John McCain likes to make hay out of the fact that his campaign was pretty much broke for a spell last year. Here’s a representative exchange on Letterman:

LETTERMAN: You got into financial trouble, and all of that changed, turned around. What did you do—did you ever consider getting out?

MCCAIN: Well, I was riding on a well-known airline in group D, you know, that’s the one where you get to sit in the center seat between two heavyset Americans… I was carrying my own bags, which was good training, good experience.

As the New York TImes reports, McCain didn’t so much fly coach on a well-known airline as benefit from a cut rate on his wife’s cushy corporate jet:

The McCain campaign turned to using the jet last August, a time when it faced mounting debts and the possibility of financial collapse. It stopped doing so in March, those records indicate.

During the first half of 2007, a time when Mr. McCain’s campaign did not use his wife’s jet, it paid out over $1.04 million for travel on noncommercial planes, F.E.C. records indicate. Over the second half of the year, when that jet was used almost constantly for campaign-related purposes, his campaign’s total spending for noncommercial flying was about one-half that much, or $542,160, those records suggest.

Very thrifty of you, Senator.

Freaks!

The Stranger Gong Show at Chop Suey

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^{Andreas Zybach’s 0-6.5 PS (Tunnel) (2007), liquid pumps, gouache, tubes, steel feathers, plywood, raw silk, hardware; 22 by 7 feet}

At Western Bridge, with an artist talk today at 1. (Gallery web site here; Stranger Suggests for the group show You Complete Me here.)

There’s a ton of readings today, including an open mic and a seminar on how to write a novel. Lisa Kleypas is reading from Blue Eyed Devil, a “Texas-hot romance,” up at Third Place Books, and Michael Gruber reads from The Forgery of Venus, which is a mystery, at Elliott Bay Book Company.

Also at Elliott Bay, Rebecca Wolff, who blogs on Girls Gone Child (which is about raising children and not whatever you were thinking, you dirty, dirty monkey) will be talking about alternative parenting.

And in addition to those two readings at Elliott Bay, Kevin K. Kumashiro reads there today from his book The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate of America’s Schools. I normally don’t like to pick on people for their names—as my first grade classmates could tell you, Paul Constantly Constipated has no right to do that, after all—but if your first name and last name begin with the letter K, you really shouldn’t advertise that your middle initial is also K.

The book-related event of the day is a reading of Mr. Thoreau Tonight, a play about Henry David Thoreau by David Wagoner, the writer-in-residence at the Hugo House. I wrote about how wonderful Wagoner is in this week’s Constant Reader and there’s a recording of him talking about this play in his wise, oak-y voice here.

Also, don’t forget to check out the full readings calendar.

Confirmed: Mugabe’s party lost.

Simulated: Bird-flu outbreak.

Acquitted: Officers who shot groom 50 times.

Not In My 534-Acre Back Yard: Magnolia neighbors protest homeless at Discovery Park.

The Bullshit that Really Matters: What candidates eat for lunch.

China and the Dalai Lama: Our people will talk your people.

Cognac and Condoms: Hoax letter encourages parents to take practical tack on prom night.

Crusade and Combatants: Atheist soldier threatened for “going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!”

Back to Black Eyes? Winehouse released after assault.

Friend Request: Google and Yahoo taking another stab at social networking.

Hutchy: Takes his bullhorn to the day of silence.

Jamieson: Thinks Hutchy could use a day of silence.

Guillermo del Toro: Slated to direct The Hobbit. To celebrate, please enjoy this “good morning” scene from Pan’s Labyrinth:

I can’t confirm it with anyone at the museum at this hour, but I have it on good authority: Maxwell L. Anderson (former Whitney director over Rinder and current Indianapolis Museum of Art head) let it drop a few minutes ago in a podcast I did with him while he was in Seattle for a public talk. He said the appointment was made official tonight.

Here’s Rinder’s Wiki page, on which I discovered something I did not know about the noted curator:

His first play, “The Wishing Well,” co-authored with Kevin Killian, premiered in 2006.

The podcast with Anderson is great, and will be up on The Stranger’s site soon—and thanks to Anderson for staying up so late to go through with it during a short visit. Oh: and thanks for the scoop.

Autobahn is the best bit of theater Re-bar has hosted in a long time.

It’s a cycle of five short plays by Neil LaBute—whose misogyny is only eclipsed by his general misanthropy—all of which happen in cars. In one, a graduate student realizes his temporary townie girlfriend is going to become his stalker. In another, a jackass husband (Troy Fischnaller, a convincing jackass) begrudgingly apologizes to his silent, weeping wife:

“I was wrong. Is that what you want to hear? Is it? ’Kay. It was bad of me to call you a cunt, whether we were in the Albertsons or not.”

In another, a pizza delivery guy (Shawn Law, the beardo above) tries to convince his sad-sack friend (Dusty Warren) to go fetch his video-game console from his ex-girlfriend’s house—never mind his kids:

“The kids, I mean, you can’t deal with that now, you can’t, that’s a matter for the courts and all, our legal system, but there’s nothing written or unwritten that says someone can take up ownership of your Nintendo 64 just because they want to.”

Fischnaller is the engine behind the production, which features good directors (Allison Narver, Peggy Gannon) and good actors (Trick Danneker, Shawn Belyea, Angela DiMarco). And they did the whole production for under $1,000, even with equity actors. (Fischnaller got a special dispensation from equity, whose rules tend to keep union and nonunion actors apart, to everyone’s detriment.)

