…and underage drinking in Mexico City.

Panicked youths rushed for the exits during a police raid on a Mexico City nightclub on Friday, leaving at least 12 people dead in the crush of bodies, the capital’s police chief said.

Chief Joel Ortega said three police officers and nine youths, at least three of them minors, were killed. At least 13 others were injured.

Police went to the News Divine club in the working-class district of Nueva Atzacoalco in the early evening to check reports of drugs and alcohol being sold to minors. Ortega told the Televisa network the club’s owner announced to the crowd that the officers were there to arrest them, causing a stampede.

Police may blame the club owner, but the mayor is blaming police:

Mexico City’s mayor expressed outrage Saturday that youths as young as 13 were among the dozen people killed in a nightclub stampede and said the officials involved in the police raid that sparked the crush had been suspended.

“The city is indignant,” Mayor Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference. “What we saw yesterday was ethically unacceptable.”

Juan Carlos Maya, a club employee and the brother of owner Alfredo Maya, acknowledged that alcohol was being served but said patrons were asked for identification at the bar…. [H]e showed the club’s liquor license and an inspection certificate from 2007 and said police blocked the emergency exit, apparently to prevent suspects from escaping.

Video is over here.

Something to think about:

Pirates + Flying Spaghetti Monster

Hopefully my post doesn’t steal thunder from anybody else here writing about the Fremont Solstice Parade… though, to be fair, the “nude cyclists and drum-circle floats” description isn’t exactly breaking-news material.

This was my first year to see the parade, and I had a fine time watching nude, color-coated folks biking around. Also enjoyed the set of people dressed as parts of a sandwich who would often crunch into each other to form up Voltron-style. But I felt really odd watching the biking part of it, though not out of prudishness. Rather, the happy, hippie, and shameless biking seemed muted by the crowd watching it—mostly assholes and yuppies. This is who you’re showing off for? The khaki-short entourage who feels compelled to point out when a pair of breasts “looks like udders”? Yeah, well done, Jacob. Who needs good vibes? I figure the nekkid folks would be better off finding their own meadow to bike through, but as has been pointed out to me, maybe even the hippies have a little Girl inside of them that wants to Go Wild.

Anyway, I had fun. Since the Stranger Flickr Pool is currently lacking in nudity, a few photos taken by my ladyfriend are up after the jump to protect the three of you who work and check Slog on a Saturday… the rest of you with better photos, get ‘em up there.

Continue reading "Boobs and Naked Cyclists" »

Posted by news intern Chris Kissel

A month ago, John and Jenny Edwards, contributers to Charles Mudede’s horse-sex anti-documentary “Zoo” and the “horse rescuers” in charge of a non profit called Hope for Horses, sent Charles a frantic e-mail. They said an incident that occurred down in Pierce County was starting to seriously interfere with their ability to take care of neglected horses. In fact, John said he “expect(ed) long trenches filled with dead horses by the end of the summer.”

It all started back in January when officials investigated frequent complaints from neighbors in rural Pierce County regarding 15 horses in a nearby pasture. The woman who owned the pasture was apparently was buying up horses in order to breed them, then neglecting them to stumble around underfed and injured in her yard, the Edwardses say.

Here’s video taken of the injured horses by concerned neighbors (you might want to put down that hot dog).

A veterinarian, among others, showed up at the pasture on December 31 to see what was going on with the horses. Because Hope for Horses, which usually adopts horses in these situations, was dealing with another emergency, the vet recommended that the two injured horses be given to one of the neighbors. Later, Hope for Horses, working with Pierce County, came in for the rest of the horses. When the county demanded that all horses be returned to HFH, the problems began, the Edwardses say.

The neighbor who claimed the first two horses had become attached to them and didn’t want to give them back. She eventually got to keep them, despite the fact that her case for keeping them, according to the Edwardses, had no legal grounding. Additionally, the fallout from the disagreement, including this article, caused the horse rescuers to lose many of their donations and has given them something of a bad reputation in the area.

The furor may have died down somewhat, but John Edwards is still livid. “We’re just here trying to do the county a favor,” he said. “If they don’t want us to do it, that’s fine.” Meanwhile, Jenny said Donna Gale, the woman who owned the pasture filled with the neglected horses, is now facing charges of drug trafficking in Pierce County. The neighbor couldn’t be reached for comment.

You can pick up your hot dog now.

hiphop

James Pants at Nectar

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

Two open mics and three readings going on today.

At noon, at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Elizabeth Sims reads from The Actress, which is about an aspiring actress who gets paid to coach a murder suspect to act more like an innocent human being. I must admit, I’m intrigued by this premise.

At the Elliott Bay Book Company, Russell Howze reads from (and hopefully will have a photo slideshow from) his new book Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community and Art. I hope some anti-graffiti people show up to complain. That would make for a lively reading.

And then, later in the evening at Elliott Bay Book Company, Susan Linn reads from The Case for Make-Believe. Linn “was mentored by the late Fred Rogers.” I miss Mr. Rogers so fucking much.

Full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is available for your perusal.

posted by news intern Chris Kissel

Settling our beef: U.S. agrees to regulate exports of beef to South Korea.

Not buying it, Part 1: Iran says an attack by Israel is ‘impossible.’

Not buying it, Part 2: House and apartment rentals on the rise.

The truth is out there: Mugabe says opposition group lied about political violence.

Rail love: Amtrak ridership breaks records as oil prices climb.

Pulling ahead: Newsweek poll puts Obama at 15-point lead.

Barge dilemma: Mississippi River traffic halted in wake of Midwestern floods.

Deteriorating situations: Youth Services Center falls apart as King County budget woes get worse.

Just to spite you: Viaduct sinks a little more after repair work.

Sonics trial, Part 5: City possibly poisons the well, Licata just doesn’t care.

Happy Saturday.

Time Capsule: Contains a surprise.

