the members of Dino Rossi’s “nonpartisan” group Forward Washington, returned my call this morning.

I had called him yesterday asking why the GOP had returned a $700 donation to him immediately after the Democrats filed a complaint alleging that Forward Washington was a front for a GOP campaign outfit.

Alas, the cordial Manweller debunked my conspiracy theory this morning. He told me the money was returned because the GOP couldn’t make good on the $700 cruise that he and his wife had won at a GOP auction.

Man, can’t the GOP even get an auction right?

Gizmodo brings us news of the latest breakthrough in sexbot technology—courtesy of the Japanese, of course. The Honey Doll isn’t just made of soft, squishy, flesh-like plastic, she talks! My goodness, she’s practically a real, live girl!

This almost-perfect, silicon-made Honey Doll is equipped with touch sensors. They will fire an internal MP3 player that will make the doll moan when you touch her in the right places. The best part: you can put whatever sound you want in it.

Here’s the photo Gizmodo posts of the Honey Doll prototype…

Gee. I’m thinking the first thing the doll should say when you touch her in the “right places” is “Get your hands off me, you asshole, I’m only 12 fucking years old!”

To see more pics of the Honey Doll and to listen to some of the things she actually does say, click here.

The federal government is paying $150K per year to keep two retired police detectives glued to sexually explicit websites—all day long, every day. Good lord, couldn’t they get volunteers?

Tom Rogers, a retired Indianapolis detective, toils away most days in his suburban home office reviewing sexual Web sites and other Internet traffic to see whether they qualify as obscene material whose purveyors should be prosecuted by the Justice Department.

It gets worse: the program is overseen by Morality in Media, a conservative religious organization founded in 1962 to “rid the world of pornography.” Considering Morality in Media’s track record—please note that MIM was founded before Deepthroat, before Debbie did Dallas, before Powertool, before the Jeff Stryker dildo, before phone sex, before the Internet, before webcams, before Pony took over the Cha Cha’s old space.—it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this program is an ineffectual joke and a waste of public money.

In the last few years, 67,000 citizens’ complaints have been deemed legitimate under the program and passed on to the Justice Department and federal prosecutors.

The number of prosecutions resulting from those referrals is zero.

So… 150K per year, tens of thousands of referrals and—thankfully—not one prosecution. The program was created by an earmark crammed into the federal budget by Rep. Frank R. Wolf, a Republican of Virginia. Considering the number of Republicans that have recently been spotted legislating against their own sexual interests (see Foley, Mark; Vitter, David; Allen, Bob), I’d say odds are good that Mr. Wolf devours internet porn in his spare time.

…if Islam didn’t give me so much to be phobic about.

Eighteen men have been remanded in prison following their arrest for alleged sodomy in northern Nigeria, the state-owned news agency, Nan, reports. The men were arrested in a hotel in north-eastern Bauchi State, which is governed by the Islamic Sharia law.

The Sharia punishment for sodomy is death by stoning.

The men, reportedly wearing women’s clothes, are said to have gone to Bauchi town from neighbouring states to celebrate a “gay wedding.”

I wonder what Sharia has to say about gay civil unions?

A freedom loving mom is suing the $4.9 billion record industry giant, Universal Music Group, after they forced her to take down this 29-second video (her kids dancing to a Prince song) from YouTube last month.

p.s. Call CPS and all, but the record industry needs to get a grip.

Last night somebody reported here that something called a “Kevin Federline” has made a bold and terrifying litigious move to snatch Britney Spears’ children out of her ever-crazier and unfit grasp, on the basis that she’s a coot-flashing, chain-smoking whore who shall surely end up drowning them in the bath tub so’s they can all to go live happy in heaven with the Jesus Man.

But in a shattering newish development, an explosive and mundo pervy love triangle of Jerry Springer proportions seems to have developed between K-Fed, the Britster and the woman whose wretched womb is responsible for unleashing the horror that is Spear’s upon the universe: Britney’s very own mother (yes, and it seems she actually had one)…LYNN!

Sources that often totally make shit up confirm that Britney had a nuclear-style melt down at dear old muther, accusing her quite candidly of sampling her ex’s sausage! “You’re such a filthy backstabbing bitch, that you’re no doubt fucking my ex husband just to bug me!!!” or something is almost exactly like what Britney actually said to her poor mother about the situation. Exactly just how accurate these accusations are is a matter for the courts, Britney’s future team of psychiatrists, the CDC and TMZ to decide, but frankly it doesn’t look good, for there is already a hit song about the sick and alleged affair. Britney’s mother’s mouth is full of K-Fed’s rancid sperm just now, and she is unable to comment at this juncture. Updates after the swallow.