Anyway: Re-bar is as good a place as any to watch a couple returning a foster child, a husband wringing a confession out of his wife, and the other stripped-down vignettes on human awfulness. The lights are dim and the booze is proximal.

South American Way: Argentine court decriminalizes drug possession.

American Way: World’s leading jailer.

Higher Educators: Teaching marijuana classes in Oakland.

Alcohol Regulators: Don’t like Weed pun on beer caps.

3000: Sentences commuted for cocaine convicts.

29: In Western Washington.

Boy Dies After Drinking Meth:

Lynnwood police may try to build a relatively unusual case of homicide by a controlled substance against a 29-year-old man who has been arrested in connection with the death of a Lynnwood teen.

According to court documents, the suspect is alleged to have punched Jamie D. Leavitt, 16, after the teen drank meth-laced water and then, while in a “drug-induced state,” repeatedly tried to hug the older man.

Junked: Bad weather kills Afghan poppies.

Skunked: Dutch police union chair calls to “legalise” soft drugs.

Confession: Of an American coca-leaf chewer.

The Pot Issue Has Two Sides? So reports the Kitsap Sun.

What the Kids Are Asking: About sex and drugs.

Fuzzy Math: LSD = Trees.

E-Bombs: For soldiers.

Pneumonia or Dementia? Options for the elderly.

Don’t Play that Song for Me: Starbucks backs off from music biz.

4/20 Is Over: Pry your lips from the bong.

Grateful Dead Sea Scrolls: Decoding the hippie lexicon.

News: Jane Campion may have lamented the lack of female directors at Cannes last year, but there’s a positive drought this year, with only Lucrecia Martel’s (The Holy Girl) La Mujer Sin Cabeza—uplifting title, that—screening in competition. One other film is co-directed by Daniela Thomas, working alongside a much better-known male director, Walter Salles. Making up for this dearth entirely are gorgeous starlets Alexandra Maria Lara and Natalie Portman on the jury. Naturally, The Third Wave, screening out of competition, is about the 2004 tsunami.

Opened Last Week:

My review of Expelled appears this week, rather than last, because the production company preferred to conduct advance screenings for church groups and Christian schools instead of asking for objective criticism. Generally, avoiding critics means the movie is reprehensibly bad, and I have to admit, even I was surprised by the film’s condescending, simplistic assertion (popular among creationists) that since Hitler used Darwin to justify evil acts, reading Darwin will incline you toward similar evils. You couldn’t get farther from the merits of the argument if you tried. Other critics have made that point with more vigor than I could (I just think it’s sad), so my review hones in on the interesting gap between what intelligent design proponents say in public forums or in courts of law and what they tell friendly audiences.

The most bizarre thing about the new intelligent-design propaganda film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed isn’t that former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein is being paid to extol a pseudoscience whose hypotheses can’t be tested (everyone has a price), or that the film compares science with Nazism and Stalinism (though it does, repeatedly and remorselessly). What’s truly weird is that the filmmakers don’t seem to understand the tenets of intelligent design.

Proponents of intelligent design—which is essentially a legal strategy, developed in the wake of a Supreme Court decision rejecting the teaching of creationism in public schools—try to discern traces of an intelligent designer in the universe and in living things. Crucially, however, the “theory” remains agnostic as to the identity of that designer. This was an important component of the legal underpinning of the movement: If intelligent-design proponents ever hinted that the designer was God, the teaching of intelligent design in schools would, like the teaching of creationism, constitute an infringement on the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. At the same time, though, not naming the designer meant that intelligent-design proponents like Michael Behe had to allow the possibility that their designer is one of many gods, or even an intellectually superior alien. (This problem was memorably satirized by followers of the almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

So when Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and atheist who is a prominent critic of intelligent design, concedes to Stein in Expelled that he is open to the idea that aliens may have seeded our planet with life, intelligent design has actually scored a point (even if Dawkins never argues that an alien visitation could be somehow inferred from the evidence, and even though the theory of natural selection isn’t particularly preoccupied with how life first began). But this modest victory means nothing to the movie’s target audience of evangelical Christians, so Stein takes the intellectually bankrupt way out and makes vicious fun of Dawkins for believing in aliens.

I linked to a document by a Discovery Institute shill up there, and he attempts to bolster his assertion that intelligent design doesn’t point to a creator God by citing Of Pandas and People, of all things. Thanks to a little trial in Dover, we all know that Of Pandas and People is a hastily rejiggered creationist textbook. See Chapter Ten of the NOVA episode Intelligent Design on Trial for hilarious proof.

Opening this week:

Andrew Wright reviews Jenna Jameson’s, uh, film debut? No. Theatrical film debut? No. Commercial theatrical film debut? Why is this so hard? Anyway, Zombie Strippers. Andrew: “Of the many damning sins it commits against acceptably skeezy exploitation filmmaking, perhaps the cardinal one is this: The two most attractive women in the cast never even take their tops off. That faint thumping noise you hear is Russ Meyer doing donuts in his grave.”