Smoking Ban: Doesn’t apply to pot.

Mom: Smuggling cocaine with daughters.

Dad: Sentenced to life for overdose of son.

Arlen Specter: Wants to get high.

Black Market Cigarettes: Contain arsenic.

Puerto Rico: Proposes legalizing the herb.

Michigan: Winning the war on drugs.

Israel: Five years for a bong.

Switzerland: Allows therapy using LSD.

Day Five of the Sonics trial ended with some pretty irrelevant testimony. Team Bennett called Woody Allenish City Council Member Nick Licata, the anti-sports stadium council member (it’s why he got elected in 1997), to show that a member of the Seattle City Council believed that the Sonics don’t have a major impact on Seattle’s economy! Yep—and that’s what Licata said he believed.

Licata, cool as a cucumber, pointed out that he was the lone member on the council with this view, and he understood that his POV was part of an ongoing debate about the issue. Yawn. He’ll be back to continue his testimony when the trial resumes next Thursday, June 26, and I imagine Bennett’s lawyers will “reveal” that Licata once told Sports Illustrated—as was published in Sports Illustrated—that he doesn’t think the Sonics have much of a cultural impact on the city.

The real news is still former Sonics CEO Wally Walker’s testimony earlier in the day (and real estate developer Matt Griffin’s testimony later on). Both men, under questioning from Bennett’s lawyers, showed that the group trying to renovate KeyArena and orchestrate a buyout—Griffin, Steve Ballmer, Slade Gorton, Mike McGavick, and John Stanton—was working in concert with the city’s lawsuit. It seemed, in fact, that the lawsuit was a weapon in the group’s plan to get Bennett to sell.

The key link is that the city hired Gorton as lead counsel in this case. Sloppy!

Today’s testimony showed that Gorton was deeply involved in pushing a “poisoned well” strategy, outlining the secret plan at a meeting at Walker’s house last October.

The city announced at the end of the day that Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis would be called to testify when the trial resumes on Thursday.

I imagine he’s being brought in to address the “dirty hands” argument that Team Bennett laid out today—the idea that the city’s suit is based on ulterior motives. While this doesn’t have anything to do with the debate over the “specific performance” lease (a specific performance contract is one that mandates the parties to fulfill the obligations of the contract by explicitly disallowing one party to break the contract with economic compensation) which is all that really matters in the case, it could corrupt the city’s case and cause Judge Pechman to just toss the whole thing.

He’s backing the FISA “compromise” even though it includes fairly sweeping immunity for telecoms.

As the New York Times describes it,

The deal, expanding the government’s powers to spy on terrorism suspects in some major respects, would strengthen the ability of intelligence officials to eavesdrop on foreign targets. It would also allow them to conduct emergency wiretaps without court orders on American targets for a week if it is determined that important national security information would otherwise be lost. If approved by the Senate, as appears likely, the agreement would be the most significant revision of surveillance law in 30 years.

The agreement would settle one of the thorniest issues in dispute by providing immunity to the phone companies in the Sept. 11 program as long as a federal district court determined that they received legitimate requests from the government directing their participation in the program of wiretapping without warrants.

With AT&T and other telecommunications companies facing some 40 lawsuits over their reported participation in the wiretapping program, Republican leaders described this narrow court review on the immunity question as a mere “formality.”

Remember when Obama was totally down with Dodd’s immunity filibuster? Those were the days.

Don’t do something illegal and ethically problematic just cause the government tells you do to it, OK? Gahh. Now we’ll never learn.

That’s the strategy Nicole Brodeur takes in today’s column, in which she bemoans the lack of amenities for urban residents… while drinking wine and eating cheese at the grand opening of a large new downtown supermarket.

You’d think the mere existence of that supermarket (Kress IGA) would disprove Brodeur’s point. People are excited, there’s a buzz in the air, and she’s witnessing all of it. But Brodeur senses discontent—and look! There it is, in the form of a mysterious”crowd” outside the supermarket opening. Apparently, they can’t be interviewed, but Nicole knows what they’re thinking.

They’ve been hungering for a walk-to place that is open past 6 p.m. and has more fortified cereal than fortified beer.

I saw them and wondered: How is it that we can have thousands of units of downtown development, but only one new grocery (Whole Foods) to serve them all?

A new city report offers an answer, but also confirms what we have long suspected: Seattle is growing at near-reckless speed.

In just over three years, Seattle is halfway to reaching its targeted-housing growth for 20 years, according to the Department of Planning and Development report.

Not only that, neighborhoods like Ballard, Eastlake and downtown have already exceeded their 20-year targets.

The only thing not under construction? Plans for a better quality of life.

Anecdotal, yet ominous! And, whoops, totally false. Nicole, allow me to introduce you to the parks levy, the regional parks levy, the open space levy, the library levy, the local transit levy, the regional transit levy, and the fire levy. And that’s just off the top of my head. Seattle voters have shown we’re more than willing to pay for services that provide “a better quality of life”—and, as the example of Kress Supermarket attests, the market has been more than willing to fill in the gaps.

Via Horse’s Ass: At an appearance yesterday at the Building Industry Association of Washington’s annual luncheon, gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi was introduced by BIAW president Brad Spears as a “candidate who believes as BIAW believes.”

Goldy points out:

Um… the BIAW believes a lot of things Dino, some more offensive than others. So if you don’t believe as they do, that DOE’s stormwater regulations are the moral equivalent of the Holocaust*, isn’t it time you set the record straight and denounce your patrons at the BIAW (an organization that has made your election their top priority in 2008) for their violent, offensive and over-the-top rhetoric?

Assuming you drive the same miles per year, which change will save more gas in a given year:

* Switching from a Dodge Ram at 13 MPG to a Toyota Tundra at 15 MPG

* Switching from a Honda Fit at 32 MPG to a Toyota Prius at 44 MPG.

(Mileage figures are from Consumer Reports.)