A man accused of having sex with a goat has been charged with animal cruelty…. He’s the second person charged in the county since the Legislature made bestiality a crime in response to the fatal injury to a man having sex with a horse in Enumclaw.

A man accused of having sex with the family pit bull dog was acquitted in May.

GOP fights Democratic bill to restore school funding for returning veterans.

Courtesy of The Blotter.

Joe My God liveblogged the forum last night, and it’s a great read. Here’s his conclusion…

Obama: OK, but not riveting.

Edwards: Slick, smarmy, insincere. Disappointing.

Kucinich: Amazing. Strong. Smart. Super-likeable.

Gravel: Wacky but loveable. Unelectable.

Richardson: Horrible. Soporific. Highly unlikeable.

Clinton: Same old, same old. Pre-programmed.

I give the win to Dennis Kucinich. Clinton and Obama tied for second.

Here’s Richardson’s meltdown from last night’s HRC/LOGO candidates forum. Ouch.

Plungers: US markets expected to plunge further after markets in Europe and Asia plunge overnight in reaction to the plunging US markets.

End the Fucking War: Ten soldiers from Fort Lewis died in the last week alone. The war was a lie, its continuation is a crime. We lost three years ago. End it.

He Suffered So: Rupert Murdoch tells the Washington Post that buying the Wall Street Journal was worth the “summer’s worth of hurt feelings” he had to endure.

The Dems Court the Gays: They like us, they really like us. But none of the Dem front-runners want us to get married, and Clinton still thinks DADT and DOMA were the right thing to do at the time. Edwards, as ever, is the worst on gay issue. But Richardson really screwed up, saying homosexuality is “a choice.”

Creative Destruction: Rome’s Cinecitta film studio is burning.

It’s Iowar: Republicans descend on Iowa for straw poll—if Romney doesn’t walk away with it he’s toast.

Winning Team Disbands: More trouble for the Tour de France.

Dogs Suck: The LA Times’ Joel Stein hates dogs, says so publicly. Execution imminent.

Class War: Port of Seattle to voted last night to bulldoze those 162 units of affordable housing.

Oh, the Humanity! I-5 shutdown starts tonight.

Americablog has a great rundown on tonight’s HRC/LOGO Forum.

I was disheartened earlier today to receive an announcement that the great little art space, McLeod Residence (I wrote about it here), sent to its members yesterday:

This is a difficult email to write, but we owe it to our members to be transparent about our situation. Simply put, McLeod Residence is in big trouble, as in financial trouble. The short story is, we’re running out of money. Our initial personal and angel investments are dwindling, and due to circumstances that have not allowed us to fully implement our business plan, our revenue hasn’t yet caught up to costs. McLeod Residence will have to close its doors unless we are able to raise a hefty amount of cash on the order of $40-$50,000 and quick.

The problem, according to the letter, has been the discovery that McLeod Residence needs to do serious work on its 100-year-old building in order to bring it up to code to get a liquor license—at which point, the sales of drinks are intended to support the art.

I called Lele and Buster McLeod immediately, and talked to Lele, who informed me that the notice was old news—and that everything was going to be fine with McLeod Residence.

“We have some very nice friends,” she said. “We raised the money, yes.”

The McLeods sent another notice to members this afternoon, updating them as well. It was a little less emphatic about having raised the money, but indicated that things were looking up.

Yesterday we sent an email to our members to alert them of a financial crisis caused by unforeseen (and therefore unbudgeted) building construction expenses. We wanted to search for investors from within our base before we widened the net. We received a tremendous response from our members and are currently in talks to secure new business partners. We are feeling very positive about the future of McLeod Residence and incredibly grateful to our generous members who answered our call. McLeod Residence is committed to its mission to be a home for art, technology and collaboration. We will follow up with everyone who responded with offers to help within the next couple days.

Godspeed, McLeod!

Below are the results from our second poll of Slog readers on the race for the Democratic nomination. Our first poll, way back in January, produced a similar top-three when Al Gore was factored out. You guys like, in order of preference: Obama, Hillary, and then Edwards.

We’ll try doing these unscientific polls on a more regular schedule in the future (maybe monthly instead of every-eight-monthly) so that we can watch how your opinions change over time as the primaries draw nearer. Perhaps we’ll even draw some unscientific conclusions about your unscientific box clicking.

Wish you had a tattoo? Want to see some cool body art? Check out the tattoo convention this weekend—there will be contests, shopping, raffles, tattoo artists from all over, and beer.

The Seattle Tattoo Convention is Friday-Sunday, August 10-12, at Fisher Pavilion in Seattle Center. Noon-10:00 p.m., admission is $20 per day.

Karaoke singer beaten on stage.

