This, and so many more, are at worth1000.com’s Star Wars Classic Art Photoshop contest.

(Via DarthMojo.)

Those were the days, huh?

Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.

In other news, John McCain remains much suckier in every respect.

And, hey, I thought only the president got to do a weekly radio address? It seems kind of presumptuous of McCain, who hasn’t been elected president yet, to do be doing one. Uppity old cracker.

A new study finds that nonbiological fathers—those who opt in to raise children who are not their own offspring—make better parents. Furthermore, making it legal via marriage correlates with even better fathering. Only heterosexual couples were studied.

Reading

Doug Dorst

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

If you thought Amy Chozick’s stupid article in the yesterday’s Wall Street Journal regarding Obama’s weight sort of read like a discarded McCain camp press release, that’s probably because it practically was one. From No More Mr. Nice Blog:

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis a couple of days ago:

“…Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand ‘MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea’ and worry about the price of arugula.”

Chozick today:

These days he stays away from junk food and instead snacks on MET-Rx chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and drinks Black Forest Berry Honest Tea, a healthy organic brew.

But possibly even worse are the apparent efforts Chozick undertook in gathering her research for the piece. Chozick, who quotes “a Clinton supporter” from “a Yahoo politics message board” is actually quoting “onlinebeerbellygirl,” who was responding to a thread that Chozick herself posted in the first place.

Is Obama too skinny to be president? 15-Jul-08 06:04 pm Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his “no excess body fat”? Please let me know. Thanks! amychozick

Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 15-Jul-08 10:21 pm
Yes I think He is to skinny to be President.Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her.I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.
onlinebeerbellygirl

Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 16-Jul-08 09:12 am
Love your response and your username (onlinebeerbellygirl). Would you mind shooting me an email so I can ask you a few more quesitons? My email is amy.chozick@gmail.com. Thanks so much!

-Amy

Wow. I would have been embarrassed to use a quote like this—cooked up to fit my bias, made by someone who was probably trolling the Yahoo message boards—when I was a reporter for my high school newspaper. But from the Wall Street Journal? It’s inexcusable.

Via Sadly, No and No More Mr. Nice Blog

One open mic and quite a few quality events going on for a Saturday.

First, at Elliott Bay Book Company, Doug Dorst reads from Alive in the Necropolis, which I wrote about in this week’s Constant Reader:

When people consume fictions, they experience an urge, so strong that it feels almost reptilian in origin, to categorize the story into a genre, even something as basic as drama. Doug Dorst’s debut novel, Alive in Necropolis, toys with this urge and manipulates the reader’s expectations to great effect.

There’ll be a Suggests box about it popping up here any minute now, too.

Also J.R. Stoddard reads at the Borders in Tacoma at noon. In a press release, Stoddard himself says that his books, Cougar Hunt, Cougar Canyon, and Cougar Camp, “are currently the only fiction books on the market that deal with the potential problems of cougar and human interaction.” I wonder if you could read the books to mean ‘older woman preying on younger men’ as well as ‘fearsome large cat.’

Also, at Seattle Mystery Bookshop at noon is David Waltner-Toews. He is “an epidemiologist who specializes in food and waterbourne diseases.” His mystery is titled Fear of Landing.

And at the Fantagraphics Store, Zak Sally, who is in the band Low, will be playing music and signing copies of the second issue of his new comic book, Sammy the Mouse. This could be fun, and it’s always nice to have a reason to head down to the Fantagraphics Store.

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

…by alluding to his race? Um, who was Obama playing that race card for? The blind?

Opening this week:

The dismal The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Andrew Wright: “The only one who appears to be having any fun at all, really, remains Brendan Fraser, who struggles mightily to interject a few moments of jut-jawed humanity. His yeoman efforts aside, this is really a joyless, borderline culturally insulting [in the press notes, Cohen talks about his deep love and respect of Chinese history, an ardor which translates into pan flutes on the soundtrack and absolutely everyone knowing kung fu], terminally dopey cluster-eff that almost reaches Ed Woodian depths.”

The weirdly affecting Swing Vote. Me: “It’s impossible to resist such a massive onslaught of resources, music, and transparent narrative shortcuts meant to persuade you to exercise your right to vote. I won’t say it’s Capra-esque, but it’s awfully nice.”