Have your answer? Ok, next question.

Assuming you drive the same miles per year, which change will save more gas in a given year:

* Switching from a Dodge Ram that needs 770 gallons per 10,000 miles, to a Toyota Tundra that needs 667 gallons per 10,000 miles

* Switching from a Honda Fit that needs 313 gallons per 10,000 miles, to a Toyota Prius that needs 238 gallons per 10,000 miles.

Did your answer change?

As a measure of fuel economy, miles-per-gallon is incredibly unintuitive. One must consider both the change and the starting point when deciding the significance of an increase in MPG. Nasty.

How nasty? Richard P. Larrick and Jack B. Soll collected data to discover just how confused people become when considering changes in miles-per-gallon. Their work was just published in the Journal Science.

The most telling passage from the study:

The study was presented in an online survey to 171 participants who were drawn from a national subject pool. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 75, with a median age of 35. All participants were given the following scenario (5): “A town maintains a fleet of vehicles for town employee use. It has two types of vehicles. Type A gets 15 miles per gallon. Type B gets 34 miles per gallon. The town has 100 Type A vehicles and 100 Type B vehicles. Each car in the fleet is driven 10,000 miles per year.” They were then asked to choose a plan for replacing the original vehicles with corresponding hybrid models if the “overriding goal is to reduce gas consumption of the fleet and thereby reduce harmful environmental consequences.”

One group of 78 participants was randomly assigned to a policy choice framed in terms of MPG. They were asked to choose between two options: (option 1) replace the 100 vehicles that get 15 MPG with vehicles that get 19 MPG and (option 2) replace the 100 vehicles that get 34 MPG with vehicles that get 44 MPG. Note that town fuel efficiency is improved more in option 1 (by 14,035 gallons) than in option 2 (by 6,684 gallons). As expected, the majority (75%) of participants in the MPG condition chose option 2, which offers a large gain in MPG but less fuel savings [95% confidence interval (CI) = 65 to 85%].

Participants in the GPM condition (n = 93) were given the same instructions as those in the MPG condition. In addition, they were told that the town “translates miles per gallon into how many gallons are used per 100 miles. Type A vehicles use 6.67 gallons per 100 miles. Type B vehicles use 2.94 gallons per 100 miles.” They read the same choice options as used in the MPG condition, including the MPG information, but with an additional stem that translated outcomes into GPM for the hybrid vehicles [(option 1) replace the 100 vehicles that get 6.67 gallons per 100 miles with vehicles that get 5.26 GPM and (option 2) replace the 100 vehicles that get 2.94 gallons per 100 miles with vehicles that get 2.27 GPM]. As expected, the majority of participants (64%) in the GPM frame chose option 1, which offers a small gain in MPG but more fuel savings (CI = 54 to 74%). Overall, the percentage choosing the more fuel-efficient option increased from 25% in the MPG frame to 64% in the GPM frame (P < 0.01).

When talking about fuel efficiency in terms of gallons per mile, people were nearly three-times as likely to make the rational choice as compared to the same numbers in miles-per-gallon. Remember this when making your next car purchase.

Updated for the graphically minded, like me:

J. Steve Mayo’s idea of a rollicking Gay Pride Parade is painting his nude body and cycling through the streets of downtown. That was cool with pride parade organizers, who queued about 20 bare bicyclists in the Body Pride Ride—headed by Mayo—in slot #81 for the parade on June 29. But Mayo got chills when he heard police might arrest him for violating Washington’s indecent exposure law, which bans nudity that is “likely to cause reasonable affront or alarm.”

“A person naked and painted on a bike while cheering is not something sexual and it’s not patently offensive in any way,” says Mayo.

On Wednesday, pride parade attorney David Coffman informed Mayo that—according to one of the parade organizers—an SPD officer threatened to arrest the cyclists if there was a complaint, and the SPD would take parade organizer to the SPD’s West Precinct. Coffman tried to verify that claim, but SPD Deputy Chief Nicholas Metz told him that Seattle’s nude cycling-policy hadn’t changed. And he sent Coffman this letter from Chief Gil Kerlikowske:

Click here for a larger version.

In 1998, SPD officers arrested two naked cyclists in the Fremont Solstice Parade. However, the city attorney declined to prosecute the pair because they hadn’t violated the indecent exposure law cited in the chief’s letter. But this is the first time the naked pride riders, who have ridden in the Capitol Hill pride events, have threatened to shake their junk in the downtown parade.

Had an SPD officer claimed police would bust the cyclist and take a parade organizer to the police station? “It’s was a non-denial denial” from the deputy chief, says Coffman. When I called, police flatly denied any officer had made that threat.

How will it all shake out? “[Police] will not engage anyone who is publicly nude unless someone makes a complaint,” says Coffman. “That person who makes a complaint has to be present at event and be willing to testify in court,” he says. The nude contingent is still scheduled to ride in the parade, somewhere behind Governor Christine Gregoire, who is expected to wear clothes.

Woo, SIFF is over… and just in time, because it’s sunny outside. Meanwhile, in theaters, a whole lot of middling-to-awful summer movies are landing with a thump.

If you missed it, here is my final take on The Happening: not intelligent design propaganda. Just a very silly movie about the menacing rustling of leaves.

Opening this week:

Speaking of awful summer movies: I try to describe the unique brand of yuck that is The Love Guru (“When Mike Meyers isn’t making inane pseudo-puns, he’s exploiting stereotypes of relatively defenseless sub-minorities, such as French-Canadians and black women. Classy”).

Paul Constant appraises the SIFF alum Mongol (“When your protagonist is responsible for fathering half of a percent of the modern world’s male population through rape and conquest, any aspirations toward romance ring hollow. Casting Genghis Khan as a one-woman man is an unspeakably batshit-crazy maneuver”).