In (the print version of) On Screen this week, you’ll find reviews of The First Saturday in May (Jen Graves: “When brothers Brad and John Hennegan set out to follow six trainers and six horses on their journey toward the ultimate horse race in 2006, they had no idea that one of their animal stars would prove to be more of a draw than any of their human subjects. Now, the movie’s publicity materials boast about ‘never-before-seen footage of a young Barbaro,’ and he, truly, is the highlight of the film”), The Life Before Her Eyes (me: “The Life Before Her Eyes has its bright spots—Evan Rachel Wood is irritatingly great at the half-seductive, half-self-destructive thing—but every retouched color [the tomatoes in this movie are from another planet] and dramatic visual effect [blotches of blood keep morphing into other things] serves to pollute the movie’s already sloppy metaphysics with an unpleasant strain of hysteria”), and Deception (Bradley Steinbacher: “The idea of the driven and privileged turning to anonymous encounters for sexual fulfillment is interesting, but outside of some overwrought sex scenes, Deception clearly has other, far more standard, issues in mind—namely blackmail, kidnapping, and corporate theft. And it’s here, unfortunately, that the film slowly starts to fray”).

In web-only content this week:

Lindy West reviews Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (“The smart jokes are too stupid and the gross jokes are too gross and the diarrhea is too loud and the forced blowjobs at Gitmo are just lazy”). And Megan Seling gives a qualified thumbs up to Baby Mama.

Hidden away in Film Shorts this week are reviews of Planet B-Boy at the Varsity, Breathless and Divorce—Italian Style at Northwest Film Forum, and yet more screenings of Senator Obama Goes to Africa at Capitol Hill Arts Center. Also of note: the Seattle Polish Film Festival (including two programs of work [shorts tonight, The Story of the Fox tomorrow] by the early 20th-century animator Władysław Starewicz) at SIFF Cinema, Greg Araki’s The Living End at SIFF Cinema, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane and The Nanny at Grand Illusion, and much more. See our Movie Times page for all your movie-going needs.

And for dessert, Lindy West on local horror.

by shapefarm

Despite three 3+ hours movies, Tolkien has yet to be wrung dry by Hollywood:

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who produced “Pan’s Labyrinth,” will direct two big-budget films based on J.R.R Tolkien’s book “The Hobbit,” the Hollywood studios involved said Thursday.

That tingling you’re feeling is your ass already going numb.

It seems like every time Twice Sold Tales gets mentioned on Slog, the comments turn into a series of complaints about the cat smell. I just came back from a visit to the new location of Twice Sold Tales, at Harvard and Denny, and I’m telling you right now that the new location doesn’t smell like cat (yet.) There are still cats everywhere, of course (and, in case you were wondering, the hilarious brass plaque dedicating the contents of the cat box to the life and work of Christopher Frizzelle has survived the move to the new location, although it looks as though the cat box is now an entire room.)

And the new store is about two billion times better than the old store, especially since the old store halved itself a few years ago. I love bookstores that take up house-style spaces, and this Twice Sold Tales has that feel. It has nooks and hallways and rooms. It’s bright. The shelves are new. It’s possible to get lost, however momentarily, and feel like you’re in an endless labyrinth of books.

There are some drawbacks: They won’t stay open past 10 pm, because they’re in a residential building, and the location is, obviously, much less central. It’s still a work in progress. The shelves aren’t halfway filled yet, and it’s hard to tell where sections begin and end, but it’s possible to see where things are headed, and the prognosis is very good.

The other complaint that commenters have about Twice Sold Tales, rude customer service, is harder to gauge, of course. I’ve never had a problem with rudeness on my many visits, and the bookseller who helped me today eagerly dropped everything to look up a book. The old list of stupid customer questions that used to be up over the register (which I, as a bookseller, always found really funny, but other people have complained about) doesn’t seem to have survived the move.

But I wandered around this afternoon and it felt great. It’s going to be a wonderful place to spend time. I bought two books: D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, whose images have haunted me since I was a wee kid, and The Big Con by David W. Maurer (‘The inside story of the confidence men who live by the swindle and never give a sucker an even break. “One of the ablest, most thorough, most readable expositions of the Bad Life ever written…the last word in this amusing and sinister branch of skullduggery.”’ says the big blurb on the front cover.)

I recommend checking it out soon, especially if you’re allergic to cats—the new bookstore smell isn’t going to last forever.

I’ve been Slogging a lot the last couple of days trying to shut down the whole “the prolonged primary is destroying the party” riff.

Look, the party was shattered in ‘68 (with a replay of those factional battles in ‘80 and ‘88) because of real ideological differences in the party.

But there is no fundamental ideological split in the Democratic Party this time, so stop worrying. The minute it’s Obama (or way less likely, Hillary) the Democrats will unite around their focused agenda: achieve universal health care, end the occupation of Iraq, combat global warming, reestablish the United States as a respected international leader, reverse the erosion of civil liberties at home, and make the economy work for the middle class instead of just the wealthiest.

I am worried about this, though. Obama doesn’t seem poised to take advantage of Hillary’s historic appeal to the lumpen proletariat.

Listen to this asinine quote from Obama top strategist, David Axlerod:

“The white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years,” Axelrod said. “This is not new that Democratic candidates don’t rely solely on those votes.”

What? Never mind condescending to white working class voters. Now, the O campaign is willing to flush ‘em? Even after Hillary has reestablished this bloc as an energized part of the base?

And: Does that also mean Axelrod isn’t counting much on all those Red states Obama has won…you know, the ones that give him the numbers edge on Hillary, even though she’s winning big battleground states like Ohio, New Mexico, Florida, and Pennsylvania?

courtesy Huffington Post.