At the Varsity for one week only, the lovely SIFF 08 alum Chris & Don, about the love of Christopher Isherwood’s life. Frizzelle: “Among this film’s many pleasures is all the home-video footage Isherwood and Don Bachardy took of each other during their relationship, which lasted 30 years—Isherwood standing by a pool in Los Angeles, Bachardy waving on a ship in New York’s harbor, both of them covered in birds in a European square.”

The glossy high-school doc American Teen, also a SIFF alum. Me again: “American Teen is slick and snappy, and it’s easy to get engrossed in the narrative. But it’s also just as easy to forget it ever happened. When updates on the teens’ lives rolled just before the closing credits, I found myself hoping something bizarre had happened to one of them, just to see the edifice buckle a bit. No such luck—they’re all doing precisely what you’d expect.”

The old folks’ love story Elsa & Fred. Megan Seling: “Elsa & Fred is simply a charming romantic comedy that proves you’re never too old to fall in love and dance in a fountain. The moral of the story is that even when one love ends, there’s always the possibility for another (even at the age of 82). But what I took away from the movie, more than everything else, is that old people can get away with anything!”

______________________________________
In Concessions this week, Lindy West writes about the short film event Rawstock, at ACT Theatre last Friday. ______________________________________
And hidden away in Limited Runs are the following reviews and listings: The Silence Before Bach (Brendan Kiley: “A paean to Bach by experimental Catalan filmmaker Pere Portabella, The Silence Before Bach alternates between overlong narrative vignettes and short, sweet surrealist flourishes”) and Orson Welles’s The Trial (me: “You must see this film, if only for the sight of the painter Tintorelli’s herd of girl groupies peering through the slats of his ramshackle apartment. In the book, they’re all hunchbacks, but here, being stalked by an able-bodied little girl is frightening enough”) at Northwest Film Forum, Kenny (me: “This mild-mannered mockumentary gets less interesting the longer it goes on about its protagonist’s moral superiority over the rest of humanity, but it stays fairly funny throughout”) at Grand Illusion, and A Man Named Pearl at SIFF Cinema. About the only place the supposedly decent Clive Barker horror movie Midnight Meat Train is opening tonight is Federal Way’s Starplex Cinemas.

UK Drug Commission Report: Drug enforcement is expensive, futile, and highly effective at making drug dealers rich.

Still Didn’t Slip Past: Customs agents stop steroid shipment labeled “Gay Lube.”

Are Energy Drinks Linked to Risk-Taking Behavior? Or are risk takers tempted to quaff energy drinks?

Turtle Power: Half-shell informant leads cops to pot garden.

Mighty Mouse: Work-out pill makes buff vermin.

Dogg Catcher: Cops find pot on the Snoop-mobile.

Just a Bill: Lefty Dems clamor to join pot-legalizing love fest.

Give them an “F”: Congress upholds aid eliminations for drug convicts, because murderers and rapists should better themselves, but not drug users.

Give them an “A”: California pisses on feds.

“The (federal) law does not compel the states to impose criminal penalties for marijuana possession,” said Justice Alex McDonald in the 3-0 ruling, which upheld a Superior Court judge’s decision….

State and local officers can’t arrest marijuana users for violating the federal law, he said, and applications for the medical marijuana cards contain a warning that they provide no shield against federal authorities.

Desperate Force: Drug Czar’s office hands out book titled “Marijuana: The Greatest Cause of Illegal Drug Abuse.” Which is another way of admitting that, despite all its work, pot remains outlandishly popular.

Driving Force: Police officer runs over and kills drug suspect.

Photo of the Week: DEA agent wears Blackwater t-shirt to a bust.

Text-messaging meets literature (or a literature-like substance) meets a year’s supply of chocolate—this has Paul Constant written all over it.

Tap into your imagination, flex your literary muscle—and don’t forget to stretch your thumbs. Simply submit your Great American Story, txt-style. Create your masterpiece of 1500 words (one text message at a time) and incorporate ALL 11 NEWTREE chocolate names: PLEASURE, VIGOR, RENEW, REFRESH, FORGIVENESS, SEXY, BLUSH, TRANQUILITY, COCOON, REJOICE and CRAVE.

Forgiveness in a wrapper! The end is nigh.