I write up the so-so Get Smart (“Get Smart moves quickly, and the insanely hyperbolic action sequences are enough to distract you from most of the movie’s flaws. Except for the lazy jokes about the character flaws of George W. Bush”).

Bradley Steinbacher sits through the Julianne Moore freakshow (and SIFF holdover) Savage Grace (“As it turns out, no amount of lover swapping and incestuous three-ways can make vacant, uninteresting people interesting”).

Charles Mudede reviews a worthwhile SIFF alum, Bigger, Stronger, Faster* (“Though he is not a user of steroids, [director Chris] Bell is very critical of how his culture codes them. The culture wants you to be bigger and better and faster, and at the same time it marks the use of drugs that make you bigger and better and faster as wrong. The contradiction results in all manner of absurdities, a number of which Bell exposes”).

And Steinbacher destroys the fourth SIFF alum of the week, The Children of Huang Shi (“The film’s biggest weakness is [Jonathan Rhys] Meyers. With a feeble delivery and a pretty-but-blank mug, he’s far too bland to hang an overly earnest film on. Only at the end, as the real-life survivors recount their memories over the closing credits, does The Children of Huang Shi achieve the impact it’s been straining for”).

Finally, Lindy West discusses her glamorous roots.

In Limited Runs this week: Tonight only are two Sichuan earthquake benefit screenings of Made in China, by Genius shortlister John Helde, at Northwest Film Forum. Also at NWFF: Passing Poston, an interesting but badly constructed film about a Japanese-American internment camp in WWII, and Rabbit in the Moon, an excellent film about the internment, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the first in a summer Miyazaki series. Grand Illusion is doing a whole week of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, plus the late-night Joysticks, about a video arcade. Central Cinema has a family-friendly “Balloonamentary”; SAM has a gay-pride screening of Victor/Victoria; Silent Movie Mondays has The Gaucho, with an uncharacteristic bad-dude performance by Douglas Fairbanks (that’s Sr., not Jr., as I mistakenly wrote in the print edition). And the beloved IMAX classic Beavers is back at the Science Center starting tomorrow. (SIFF Cinema reopens next week, by the way, with the new Guy Maddin fantasia, My Winnipeg.)

For all your movie times needs, use us.

Apropos of Josh’s post yesterday about the “pg. 856,000 NYT story” on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s meeting with Hezbollah… Bush’s own secretary of state, in her capacity as the chair of the UN Security Council, gave a moving speech yesterday just before the council officially classified rape as a “tactic of war.”

According to the BBC, the resolution

described sexual violence as “a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group”.

The document said that the violence “can significantly exacerbate situations of armed conflict and may impede the restoration of international peace and security”.

AFP has more from Rice’s speech.

“Rape is a crime that can never be condoned. Yet women and girls in conflict situations around the world have been subjected to widespread and deliberate acts of sexual violence,” she said.

“Today’s resolution establishes a mechanism for bringing those atrocities to light,” the US chief diplomat said.

She stressed the resolution directs the UN secretary general to prepare an action plan for collecting data on the use of sexual violence in armed conflict and then reporting that information to the council.

Rice cited the example of Myanmar where she said “soldiers have regularly raped women and girls even as young as eight years old.

“What is tragic also in that country is that instead of being allowed to take the office as the elected leader of Burma’s government, (opposition leader) Aung San Suu Kyi is marking her (63rd) birthday this very day under house arrest,” the US chief diplomat said.

“We cannot forget as we examine this issue other women activists who struggle for freedom under violent environments,” she added.

Rice also referred to widespread acts of sexual violence in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.

The US diplomat highlighted acts of sexual violence perpetrated by UN peacekeepers in several countries around the world.

“As an international community we have a special responsibility to punish perpetrators of sexual violence who are representatives of international organizations,” she noted.

Amazing as it is that this (like Rice’s meeting with officially designated terrorist group Hezbollah) is coming from the Bush administration, I won’t really be impressed until they start taking seriously the fact that one in three women in the US armed forces has been a victim of sexual assault.

And the sun is hurting my eyes.

Dennis Oppenheim’s giant orange traffic cones are not the only new thing at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

Up today are two new benches by Roy McMakin: a regular-sized green lawn chair made not of green plastic but of painted bronze, and a squat object that looks like a cardboard storage box but is made of steel with porcelain enamel. They stand next to a (concrete) bench that is a work of art called Bench that had been sitting there for months already, but it is possible that nobody realized it was a work of art, because it was a bench.

One thing the new Violet Hour show at the Henry brings up: Crystalline forms are everywhere.

I’m thinking of the fake rocks immobilizing the cars in Maljkovic’s videos,

the designs on the bellies of Liu’s creatures, the shatter-pattern of Jackson’s windshield, a navigation chart painting using pennies the world over as stars by Jackson (also brand new and at the Henry), Oscar and Eli,

^{Eli Hansen and Oscar Tuazon’s Solar Cooker (2008), at Howard House}

Susan Robb,

and Noam Gonick and Luis Jacob at the Belkin at UBC.

Everywhere! The crystal is the new cube.

In an interview this morning (that will be posted as a podcast next week), Jackson said he said the form is “a protest against linearity” that reflects the way the Google-era brain really works. (Liu said she thought that was a fantasy, that she wasn’t so sure it was an apt metaphor for the brain. After we stopped recording, they both said they thought the other one was right.)

Hansen and Tuazon have said the crystal is a cross between an organic and an inorganic form, which is why they like it—and naturally, it represents the cheesy/sweet New Age utopianism of the ’70s they also like, while maintaining those particular geodesque charms that made it such a kitschy totem in the first place. To crystal!

If you can not remember the last time you saw an art video featuring Pink Floyd standards sung in Latin plainchant, Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” performed by a community brass band and performed as an operatic aria for a soprano, cannibalism, brutalist architecture, and pretty young men, then you should get yourself to the Henry Art Gallery at 8 tonight for the opening of The Violet Hour, a new exhibition organized by curator Sara Krajewski including Jen Liu, Matthew Day Jackson, and David Maljkovic.