So Sound Transit decided yesterday to move forward with a plan… to start planning. Yesterday afternoon, the Sound Transit board voted to get public input on two different potential ballot measures—one that would increase sales taxes an average of $100 per household per year, and one that would raise them an average of $125.

I know the board wants to avoid an electoral debacle like last year’s failed roads and transit ballot measure, but I wish they’d just pick a plan. (Personally, I think the higher number makes more sense because it allows ST to serve more people, but the difference between a 0.4 percent sales tax increase and a 0.5 percent sales tax increase is pretty negligible—and certainly not enough to convince folks who would never have voted for transit in the first place.)

And seriously—hasn’t this already been surveyed, focus-grouped, and polled to death? Show me a person in this region who doesn’t have an opinion on light rail and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t vote anyway. Public input—fine. But no amount of temperature-taking is going to reach the citizens ST board member Julia Patterson referred to yesterday as “the average [people] living on the cul-de-sac” if they don’t take an interest. Sound Transit should say “fuck ‘em” and move forward this year, when Democratic voter turnout is going to break records.

As an aside: Times reporter Mike Lindblom (whom I like and respect a lot) had one line in his story that was a bit misleading. Lindblom quoted Seattle Mayor and ST board chair Greg Nickels as saying that all the tolls being proposed around the state “require that we create an alternative to driving, and paying an $8 toll.” According to my notes, what Nickels actually said was, “the governor and others have talked about tolling and congestion pricing as one strategy, and I applaud that, but I think it’s important that we take the steps first to provide an alternative to driving alone and paying an $8 toll… When we ask [drivers] to pay to cross 520 or other corridors or the whole system, I think we have to give them choices about how they travel and what they will pay.” Seen in context, Nickels’s comment was pro-transit and pro-tolls; Lindblom’s truncation makes it sound like Nickels considers tolls an unreasonably onerous burden.

Go to Line Out and see the lowest of the lows.
Yes, that’s a video game image of the gangsta rapper 50 Cent. Yes, he is in a place that looks a lot like Baghdad. Yes, he is shooting Arabs. Yes, it has to do with not getting paid for a concert. What more can I say?

Postman wants to know: What did Dwight Pelz, chair of the Washington State Democrats, mean by this quote in the New York Daily News?

“It’s time for us to end this,” added Dwight Pelz, Washington State party chairman and undecided superdelegate. “The candidates are tearing each other apart, and it’s not good for the party. I think we need to have a candidate.”

Is Pelz about to doff his neutrality and endorse? People, including me, want to know.

A Stranger staffer stepped into the stall of a women’s rest room at Sea-Tac Airport and was confronted by this sad sight. If those were your glasses, would you have plucked them out of the toilet? Or would you have left them there for someone else to pee on?

Oklahoma:

Did Bethany church assign pedophile to kids program to ‘help’ him?

Five victims of a former youth minister in prison for molestation are suing the Nazarene Church, saying warning signs about his behavior were ignored.

“This is about what the church knew, what the church did about it and, more specifically, what the church didn’t do about it,” their attorney, Jason Stephens, said Wednesday….

Ryan Martin Wonderly, a former youth minister at Bethany First Church of the Nazarene, was sentenced in 2005 to 35 years in prison for molesting girls at the church. He left the church in February 2003.

Among the allegations in the lawsuit are that Wonderly’s roommates at Southern Nazarene University discovered he had been looking at child pornography on a computer, and the university allegedly recommended him for an internship as an elementary pastor at the Bethany church “as part of his program of getting ‘help.’”

In the comments to my earlier post about the National Day of Silence—protesting the bullying and harassment of gay and lesbian students, and protested by local bonehead Reverend Ken Hutcherson—an interesting discussion sprung up around the unfair lumping of all Christians with such psycho Christian bigots as Hutcherson.

My proposal: Decide on a distinguishing moniker for these evolved, enlightened Christians, to help draw the distinction between reasonable, sane people who appreciate the life and teachings of Jesus and alleged Christians who treat Jesus like a holy Gumby to be bent to support whatever bullshit bias needs supporting.

But whatever shall this name be?

Shortly after becoming a mathematical lock for the GOP nomination, John McCain began plotting how a fairly unorthodox Republican candidate would win the presidency. His final plan rolled out the concept of a decentralized campaign structure: each region of the country having a different ‘regional campaign manager’ who would be better able to shape the McCain message for the different electoral circumstances his candidacy would face.

Well, the plan is finalized. Marc Ambinder introduces us to McCain’s new hire, John Peschong: regional manager for Washington State (and the entirety of the West Coast, including Alaska and Hawaii):

John McCain’s campaign has tapped John Peschong to serve as regional campaign manager for California, Republicans close to the campaign said.

Peschong has been a campaign adviser since 2007. He has a large amount of experience in California, having served as GOP executive director there in the 1990s and recently as Northwestern political director for the Republican National Committee in 2004. He was also executive director of Dan Quayle’s political action committee.

From a short biography for the Republican National Committee during the 2004 presidential race:

Previously served as Executive Director of Dan Quayle’s PAC, Campaign America, 1997-98. Executive Director of the California Republican Party, 1994-97. Other experience includes press secretary to a U.S. Senate candidate, partner in a PR firm, White House Office of Communications during the Reagan Administration, Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, RNC, Fund for America’s Future (a PAC). Peschong is a 1984 graduate of Loyola Marymount University.