Tonight, tonight, won’t be just any night! (Fuck, no!) For tonight KING or KOMO or whatever (I refuse to pay attention: one simply cannot trust any American broadcast news—BBC News now, BBC News FOREVER!) is celebrating the interminable career of Seattle’s favorite newscasting cornflake, the ultimate mistress of deft diction and light fingers (whatever the hell that means!), the indefatigable Jean Enersen! Forty years in broadcast news!

I KNOW!

The show is on at 8:00 PM sharp, and it promises to tell you more than God ever intended anyone to know about Lady Enersen. Except this, this, this, this, this, and maybe even this, naturally. That shit’s totally up to me.

Oh, the terrible thrill!

What’s more disturbing: this video, which supposedly points out how clean a hotel chain rooms are…

…or the fact that, without a doubt, somebody out there can’t stop masturbating to these videos?

Also, the Extended Stay website has a series of commercials promoting various elements of their hotels—in-room kitchens, laundries, gyms, multiple locations—and their new mascot lady licks each feature in turn.

(Via AdFreak.)

Barring legal battles, the L.A. fast food ban will soon be under way.

And also, apparently, thanks to a new calorie-counting law, New Yorkers are terrified to discover exactly how many calories are in their favorite chain restaurant foods.

At T.G.I. Friday’s, one of the few sit-down chain restaurants to have already added calorie counts to menus, a group of young women gasped as they studied the menu, barely able to find a meal under 1,000 calories, never mind an appetizer or dessert. Both Stephanie Fowler and Lindsay Green asked about the suddenly popular Classic Sirloin — at 290 calories, it was one of the lowest calorie items on the menu — but learned the restaurant ran out by the time the dinner rush started.

Of course, who eats at T.G.I. Friday’s in New York City, anyway?

(MSNBC link via Mightygodking.)

The sound of one of these with one bite out of it hitting the inside of the garbage can, as rejected by Dan Savage.

They are disturbingly puffy.

In the venerable tradition of releasing potentially controversial news on Friday afternoons—in the eternal hope that journalists will already be too drunk to report it—ACT Theatre has announced that its old managing director, Kevin Hughes, is stepping down after nine months.

Taking his place (with the title “executive director”): Carlo Scandiuzzi, an excellent choice.

Mr. Scandiuzzi—a bright, energetic Swiss-Italian who grew up in Geneva—has been deeply involved in Seattle’s arts scene since the early days at the Empty Space, when he was an actor. (His first production was The Return of Pinocchio, playing alongside ACT’s current artistic director, Kurt Beattie.)

He was a concert promoter in the 1970s (bringing Devo, Nina Hagen, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, John Cale, and other to town). In the 1980s, he collaborated with local performance artists like Jesse Bernstein.

Scandiuzzi went on to produce films, founded IndieFlix and become a philanthropist, throwing money at theater, dance, and the Central Library downtown, which named a room after him.

His recent masterstroke was starting ACT’s Central Heating Lab, profiled here:

People have been calling for the death of regional theater since it was born. The regionals are moribund for dozens of reasons: exhausted economies, overhead and union costs that keep tickets prices high, an old and dying subscriber base, their inability to adapt to a younger audience (viz., its preference for buying single tickets instead of subscriptions), and, of course, their failure to not bore the shit out of people.

But ACT, one of the feebler regionals (it nearly died of debt five years ago), is showing signs of renewed vigor with something called the Central Heating Lab, led by Carlo Scandiuzzi…

The Heating Lab promises something vital, something regional theaters have conspicuously lacked—a nimble, populist wing that can absorb the best local theater, dance, and literature, and put it onstage. Its genius has been to yank off the “events” blinders and start subtly programming a kind of counterseason for a whole other audience: the younger kind that likes to buy single tickets and doesn’t think Alan Ayckbourn comedies about middle-aged couples having affairs are all that funny.

Coming in the next few months under the Lab’s rubric: comedy by Black Daisy, Dart-Mondo, and Andy Haynes; music by “Awesome”; dance by Julie Tobiason (of Pacific Northwest Ballet); and The Adding Machine, the first production by New Century Theatre Company (the fledgling collective started by actor Paul Morgan Stetler, playwright Stephanie Timm, Stranger Genius Amy Thone, et al.).