They are artists of the apocalypse.

Liu made the videos. (Earlier this morning, I posted a painting by her of a giant sloth with a crystal belly, surrounded by little monks in white robes scrambling around him. That painting is not in the show, but others somewhat like it are.)

Here’s an image from one of her videos. The monks are chanting “Comfortably Numb” in Latin.

Jackson’s creations include a brand new, solar-powered, crashed Corvette based on a race car that his cousin in Tumwater (Skip Nichols of Nichols Industries Racing) built, raced, and crashed. The windshield, as if shattered intact, is made of stained glass in a crystalline pattern. Inside the car is a cowboy saddle and an Apollo-era space helmet made of felt, in reference to the car, which is also made of wool felt (in reference to Joseph Beuys; Jackson’s piece is called Chariot #2 [I Like America and America Likes Me]). It’s the next step in Jackson’s series of vehicles, after his Whitney Biennial chariot.

Maljkovic is a Croatian artist whose videos are projected on the wall. But jutting out from the wall, with the videos at their farthest (center) point, are what look like a Renaissance perspective galleries (one on each video) constructed of lumber and green-blue plasterboard. In the videos, people in a post-communist daze linger under the overpowering modernist architecture of the Italian Pavilion of the Zagreb Fair.

Go!

…just to be cited as a cultural reference point with these illustrious women. From a theater review in today’s NYT:

All advice givers and etiquette experts—from Emily Post to Ann Landers, Miss Manners to Dan Savage—can probably agree on at least one admonition, namely that reading someone else’s diary is a no-no.

For an update on the 2009 City Council elections, into which Jordan Royer—son of the former mayor Charles Royer and onetime point person on nightlife for Mayor Greg Nickels—has officially thrown his hat.

Royer has not declared which position he is seeking; at least two and as many as four seats could be open in 2009.

UPDATE: The plot thickens. A group of Pollet supporters has filed a formal challenge to White’s candidacy in King County Superior Court, alleging that “County Elections Division Director Sherril Huff improperly allowed Scott White, a senior County political appointee with ties to the County Executive, to have his candidacy reinstated after White filed a signed form withdrawing his candidacy on Thursday, June 12th.”

One of the complainants, Karen Deyerle, says the group’s goal is “not to get Scott off the ballot or to get the elections office in trouble,” but “to have the court review and validate that everything was done properly according to the law.” She continues: “The question in all of our minds is exactly what happened, because we’ve been getting conflicting information.”

Deyerle says she also plans to file an ethics complaint against White with the county on Monday.

Full story, including background info, continues below.

Gerry Pollet, one of two Democrats seeking a seat in the state Legislature from the 46th district (see my exhaustive coverage here, here, and here) has received a letter from King County Elections that one supporter calls “the final word” on whether Pollet’s opponent, Scott White, will be allowed to remain in the race. (White attempted to withdraw from the race, but elections says they didn’t receive his withdrawal form—sent from a King County fax machine in violation of county ethics rules—until well past the deadline. Complicating matters, the form was time-stamped several hours before the deadline, a fact White attributes to a faulty fax machine and which Pollet has contested.)

And the final word is? White can stay in the race. According to the letter, written by elections director Sherril Huff,

Scott White’s attempted request to withdraw his candidacy was not filed with King County Elections by the deadline. According to King County Elections fax activity report, the withdrawal document was received by King County at 4:35 p.m. on June 12th. (The report states that the document was received at 15:35 and the fax machine is one hour behind.) Though Mr. White may have intended to file the withdrawal prior to the deadline, it was not received by King County Elections on time and as a result, RCW 29A.24.131 mandates that the request be rejected.

Contrary to the assertion in your letter, my decision to reject Mr. White’s request to withdraw is not based on any verbal request from him. It is based on my reading of RCW 29A.24.131 and the fact that Mr. White’s request to withdraw was not filed with my office before the deadline. Mr. White is being treated as any other candidate in the same situation would.

I’ve got a call in to Pollet to find out whether he plans to pursue his efforts to remove White from the race.

In other White-Pollet news, the two candidates received a dual endorsement from the 46th District Democrats last night (a separate vote from the official “nomination,” which went to Pollet after a confusing battle that’s documented here). That vote, too, was reportedly complicated.

Women-hating extremist Barack Obama (and his band of fellow women-hating staffers) strikes again, this time during feminism-activist John McCain’s conference call regarding campaign finance. You see, Obama’s spokesman tried to interrupt the call and state Obama’s position, and… forget it. Just read the quote, and die a little inside:

UPDATE: [McCain Communications Director] Hazelbaker writes in to add an even tougher shot at Burton’s gambit, raising the gender card.

“This type of boys-club bullying embodies an arrogance better suited for a frat house than a serious campaign about serious issues,” she says.

So, an Obama staffer attempts to interrupt McCain’s conference call, and the most disgusting, lurid kind of sexism seeps through. The kind of sexism directed from one man to another, on an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with either party’s gender. Also, it’s like a fraternity, in that fraternities have given up on GHB and moved into the more nuanced field of disrupting political phone calls.

Am I right, ladies?

Last summer, US Army Specialist Kamisha Block was killed in Iraq in an incident the Army categorized as “friendly fire.” Except that, as Jezebel points out, the man who shot her, Brandon Norris was an obsessive, jealous ex (the relationship was reportedly not serious) who had been physically abusing Block without punishment for months. Despite the fact that witnesses reported Norris’s assaults on Block to military officials, the only action the Army took was to move him slightly farther from her barracks—to new housing a five-minute walk away. That wasn’t enough to keep him from walking into her room, asking her roommate to leave, and then shooting her five times in the head and chest before turning the gun on himself. No one has been punished for failing to do anything to protect Block from her known, well-documented abuser, nor for lying to cover up the fact that Block was murdered.