Trannyshack Seattle regular and former Seattle resident Felicia Fellatio—recently seen at Pony doing something shocking—is going in for testicular surgery. She’s not having them removed, just… adjusted. Or something. You can read all about it here. And here’s a NSFW photo of the sack that’s going under the knife but coming back hole. Or something.

Tonight the ’08 presidential so-called “hopefuls” or whatever (who will all be shot dead in the upcoming Bush takeover, mark my words) will all gather like a flock of old hens to debate that most divisive of issues, The Gays. Gayness. Fudgepackery. Homosexing. Indeed.

It might seem a bit out of character for such a rouser of the rabble as I, but fuck you. I rather Zenly encourage all of you—gay, filthy breeder, two-spirit, whatever—- to ignore these alleged gay “debates” entirely. ENTIRELY! Go fly a kite, watch the sun set, bang your two-spirit’s manpussy. Get out there and enjoy some global warming. Me? I plan to do all four. Right after I write this. If you don’t fly kites or have easy access to two-spirit manpussy, you can read it instead. It’s win-win!

So then. I’m twisted and conflicted to report that dark and terrible things have been going down in the world of celebrite. Let’s touch upon a few. Don’t worry. I’m wearing gloves.

And so it begins.

Terrible Happening The First: Whitney Houston celebrated her 444th birthday early this week by aging hard and fast. In some unfathomable moment of weakness, complete insanity, and/or the bad crack, the ever-screeching freak also reconciled with she baby daddy and world famous paranoid schizophrenic, Bobby B., and they spent a magical evening ducking private eyes and federal agents looking to collect on trillions of dollars in back-due child support. Osama bin Laden is, understandably, furious.

Terrible Happening The Second: Something called a Spice Girl has secretly married her secret boyfriend in a secret wedding ceremony in Las Vegas, which is tacky, right after not secretly insisting to the universe that she Eddie Murphie baby mamma, and that he should give her tonney money. Apparently, she’s just a huge slut.

Terrible Happening The Third: Tori Spelling, whose poor face seems be slowly breaking into continents that are drifting apart (oh! And who’s allegedly just been ordained a minister of some sort! A MINISTER!) is pregnant for the second time, having just recently given birth to a horrifying monster called Cthulhu. And I know. I was fucking THERE, man.

Terrible Happening The Fourth: Some horrible thing called a K-Fed (I think it’s a sort of overnight shipping franchise) has finally had the good sense to file an official looking court order to take custody of Britney Spears’ apparently endangered chillens! “She chain smokes in front of them, tells them that cigarettes are “candy”, feeds them bags of sugar, tries to bribe her dentist to whiten their rotten teeth, drops them, and drives possibly drunk with them sitting unbuckled on her ever-widening lap. Also, she’s a snatch-flashing spermbag who trusts George Bush,” a source that can’t be trusted and which is totally me reports. Disturbing.

Well, that’s it kids. I hope it’s enough to hold you through the, ahem, “debates”. If not, I, acting as official Grand Wizard of the SKK (The Stranger Klux Klan), give you this hysterical and distracting little piece of advice, below. And yes, I’m a huge fucking racist. Embrace it. And hopefully next election everyone will have the good sense to lay off the fags and go after the fat chicks—-the true enemies of democracy. Enjoy.

Surely the latest big pot bust, dutifully reported by the drug war stenographers at the Seattle Times and Yakima Herald-Republic, will be the last. Without a doubt the brave men and women of the Washington State Patrol, with the assistance of helicopters provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Guard, have discovered and destroyed the very last marijuana grow op in the state and Washington can finally be declared marijuana free.

Golly, whatever will the stoners smoke at Hempfest?

Show your pride—buy the t-shirt.

UPDATE: This seems like a good time to pay another visit to Unicorn Planet…

Chris Leman is a longtime neighborhood and good-government activist who pushes relentlessly for more openness and transparency in government.

So you’d assume Leman would consider proposed legislation requiring folks who lobby the city to register as lobbyists a good thing, right?

Not so fast: Leman showed up to rail against the lobbying proposal at Tuesday’s public safety committee meeting, calling it a “surveillance” program that would allow the council to illegally track citizen efforts to communicate with government officials.

Well, not exactly. The legislation that put Leman into a paranoid freakout only applies to professional lobbyists and “grassroots lobby” groups (like the well-funded “grassroots” Monorail Recall campaign, which spent nearly $100,000 paying an out-of-town company to gather signatures) that spend more than $10,000 a year on their lobbying efforts. Somehow I don’t think it costs Chris Leman that much to ride the bus down to City Hall.

I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Dino Rossi’s nonprofit group Forward Washington.

My