When asked what the hell was wrong with the old managing director, ACT board president Brad Fowler was circumspect: “We were pleased with Kevin, he addressed the things we needed to focus on as we moved forward,” and so on.

Fowler parried for several minutes: “But why did he step down?”

“He thought he could serve better as a consultant.”

“So what was he doing that wasn’t so great?”

“We were pleased with his performance.”

A master of elision.

Anyway, congratulations Carlo. And congratulations ACT.

I’ve been too busy working on our upcoming endorsement issue to Slog much today, but I have to take a break from studying the scintillating races for state treasurer and secretary of state to take note of the latest news out of King County: Sales tax revenues, which help pay for Metro bus service, are falling tens of millions short of projections. The shortfall—an estimated $45 million this year and next—combined with a separate $22 million funding gap due to rising fuel costs, means the 25-cent fare increase the county council was set to approve on Monday won’t even come close to funding the shortfall. In lieu of raising fares now, the county council will spend a month coming up with a proposal to fill the gap between Metro revenues and costs. What does that mean to the average Metro rider? Higher fares, for sure—probably at least 50 cents higher, and potentially even more. The county is also considering deferring new capital investments—i.e., keeping old buses in service instead of replacing them—and, as a last resort, cutting service.

This problem isn’t going away. Even if sales tax revenues get back on track, fuel prices aren’t going down—certainly nowhere near the sub-$3 level the county assumed in its budget projections. And buses, unlike light rail, run on gas. (That includes Metro’s hybrid buses, which have proved much less efficient in practice—stopping and starting on Seattle’s crowded city streets—than in the county’s projections.) Buses also take more drivers to operate than fixed-rail systems—say, 20 drivers for 1,000 passengers, instead of one or two. It’s ironic, then, that at a time when Metro can’t keep the buses it has in operation (and can’t afford to buy any new ones) the solution King County Executive Ron Sims is proposing for our region’s transportation problems is… more buses. That’s not even short-sighted. It’s blind.

Anthony asks if this:

is bad.

Anthony, it depends on how abstract you want to be.

When you save money at a bank, most of the money gets lent out to someone else. Look at your account balance. Shift the decimal place one to the left. That’s about as much of your money your bank actually keeps around.

The whole banking system relies upon the notion that:

1. These loan investments (made with your money) will eventually be repaid.
2. Huge numbers of people won’t ask for all their money back at once.

Let’s say 1 ends up being false—say because banks invested in a bunch of secured debt that ends up having no verifiable assets securing the debt. All of your money the bank lent out is gone. Poof.

You come by to cash a check. If we’re living in the the early 1920’s (or the early 2000’s) the following occurs:

You: I want my money.

Bank: One moment sir!

Bank turns from you and cries out.
Bank: Calling all suckers! Please place your money here!

Sucker: Here’s my money!

Bank takes the money and turns to you.

Bank: Here’s your money sir!

You: Thank you!

After the last sucker has been found and fleeced (1929 version):

You: I want my money.

Bank: One moment sir!

Bank turns from you and cries out.
Bank: Calling all suckers! Please place your money here!

No suckers arrive.

Bank turns to you.

Bank: Fuck you, your money is gone.

You: Fuck you! I’m ruined!

After the last sucker, 2008 version:

You: I want my money.

Bank: One moment sir!

Bank turns from you and cries out.
Bank: Calling all suckers! Please place your money here!

No suckers arrive.

Bank turns to the FDIC and asks for a loan. Receives such a loan.

Bank takes the money and turns to you.

Bank: Here’s your money sir!

You: Thank you!

Ready for the trippy part? The FDIC, ultimately, is secured by the full faith and credit of the Federal Government. In turn, the credit of the US Government is secured, well, by you and me. The taxpayers.

The incompetent, failing bank—that has both made huge numbers of bad loans and lost the confidence of new investors—can count on one last big sucker to pay us back. Us.

Heller could not write it better.

My primary bank account is at Washington Mutual. Like everyone else who has money saved at Washington Mutual, I should be concerned. I’m not. My account is FDIC insured. Even if the whole bank goes belly up, as IndyMac just did, up to $100,000 of my investment will be returned to me. Since I’m a Stranger writer / graduate student, I do not even vaguely approach the $100,000 limit. Even if WaMu sinks, I’ll float. Because, through the FDIC, I’ll pay myself back all the money WaMu lost me. With my money, that I pay in taxes.