The 527s—those frisky, often fact-free independent campaigns that brought us the tragic verb ‘swift-boated’—appear to be coming undone at high speed, and for two very different reasons. On the left, Senator Obama is cutting off their traditional sources of funding, hoping to direct his campaign’s message down to the syllable. On the right is Senator McCain:

The truth is that, less than five months before Election Day, there are no serious anti-Obama 527s in existence nor are there any immediate plans to create such a group.

Conversations with more than a dozen Republican strategists find near unanimity in the belief that, at some point, there will be a real third-party effort aimed at Obama.

But not one knows who will run it, who will pay for it, what shape it will eventually take or when such a group may form.

Jonathan Martin’s write-up focuses big on a couple of reasons why John McCain doesn’t seem to be winning the affections of those who would target Obama.

The first appears to be John McCain’s open derision of independent political organizations, even those that aired ads on purely positive terms for him during his primary campaign. Early in the process, when Romneys and Giulianis walked the earth, McCain had called for outlaw 527s in their entirety, and made it known that he wouldn’t tolerate them working on his behalf. While his position has softened, nothing says, ‘Advocate for me!’ like knowing that the man you’re making ads for thinks you’re a kind of mean, ethically-challenged reptile that should be thrown in prison.

The other missing cog is Senator Clinton: They really, really wanted to run against Hillary.

“We spent 18 months and millions of dollars making Hillary: The Movie,” laments David Bossie, head of Citizens United and a longtime Clinton tormentor. “We’re incredibly proud, but the problem is the film has no relevance anymore.”

I bet Hillary: The Movie would have been pretty fantastic. Bossie says he intends to make an Obama film featuring such beloved cast members as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but Obama doesn’t have the same vintage appeal to the id of the conservative right.

How many bodies are in Arkansas landfills because of Barack Obama’s clandestine cocaine-smuggling ring? My guess would be considerably less than those deposited by the Clinton family. And how do you make a film out of that?

Texas:

A Fort Worth pastor is free on bond after being arrested on accusations he sexually assaulted a girl who attends his church.

James “Jay” Virtue Robinson IV is pastor of Southwood Baptist Church…. The warrant says Robinson was the youth minister when the relationship began about two years ago.

California:

The former St. Helena High School coach who pleaded no contest to sexually molesting two students more than a decade ago must undergo a psychological evaluation…. As part of the plea bargain, Sandler must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

The incidents with a girl under 16 happened from 1997 through 1998, while Sandler was a volleyball coach at St. Helena High School. He was also serving as a youth minister at his former St. Helena church.

Texas:

A Bedford couple has won free fertility treatment from a church whose pastor says it wants to “do for people what they can’t do for themselves.”

The eleven7 church of Southlake attracted considerable news coverage by arranging a free round of fertility treatment and encouraging childless couples to apply for it.
Matt and Christina Jonker were selected at random Friday and were presented to the church during its Sunday morning, Father’s Day worship service. “We’re just blown away and amazed at God’s goodness,” Mr. Jonker said Monday.

He’s a former youth pastor who’s working part time as a golf course caddie and hoping to return to ministry.

And so convincing! (From Hi-Fructose.)

Thanks, Slog tipper P!

This is a day old, so I apologize if anyone else has already posted about it, but… HOLY CRAP, MSNBC illustrated a segment on Chris Matthews’ Hardball about Michelle Obama with silhouettes of STILETTO-WEARING STRIPPERS. Truly, they have lost their fucking minds.

It’s been a slow news week in the publishing industry—possibly the slowest since I started on this beat back in February. Summer is not the newsiest time for books. But the New York Times has a lovely page with quotes from New York independent booksellers about the weirder parts of their jobs. It’s the perfect Friday book-link—undemanding and interesting, at the same time.

I’m thinking there was plenty of toot-toot on board to fuel this 1980 exercise in showmanship, pizazz, and talent with a capital T. It’s from Goldie and Liza Together, what used to be called a television “spectacular” and today is pretty much nonexistent. The choreography may be weak, the narrative sketchy, but enjoy a legend in her prime, doing what she was born to do… (make sure you hold out for 2:45. It’s dreamy!).

Now just to compare and contrast, here’s a slightly more downtown version, with fabulous celebrity background hookers (Pat Ast!!) Donna Summer looks suspiciously like local falsettist diva Adé. This is the party I would have wanted to be at…

It was nowhere near that glamorous when I was arrested for soliciting…

The sun is out and so am I. It’s my birthday today, so have a great Slog without me until Monday.

A lot of people are sending me the link to this story, suggesting that it might make a really good “Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father” post. But there’s no father or step-father or boyfriend in this story, people, so it doesn’t qualify. Perhaps it might make a good “There Is No Morality Without Religion” post—mom appears to have been motivated by her deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs—but for a story to rate an ECDAMAAF post, it really does require one of those opposite-sex couples that the religious right insists all children deserve. Please make a note of it.

I switched my keyboard to “CAPS LOCK” mode at one point during this morning’s Sonics trial because what was going down seemed like a pretty big deal: Judge Marsha Pechman had just overruled the city’s desperate series of objections to Team Bennett’s interrogation of former Sonics player and later CEO, Wally Walker.

The city’s lead attorney, Paul Lawrence, was trying in vain to stop a line damning questioning by Bennett’s attack dog, attorney Paul Taylor, by arguing that Team Bennett had provided no proof that Walker was a consultant for the city while simultaneously working with a group of local bigwigs (former Sen. Slade Gorton, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, former Safeco CEO and GOP muckety-muck Mike McGavick, and local wireless mogul and billionaire John Stanton) to sabotage Bennett’s ownership and buy the team back.

The judge repeatedly overruled the city’s objections because Taylor had a letter, signed by Walker, that identified Walker as a consultant for the city as early as September 2007. From my notes:

“EXHIBIT 527 WILL BE ADMITTED,” PECHMAN SAYS.