Given that the campaign for Washington’s electoral votes may end up being an important battleground for 2008, we may be getting to know Peschong rather well.

As reported here, Obama has laid to rest any fears that he spends all of his time eating in pan-Asian fusion restaurants, sucking down foam of foie gras, laughing derisively at the common people eating out of dumpsters:

Obama, at a press conference in Indianapolis just now, was asked if he’s too much like “a GQ over who’s aloof.”

Part of his response:

“I was raised in a setting with my grandparents who grew up in small town Kansas, where the dinner table would have been familiar to a lot of people here in Indiana – a lot of pot roasts and potatoes and jello molds.”

My first thought is:

“A GQ over who’s aloof?”

What does that even mean?

My second thought: has it ever turned out well for a Democratic candidate who ends up trying to convince people that he’s ‘common’ enough to understand their way of life? Didn’t that lead to John Kerry marching into the forest to go shoot woodland creatures? Doesn’t that way lie the madness of the “which candidate would you want to have a beer with?” media narrative?

This only ends with you riding a tank, senator. Don’t let them do it to you.

Okay, I’m done torturing you. Ronald Week is Over. Please, though, next time you’re about to sink your teeth into a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, think of the children…

Some folks in the comments thread on Dom’s post yesterday about those stupid fucking credulous hacks at the Seattle Times and PI—Mike Carter and Paul Shukovsky—admonished me for being mean to those stupid fucking credulous hacks Carter and Shukovsky. If we want to have an impact on the way stupid fucking credulous hacks like Carter and Shukovsky report about the War on Drugs and grow-op busts—they currently report with their tongues lodged in the asses of whatever DEA spokesperson appears before them—we should be nice and respectful and polite. “You’ll catch more stupid fucking flies with stupid fucking honey blah blah blah.”

We’ve already tried being polite. The posts Dom and I wrote about this particular grow-op bust weren’t the very first posts we’ve written taking the dailies to task for their failure to live up to their own professed standards of objectivity, impartiality, and fairness when it comes to drug busts. (Shukovsky is capable of being objective, as Dom pointed out, but only when it comes to alleged pedophiles.)

Here’s a nice, respectful post I wrote last October about a grow-op bust story in the PI…

…forty one paragraphs about indoor grow-ops in King County, the violence associated with them, the emerging Southeast Asian connection, and the deleterious impact all of this is having on the quality of the food served in area Vietnamese restaurants. Seriously. But there isn’t a single graph in Levi Pulkkinen’s story—not one sentence, not a measly parenthetical, not a hint—about how marijuana prohibition is responsible for the lawlessness that Pulkkinen writes about/takes dictation from the police about….

It would be great if the PI was as anxious to inform its readers about the benefits of marijuana legalization—and the futility of the war on pot (anybody at the PI having any trouble scoring pot lately? didn’t think so)—as the paper is to breathlessly report every heroic detail of the local, state, and federal government’s destructive and ineffective war on a plant. How many times do we have to read the exact same story about pot? Grow op busted! Violence associated with illegal activity! So many tons seized! Blah blah blah. When will the daily papers stop helping to wage the drug war and start actually reporting on it?

And here’s a nice, respectful post I wrote about a grow-op bust story in the Seattle Times last July…

The story in today’s Seattle Times details—no, it glorifies—the work being done to root out grow operations in our area. The busts, the people going to jail, what we’ve learned, how we can fight this scourge. The effort has, of course, eaten up massive amounts of local and federal law enforcement time, landed a bunch of poor motherfuckers in jail, and cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. And no where in the piece does the Seattle Times mention, oh, the sheer ridiculous futility of all of this.

…

Where are the quotes from a pro-decriminalization organizations? Local pot smokers? The large and growing number of Americans who, despite decades of slanted and biased coverage like this, have concluded that the war on drugs is a waste of time, money, and lives? If I wanted to read White House Drug Policy Office press releases I could go to their fucking website. Do I really need to read them on yours?

And here’s another. And another. And another.

We’ve written about this crap again and again. And I know the reporters at the Seattle Times and PI have read the polite posts we’ve written about their unbelievably biased coverage—all those nice respectful posts—because I’ve typically received a mewling, defensive, not-for-publication email from the reporters after I put up one these posts. I guess I’ve finally lost my patience. I’m sick of being polite.

Again, no one is asking for screeds against the War on Drugs—that’s our job. We certainly don’t expect reporters at the PI and Seattle Times to flip from a pro-War-on-Drugs bias to an anti-War-on-Drugs bias. But when reporters at Seattle’s daily papers fail—utterly fail—to apply the same standards of objectivity and impartiality to drug stories that they make such a fuss about applying to all other stories, again, we’re going to call out the stupid fucking credulous hacks.

And here, courtesy of a Slog commenter, and for ease of reference, are a few of the questions that the PI and Seattle Times need to ask grow-ops are busted:

Do such raids work? Are they cost effective? Are they unnecessarily dangerous, either to the police or the suspects? Do they actually reduce the amount of pot on the streets? Do they make us any safer? Would simply legalizing it make us safer? Does filling our prisons with everyone involved in pot growing or smoking help or harm society in any measurable way?