Well, not exactly. For now, the FDIC is solvent and doesn’t need an infusion of cash from the Federal government. And, while investors are increasingly terrified about lending to banks like WaMu, they continue to buy up US government debt. In other words, the investors have decided most banks are too risky, forcing the banks to borrow from the FDIC instead. The FDIC in turn borrows from the federal government, that in turn borrows from the same frightened investors. Brain hurting again?

Welcome to the land of leaky abstractions.

Anthony, you’re a computer guy. I have the perfect metaphor for you.

TCP, the protocol underlying the majority of the web, absolutely guarantees that a given message will arrive, complete and in order. TCP does this by using IP. IP guarantees absolutely nothing. So TCP makes the promises and attempts to deliver them with IP. Most of the time, it works splendidly.

If someone trips and pulls the ethernet cable out of the wall, TCP will keep making promises that IP cannot deliver.

The banks tripped, and the global investors are pulling their plugs out. We’re promising to honor all debts, by taking the investors’ money to guarantee the investors’ money. It should turn out great, if we collectively believe it’ll turn out great.

(Crossposted.)

Reacting to violence at Critical Mass rides in New York City and Seattle, Bike Hugger responds with this campaign…

Says Bike Hugger…

RideCivil™ is a Bike Hugger gift to the cycling community—our response to recent Critical Mass violence in Seattle, NYC, and elsewhere. You are free to remix, re-use, and share the RideCivil artwork as a flyer, shirt, jerseys, socks, thong bikini, tattoo, or whatever works. Please blog and link love it. We hope other cyclists RideCivil in their communities. Watch for a related website and ride plans to follow.

The sign on the door today at Cafe Presse:

Condolences to Thomas Miller’s friends and family and everyone at Presse.

(And to all those citizens disappointed they can’t go to Presse today: You’re right to be sad—Cafe Presse is wonderful. Go there twice tomorrow.)

George W. Bush, along with his dad and his brother Jeb, took a break from lunching at the Bush compound in Kennebunkport to surprise-call Rush Limbaugh’s show today and congratulate him for being on the air for 20 years.

THE PRESIDENT: Rush Limbaugh?

RUSH: Yes, sir, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: President George W. Bush calling to congratulate you on 20 years of important and excellent broadcasting.

All three Bushes congratulated Limbaugh in turn, but the dumbest Bush talked the longest.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m just calling along with President 41 and the former governor of Florida. We’re fixing to have lunch here, and I said, “Listen, we ought to call our pal and let him know that we care,” for you. So this is as much as anything, a nice verbal letter to a guy we really care for…I am great. We’re doing very good, thank you very much, sir. Concerned about our economy, obviously, but know we need to be drilling for some oil and gas in order to take the pressure off the gas prices — and I’m pleased with the progress in Iraq.

Isn’t that just so fucking sweet you could vomit?

Amazon.com has just announced that, pending approval, they’re buying online used book retailer Abebooks.com. This is not great news. Abebooks was one of Amazon’s only competitors.

Both retailers sell used books in generally the same manner: used booksellers list their inventory on the online booksellers’ sites and customers go through Amazon and Abebooks to buy the books; the online retailers basically put up a tremendously popular interface and then deal as a middleman to get smaller used book retailers a worldwide customer base. I know some used booksellers who refuse to do business with Amazon, preferring to deal with Abebooks instead. And I know some booksellers who prefer Amazon because they disagree with Abebooks’ requirements for retailers. None of those booksellers will be happy with this.

UPDATE: This blog explains why this is troubling, and it also points out Alibris, which is another online bookseller that I forgot all about. Alibris has its own pluses and minuses for used booksellers, but it might have a very important minus now: they’re not Amazon.

Thank you, Mental Floss, whose 8 Forgotten Kids Shows Sure to Give You Nightmare can be found here.

Last night, I received an email from another reporter in town who covered the Critical Mass mess, complaining about how I characterized their reporting in my story about the incident.

I generally keep email exchanges with other reporters off Slog, but this one is just so fucking fucked up, that I couldn’t just let it sit in my inbox.

Hey Jonah, I saw your piece on the big melee. You know, I don’t think my initial story portrayed the driver as a victim.