Team Bennett’s point was to show that even as Walker was working as a consultant for the city on the Sonics, he was working with the group of bigwigs on a plan to force Bennett to stay in KeyArena by suing, and leveraging that (expensive) burden to make Bennett sell. Hmmmm… that’s kinda what’s happening right now.

During this morning’s questioning, Team Bennett hauled out incriminating emails and a plan dubbed the “poisoned well” strategy by the memo’s author, Mike McGavick. The secret plan explained: “For the best likely outcome … the Oklahomans have to be willing to sell.”

Taylor went on to show Walker’s assignment in the plot—according to an email—was to “drive a wedge between the NBA and the Sonics.”

And then, with the city’s objections overruled, Team Bennett ruffian Paul Taylor went forward with the antagonistic questioning, presenting an email from Walker to Stanton, one of the potential buyers, that Walker sent after meeting with mayor Greg Nickels’s staff. The email said the city was in “total agreement” with the strategy to make Bennett’s situation “too litigious and too expensive.”

The larger point of Team Bennett’s argument, identifying Walker as the link between the city and this “Machiavellian” plot, was to show that the city’s lawsuit is disingenuous and should be tossed. (“Machiavellian” wasn’t Team Bennett’s term, but actually turned up in an email from Mike McGavick to Walker, gleefully describing their efforts: “Machiavellian stuff that might work or at least be fun.”

In cross-examination, the city amplified Walker’s earlier defensive responses to Taylor: Although the letter he signed says he was a consultant, he didn’t think he was. Walker insisted his only job for the city was helping them work on a KeyArena solution for the Sonics that had nothing to do with any plot to wrest ownership away from Bennett.

p.s. One thing I forgot to include in yesterday’s Sherman Alexie coverage. He says he likes Oklahoma City a lot. “It’s the first place I ever kissed a Native American girl,” he said.

What philosophy has in common with the pharaoh Akhenaten is Atenism—both worship the sun. One philosophical text: “[O]ne morning with the rosy dawn, [the philosopher] went before the sun, and spake thus unto it: Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!” Another text: “Spirit often seems to have forgotten and lost itself, but inwardly opposed to itself, it is inwardly working ever forward, until grown strong in itself it bursts asunder the crust of earth which divided it from the sun, its concept…” In the Republic, the sun is nothing less than the truth. Even today, Badiou talks about the truth (scientific innovation, a work of genius, a moment in love) as a “return” from the sun.

But the sun in philosophy is not as great as the sun in reality. Our star is not destined for greatness. In the deepest future, it will begin to grow smaller and smaller. Its death will be a rock the size of our planet. A hard and compressed rock drifting through the stupidity of space. As our deaths reveal the corspes that are buried in our living bodies, the death of the sun will reveal the rock that’s buried in its brightness.

Imagine how wonderful it would be if the sun was destined to explode like the great stars do. Explode into the brilliance of billions of stars. Explode positive stuff into the depths of negative space. Stuff that would eventually cool into new stars and systems of planets. If this were our sun’s end, it would truly deserve all of our philosophy and praises.

The indulgent management at Liberty, the best little cocktail-and-sushi lounge on 15th Avenue, is inviting filmmakers making pieces for HUMP to shoot at their bar. Liberty would be a great location for anyone that wants to add some local color—and perhaps some delicious sashimi—to their HUMP submission.

Liberty’s HUMP classified ad is here. Full details on making and submitting a film for HUMP—Seattle’s amateur (and locally produced!) porn festival—are here.

Many people are completely in the dark that their partner likes porn, much less has a serious relationship with it. Ignorant as to any issue, they trust their lover unconditionally. They assume their partner understands that using porn, at least beyond a magazine like Playboy, is the equivalent of having an actual affair.

Just how big an idiot is Fox News “sexpert” Yvonne K. Fulbright? She wrote the paragraph above, which posits that using porn is no different than committing adultery. Andrew Sullivan follows the the burgeoning debate about how big an idiot Fulbright is here and here. Of course, Savage Love readers have known that Fulbright is an idiot for years.

Look what happened to these sweet old Russian Grandmas after just one day of reading SLOG comments. Tsk!

From the comments on my post about an impending strike over reduced health-care benefits at the Village Voice, owned by the same chain that owns Seattle Weekly:

The troubles at the Voice and elsewhere have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the chain and you know it. The Seattle Weekly is obviously very much alive and well, so you’d better get back to work.

From a press release issued by the Times Shamrock Alternative Newsweekly Group this morning:

Friday, June 21: Times-Shamrock Communications today announced the acquisition of the Cleveland Scene and the Cleveland Free Times, alternative newsweeklies separately owned by Village Voice Media and Times Publishing Co. of Erie, Pa., respectively.

Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. The deal is to close on June 25.

The two alternative publications will continue to publish separately for their next three issues and then merge into a single newsweekly, the Scene, on July 23, according to Don Farley, publisher of the Alternative Group for Times-Shamrock Communications.

Last year, the Cleveland Scene had $3.9 million in sales and $5.1 million in expenses—or $1.2 million in losses. But hey, since nothing that happens in one division of a company ever affects another division of a company, VVM’s other 16 papers have nothing to worry about.

Hey, remember how everybody was hating on that The Happening movie last week? Me neither! That’s because this week, everyone is hating on The Love Guru, Mike Myers’ newest movie.

The New York Times’ A. O. Scott hates the hell out of it:

To say that the movie is not funny is merely to affirm the obvious…No, “The Love Guru” is downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again.

And this is, come to think of it, something of an achievement. What is the opposite of a belly laugh? An interesting question, in a way, and to hear lines like “I think I just made a happy wee-wee” or “I’m making diarrhea noises in my cup” or to watch apprentice gurus attack one another with urine-soaked mops is to grasp the answer.