This is cool and smart: The Indianapolis Star’s editorial board is livestreaming its interview with Obama today. Starts in a few minutes…

UPDATE: Click here to watch, sorry for the auto-play on the embed.

Via Ben Smith.

The Telegraph has a list of the 50 best cult books. What are some books on the list?

Slaughterhouse Five, The Bell Jar, The Catcher in the Rye, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Fountainhead, Dianetics, Dune and etc. and etc. and on and on.

Now, I’m not an expert on the British book scene, but I suspect that many of these books are just as well-known over there as they are over here. There are some actual weird culty-type books, such as The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, which I only just heard about for the first time about a month ago, and A Rebours, by JK Huysmans, is certainly beautiful and terrible and under-read. My favorite bit of this piece, though, is this sentence, leading off the piece on Rousseau’s Confessions:

In the age of titles such as “No, Please, Daddy, Not There!”, the soul-searching autobiography looks about as cutting edge as a Findus Crispy Pancake.

I don’t know what a Findus Crispy Pancake is, but this is my new favorite catchphrase.

Peep this. The UK Office of Government Commerce, which is all about the money, hired a fancy London branding agency to make them look like a million bucks. And what did the agency come up with? Something that looks like what money surely ain’t—classy…
…but in fact tells it like it is:

The man. Always the fucking man.

Today brings the National Day of Silence, the annual protest against the bullying and harassment of gay and lesbian students.

This year’s Day of Silence—the 12th since the day’s grassroots debut in 1996—is particularly dramatic for a couple reasons.

1. Lawrence King, the 15-year-old boy in Oxnard, California, whose tragic death in February sent a chilling reminder that even in this day and age, where gays have attained an unprecedented degree of normalcy in American culture, some American kids still think it’s okay to fatally shoot an openly gay classmate in the their middle school’s computer lab.

2. Ken Hutcherson, the former linebacker, current pastor, perennial anti-gay warrior, and likely chronic traumatic brain injury candidate, who’s led a campaign against observance of the Day of Silence at Mount Si High School, where Hutcherson’s daughter is a student and where Hutcherson was booed at this year’s rally for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After unsuccessfully lobbying for the cancellation of the Day of Silence—hated by Hutch for its foisting of alternative sexuality on students, who are so rigorously protected from his beloved Christianity, thanks to the separation of church and state—Hutch organized a counter-protest to the official day of protest, and a group of Snoqualmie Valley community members have organized a counter-protest to the counter-protest, hosting a press conference “to address misconceptions being perpetuated regarding the annual Day of Silence” beginning at 11:00 this morning. (Like, twelve minutes ago.)

Good luck to everyone involved, except for Ken Hutcherson, who remains a complete boob. (Confidential to Hutch: The discomfort your daughter experienced following the MLK Day debacle had nothing to do with “anti-Christian harassment” and everything to do with her dad making a headline-warranting ass out of himself. Come talk to me after a middle-school student is gunned down for wearing a “WWJD?” t-shirt.)

Art

‘You Complete Me’ at Western Bridge

• See what else is happening in Art on Friday »
• More Stranger Suggests for this week »

The most perplexing thing I saw in Egypt was in Osiris’s Temple at Abydos—hieroglyphs near the ceiling that depict modern modes of transportation: what looks like a helicopter, a submarine, and an airplane. Our Egyptologist scholar/guide told us these were carved from sandstone several thousand years ago, but that no one knows what they mean, nor have similar symbols been discovered anywhere else on ancient Egyptian artifacts. Some experts dismiss them as the result of new carvings over old carvings—the old hieroglyphs combined with new hieroglyphs laid over the top, plus erosion, inadvertently formed what appears to be symbols of modern technology. I’m a hard-nosed skeptic in all matters supernatural, but this explanation is difficult to swallow.

You might have a little extra scratch next week:

The federal government, eager to boost the flagging economy, will start distributing special stimulus payments Monday - four days earlier than expected.

“Beginning Monday, the effects of the stimulus will begin to reach households,” President Bush said Friday. “This money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we’re seeing at the gas pump and at the grocery store.”

The department announced the early arrival of the payments Thursday after saying last month that it would begin sending out the money on May 2.

As of next week, 800,000 tax filers daily will begin to have their checks directly deposited Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. No checks will be distributed Thursday, and 5 million payments will be made Friday.

Those who used direct deposit when they filed their taxes this year will receive their payment first. Paper checks will be sent out May 9. As for how much you’ll get…

The program calls for rebates of up to $600 for single filers making less than $75,000. Couples making less than $150,000 would receive rebates of up to $1,200. In addition, parents would receive $300 rebates per child. Filers who do not owe income taxes but have at least $3,000 in income would get a $300 payment.

I think I’ll spend mine on a Wii—if I can fucking find one—and then send the rest to the Obama campaign.

There’s an open mic and a young adult reading and an author of six books of haiku and then some other readings, coming in the air tonight. (Oh, lord!)

Misha Glenny wrote a book called McMafia, about organized crime around the world. He actually talked with quite a few real, non-imprisoned organized criminals for the book. It looks fascinating and, despite all the mafioso books that came out when The Sopranos got really popular, this looks like a genuine look at a little-seen culture. He’s at Town Hall.