But my favorite bad review of The Love Guru is Ain’t It Cool’s Harry Knowles, who generally writes atrociously written favorable reviews of movies. He once equated Blade II to excellent cunnilingus, among other things. But the best part of Knowles’ reviews is that they’re usually overwhelmingly positive, atrociously written reviews of terrible movies, movies like AI and Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Just about every bad movie, like Daredevil, reduces Knowles to tears of joy. But he hates The Love Guru. The title of his review is “If Shit Got THE LOVE GURU On It, Shit Would Wipe It Off!” and it contains one of the funniest, and poorly written, paragraphs I’ve ever read in a film review:

Reviews of this film are nearly universally grotesquely negative - and with good reason. With this film, Myers puts a shotgun in the mouth of comedy and kills it. This isn’t merely a bad film, but a painful experience that you keep telling yourself to leave. However, I have a very strong belief in witnessing the terror. People had to survive the Holocaust to hold those responsible, responsible. This film isn’t as bad as the Holocaust. Nothing could be. But in the realm of film going experiences - it’s a third trimester abortion. It is a pregnant woman smoking a cigarette and drinking a Coors Light.

Hopefully, for Lindy West’s next column, she’ll take in a marathon multiple viewing of The Love Guru and report back to us on the kinda-not-really Holocaust of this film.

The music will be amazing, the location a Capitol Hill classic. Think Emerald City Soul Club but gay.

I’ll see you there…

Black Bottle in Belltown is now serving lunch. Black Bottle is a Stranger reader-reviewer favorite, home of great light bulbs, favorite first-date venue of Grant Cogswell, and temple of blasted broccoli…

The menu calls it, simply, “broccoli blasted.” It’s an $8 hill of broccoli that appears to have survived a fiery, salty apocalypse. The tips are ashy, crunchy, almost dust. The rest of it is deep green. (Must be all the vitamins, the nutrients, the anticancer stuff.) I have walked from the far reaches of the city in the hard rain, cars splashing water at me, all the way to Black Bottle to wait for a seat at the bar, just to eat a plate of broccoli while staring into a candle, alone. Christopher Frizzelle

Blasted broccoli is not on the all-new lunch menu (after the jump), but “like all special requests, we want everybody to feel free to ask and we will always do what we can!” (sounds like yes).

Continue reading "For Your Stomach's Consideration" »

theater

‘All’s Well That Ends Well’ at Center House Theatre

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

(A few times a week, I take a new book with me to lunch and give it a half an hour or so to grab my attention. Lunch Date is my judgment on that speed-dating experience.)

Who’s your date today? Farewell Navigator, a collection of short stories by Leni Zumas

Where’d you go? Cafe Stellina .

What’d you eat? A potato, provolone, and bacon tart ($10).

How was the food? Stellina is a controversial restaurant around these parts, but I really dug on that tart. There wasn’t too much bacon, the crust was light and flaky, the potatoes made the whole thing just heavy enough to be satisfying, and the tart was surrounded by greens coated in Stellina’s delicious rosemary dressing. It was a good lunch.


What does your date say about itself? Ten short stories by a fairly new author “who plays drums in the post-punk band S-S-S-Spectres.” “Attention unrequited lovers, sisters of suicidal brothers, children of the legally blind: you are not alone. Leni Zumas understands your quiet agony and describes it with such a wry, unflinching familiarity that even the gory details ring true. If darkness has ever been your friend, your story is in here.”—Miranda July

Is there a representative quote? “The word is moxa, I say, and here are your choices: a medieval fortified keep; a small instrument used to brush hair off the South American goose; a preternaturally skilled hoagie maker; or a flammable material obtained from the leaves of Japanese wormwood.
Hoagie is a disturbing word, my mother says.
You have ten seconds.
Well, she says, I don’t know what hoagie means so how can I choose?”

Will you two end up in bed together? Yes. In one lunch, I got through two stories, and the first one was way too vague for my tastes, the second one—the one quoted above—was a bit too eccentric for me, and the third seems just right. So we’ll see where it goes from here. There’s enough in the language to remind me of Aimee Bender, who’s one of my all-time favorites, to keep me happy even in the vaguest of the stories. I don’t get the sense that Zumas is a writer biding time until her novel gets edited; she seems to really like short stories, and that makes all the difference.

This weekend, June 21-22, people all over the country are hosting bake sales to support Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House.

To find a sale near you, go to moveon.org and enter your zip code.

Some of the ones in the city include:

Sat June 21, 12:00 PM
Corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Union St
Let’s help get Obama in the White House! We’re having a bake sale to raise funds for MoveOn’s efforts to elect Obama—Please spread the word!

Sun June 22, 2:00 PM
The War Room, 722 E Pike St
Seattle DJs and nightlife participants come together!!! The War Room, The Original Hot Mess and Re:launch HitGirl host HUNGRY FOR CHANGE! Come purchase all sorts of delectible goodies, listen to some of Seattle’s hottest DJs spinning music from all genres, mingle with some of Seattle’s NightLife Celebutantes - all on the lovely rooftop deck at The War Room! ALL MONEY RAISED GOES TO MOVEON.ORG TO HELP PUT BARACK OBAMA INTO THE WHITE HOUSE!

Sun June 22, 10:00 AM
Alaska Junction/corner of Alaska SW & California Ave SW
Zeb and Celeste are 10 and 7. They’ve been following the election closely and want to do something to make sure “we don’t end up with another scary president.” Bring your kids on down for a treat!

Sun June 22, 2:00 PM
Gasworks Park
Come out to a rocking bake sale on a sunny day in Seattle. Shrug off that summer diet for a day to support that main man, Obama. We hope to have some Barack-oli quiche on hand, and plenty of brownies for sale to help support MoveOn’s campaign for Obama.

More complete listings after the jump.

Continue reading "Snacking for Obama" »