Emily Transue, a local doctor who at is at least one Slog commenter’s physician of choice, reads at Third Place Books from her book Patient by Patient. If my doctor wrote a book, I’d be terrified that she wrote about me. Maybe some angry man with a rash that looks like Richard Nixon will show up tonight to publicly fight it out with Dr. Transue. (I know, I know—doctors have to change details when they write about patients, which means that the man’s rash would probably be reported to look like William Howard Taft in the book, but these flights of fancy are what keep me going to readings.)

Also, at the Hugo House, there’ll be a staged production of a play called Mr. Thoreau Tonight, by David Wagoner, who is the writer in residence at the Hugo House. This week’s Constant Reader is all about Wagoner and the play, and here’s a link to an audio interview I did with Wagoner, too. He’s pretty great.

Full readings calendar, including the next week or so, here.

A ship contracted by the US Navy has fired warning shots in the direction of two small Iranian boats, according to US military officials.

The incident took place in the Gulf, in international waters dozens of miles from the Iranian coast, the US said.

The vessel - the Westward Venture - was working for the US Military Sealift Command under a 65-day charter, an official told the BBC.

The Iranaian boats withdrew soon after the warning shots were fired.

US officials say the Westward Venture used the correct measures prior to firing the shots: it sounded its horn, and gave the Iranian boats a verbal warning, before firing flares, 50-caliber machine guns and M-16s in the direction of the boats.

Shortly after the incident, a routine inquiry was made of the Westward Venture by Iranian authorities, according to US officials.

The Iranian government has denied that any of its vessels were involved in the incident.

Oil prices rose more than $3 to $119.50 a barrel in response to the incident, just short of the record $119.90 reached earlier this week.

Thanks, Slog tipper David. I needed that.

^{Stacey Farrar’s All My Bad Ideas (2008), graphite on paper, 24 by 30 inches}

At Vermillion Gallery. (Gallery web site here.)

A skateboarder was hit by a bus late last night/early this morning in the U-District and killed. A reader who witnessed the scene took the picture above and writes…

At around 1:20am this morning, a UW student was struck and killed by a Metro bus while riding his skateboard through the intersection at 45th and University Way. A witness at the scene told me that the man, a white male in his 20’s, skated through a red light and was struck by the bus. He died at the scene.

UPDATE: As folks are pointing out in comments, the skateboarder hit the bus, not the other way around. Would’ve gotten this up sooner but I stepped away from my desk for a bit.

Another Slog reader that witnessed the aftermath writes something turgid… after the jump.

Continue reading "Skateboarder Dies in U-District" »

It’s almost like they thought they were on the show…

A woman who suffered life-threatening stab wounds to her chest and neck Wednesday allegedly was attacked by another woman who had been upset that she was too loud while watching “America’s Next Top Model.” …. The alleged attacker, an acquaintance of the victim, told the other woman to stop talking loudly. A police spokesman did not specify how they knew each other.

When the “Top Model” fan refused, police say the other woman then opened the apartment door and told her to get out, according to a police report. Police said the argument then turned physical, with one woman having a clump of her hair pulled out.

The attacker then pulled a paring knife from a nearby apple and began stabbing the 42-year-old, according to a police report.

No Fruit for You!: Some crop yields will be 30 percent lower than usual thanks to crazy weather.

If the Democrats Can’t Win This Year, They Never Will: Food crisis prompts run on rice at Wal-Mart and Costco.

Of Course He Opposes Equal Pay: John McCain says the gals just need “more training and education.”

Colossal Mistake: 63 percent of Americans think the US “made a mistake” sending troops to Iraq.

Big Surprise: Most US women have “disordered” eating habits.

Shocker of the Week: EPA scientists report political interference in scientific decisions.

Um, That’s Not the Direction We Want to be Headed: Carbon dioxide, methane levels rose sharply last year.

Crazier and Crazier: The latest twist in the Sonics lawsuit saga.

Dick Shrinkers: Police in Congo arrest suspected sorcerers for “stealing” penises or rendering them impotent.

Dirty Old Man: Bill O’Reilly shocked—shocked!—at bra-revealing Miley Cyrus pics.

Falling Down on the Job?: DSHS sued for failing to prevent parents’ starvation of child.

Finally, Congestion Relief?: Yeah, but it might mean near-universal tolls.

For Josh: Wiz dominate Cavs, 108-72.

Someone posted on Slog a coupl’a weeks ago about being a closet Lost fan, but I don’t see any reason to mask it, though that’s only because I made the mistake of getting my hopes up for the show’s return this evening. My thoughts on tonight’s episode are below in invisible text. Highlight it to read it. This is done to protect the four of you who TiVo’ed it or whatever—yer welcome.

The opening bullshit exchange between Jack and Kate didn’t seem like a crowning achievement for the WGA’s winter stalemate. Her response to a stomachache: “You should eat some crackers” ?? “I thought your gut was sick” ?? Boy. And the episode-ending showdown between Bad Guy A and Bad Guy B was some Young & Restless shit if I’ve ever seen it.

I figure the only reason I even posted about this is because the show is pretty much the only plot-driven thing I’ve kept up with on network television in a long time (thank goodness HBO’s stellar John Adams has filled the gap for worthwhile television in the meantime, by the way). And having bitched and moaned, of course I’ll still watch Lost next week like a sucker—because Lord knows there’s nothing to ignite the TV possibilities like Jack’s appendi-fuckin-citis.

Or maybe he’s just pregnant with Claire’s second baby?

OCALA, Fla. — A federal judge on Thursday sentenced the actor Wesley Snipes to three years in prison for willfully failing to file tax returns.

Mr. Snipes, who was convicted in February, received one year for each count, to be served consecutively, and an additional year of probation. The sentence was handed down by Judge William Terrell Hodges of Federal District Court.

Mr. Snipes, who apologized for his actions before the sentence was announced, showed no immediate reaction to the verdict.

Early reports indicate a strike force of washed-up 1980s action stars—made up of Dolph Lundgren, Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Carl Weathers—is already planning to bust Snipes out of the clink.

Wait for it…

Barack Obama wasn’t on the ballot in Michigan; Hillary Clinton was. If you were a Michigan voter and you pulled the lever for “uncommitted,” it’s probably because you’d thought about it and decided you were definitely totally absolutely against Hillary Clinton. You might not have even known whom you were for, but you definitely knew whom you were against.

Now Michigan’s congressional district conventions have selected delegates to the national convention—and it sounds like half of those who successfully ran as “uncommitted” are actually planning to vote for Clinton. That is, if they’re seated at the convention.

Talk about an undemocratic process. DNC, DON’T SEAT MICHIGAN. Its delegates aren’t even pretending to honor the will of the voters.

Via TPM.

A 43-year-old man in Florida was found dead with the right side of his face eaten off and his ears chewed away, according to a Pasco County sheriff’s representative.

Paramedics responding to a home on Tuner Loop in Spring Hill called deputies after finding Daniel Dangelis’ body in a room at the home.

There were three pit-bull puppies near Dangelis’ body licking their faces, reported WTSP-TV in Tampa.

It goes without saying, of course, that no other breed of dog would ever, ever do such a thing.

Originally posted yesterday. Moved it up because the fundraiser/cocktails thing for laid off Seattle Times employees is tonight. Look for me there—I’ll be on the patio doing bong hits with Mike Carter.

The Seattle Times is having to lay off a bunch of folks—a lot of newspapers out there are facing hard times. We’ve had our beefs with the Seattle Times, of course, just as they’ve had their beefs with us. The mutual beefery will no doubt continue. But no one at the Stranger is delighted to see so many writers and editors lose their jobs. That’s why I’m passing along this email from Seattle Times writer and blogger David Postman (with his blessing) about a fundraiser he’s hosting to help out newly laid-off Seattle Times employees…

We’re losing some great people, particularly among the young crowd. I’m trying to raise some money for the newspaper guild’s fund that helps laid off workers…. I figure it’s a worthy cause for both Times haters and supporters because it goes to the people who write the paper, and not the big names we all know. There are two former Times Olympia interns among the laid off workers, and a few people who put in 15 years each or so in the suburban bureaus. But because they are in a bureau and not downtown they have no seniority.

So we’re having a little fundraiser [tonight] night at Paddy Coyne’s near the Times. Any and all Stranger folks will be warmly welcomed.

The fundraiser is tonight from 6 to 9 PM at Paddy Coyne’s Pub (1190 Thomas Street, Seattle, WA 98109). It’s $20 at the door. Appetizers will provided.

Full text of the invite after the jump.

Continue reading "Things Are Tough All Over" »

The Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (SPOG) just sent out a press release announcing that their tentative approval of a new labor contract. The Guild and the City have been squabbling since December 2006 over a new contract, most recently over calls for reform of Seattle’s police accountability system.

SPOG’s new contract—which was unanimously approved by the board—offers Seattle Police a 25.6 percent pay increase over four years. Starting salaries will also increase an additional 8 percent, making SPD officers the highest paid cops in the state.

From the Mayor’s office:

Under the proposed contract, a 12-year officer’s current salary will
increase from $72,072 to $90,516. That officer will receive $6,807 in
retroactive pay, as of April 2008. Entry-level police officer pay would
increase by 35.9 percent compounded over the life of the contract, from
$47,340 to $64,312.

To attract new officers, the city will also begin paying a $5,000 hiring bonus, give new recruits $2,500 worth of new equipment and provide up to $14,000 in moving expenses for officers transferring to SPD.

The contract appears to be a victory for officers, as well as police accountability watchdogs as the Guild has agreed to accept all 29 recommendations put forth by Mayor Greg Nickels’ police accountability panel. The reccomendations will (hopefully) increase the transparency of Seattle’s police accountability system and expand the powers of the department’s internal investigation unit, the Office of Professional Accountability.

The contract appears to be a win-win for the city and the cops, so it seems like approval by the council and the rank and file shouldn’t be a problem. However, one officer just told me he’s “voting no on principle.”

I think he was joking.

The announcement came from the DEA. Yesterday at 1 p.m., a press conference downtown would detail a string of pot raids and arrests around Seattle. So I, familiar with the unscrutinizing coverage the daily papers reserve for drug busts, wrote this post to challenge reporters in the mainstream media. Could they ask the sorts of questions about pot busts that they would ask about any other policy issue—why is the government doing this and is the strategy effective? Basically, cover the different sides of the issue.

The Times and the PI sent respectively Mike Carter and Paul Shukovsky. Two smart guys – and solid reporters on other subjects – and they wrote the same old rah-rah stories (almost identical articles) that glorify drug busts. They go like this: feds have announced arrests, they’re cracking down on drugs, about a dozen people were busted, those suspects are likely going to jail. Curtain.