In fact, I took great care to not even use the word ‘victim’ in my article. The only time the word was used was when, in response to my interview with Tom Braun, I specifically asked Officer Mark Jamieson why the driver wasn’t being investigated.

His response was that as far as they were concerned, the driver was the victim.

I can’t speak for the other articles written on the subject. But I don’t think it was fair to characterize my story as being one that portrayed this clash as a one-sided affair, particularly since I took pains to avoid doing so. I know you don’t name me by name, but you did mention the XXXXX as being among those media outlets to give a one-sided account of the incident and I just don’t think that’s true.

That was it. See you around,

XXXXX

XXXXX,

thanks for the email. However, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree that I mischaracterized your story. While you did indeed add an interview with Tom Braun in a later report, the [earlier] version … very much paints the driver as the victim.

In your second graph, you mention the motorist was assaulted by cyclists. It’s not until your 12th graph that you mention the fact that the driver struck several cyclists with his car. You also state that one of the cyclists punched the driver which, according to the driver, is inaccurate.

Much of your story’s focus seems to be on the damage done to the driver’s car, and repeatedly quotes Mark Jamieson who, when I spoke with him around the time your story was posted, had not read the police report but still seemed contemptuous of the cyclists and sure that they were solely at fault.

While you did eventually catch up on your reporting, the initial reports that came out of your paper—not to mention XXXXX, XXXXX, etc—completely failed to get the other side of the story. It wasn’t difficult to reach out to CM riders and get their version of events, so I’m not sure why that didn’t happen sooner.

Having said all of that, if you still feel like I was unfair, let me know.

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee

Oh, absolutely. I completely agree that those earlier versions were entirely one-sided. You’re also right it wasn’t hard to find riders. … I just didn’t have the time to devote to the story that I would have liked. I’m glad Tom Braun reached out. Thanks for your thoughtful reply. -XXXX

Wow. Just wow.

Canadian police today identified the 40-year-old man who witnesses say stabbed and decapitated a fellow Greyhound bus passenger Wednesday night on a remote stretch of highway.

Reports from the scene of the ostensibly random attack describe Li as boarding the bus, which was en route to Winnipeg, without incident. After pulling out a hunting knife and stabbing McLean as many as 40 or 50 times, witnesses said, Li displayed the victim’s severed head to horrified passengers who had already fled the bus.

It’s the remote stretch of highway that elevates this story from the (sadly) forgettable violence of cities to something memorably grotesque and macabre.

The countryside is shocked by any violence. Cities are only shocked by gruesome violence.

But gruesome violence in the countryside? That’s the most shocking of all.

The rest of the story, with even more horrible eyewitness details, here.

The box office for the second Hulk, $132,742,865, finally passed the box office for the first and better one, $132,177,234. How I hate Ed Norton.

What does this mean? Mocking anti-drug ads is now a viable presidential-campaign strategy. Via MoveOn.org:

Not that the anti-drug ads actually need mocking, when you’ve got originals like this gem:

This ad, of course, helps explain why we live in a nation of heroin-chic hipsters afraid to cook.

_{(Personal note: One day I’m going to leave my apartment, look to the horizon at the east, and see the Sonics Deathwatch logo rising where the sun should be. It’s just something that I feel in my bones to be true.)}

Brand-New Stranger Genius Sherman Alexie Shares 61 Things He Learned During the Sonics Trial
“23. “Motherfucker” is, of course, the purest distillation of mama insults. Since single mothers are sadly common and sweetly revered in black culture, mama jokes are ironically hilarious. However, I’ve always wondered why the term “fatherfucker” is so rarely used as an insult. I think it’s far more original, powerful, and disturbing than “motherfucker.” I assume that “motherfucker” is an insult borne of misogyny, so wouldn’t “fatherfucker” be a more egalitarian, homoerotic, and therefore more disturbing obscenity? Wouldn’t we all be challenging the patriarchy if we adopted its use?”

Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, Erica C. Barnett, Jonathan Golob, and A. Birch Steen on the Critical Mass Whumpin’
[From Jonah’s Critical Mess:] “Tom Braun, a 35-year-old insurance attorney who was injured in the clash, says he had nothing to do with the attack on the driver. Still, he ended up in the hospital with bruises and possible internal injuries: Doctors found blood in his urine. The next morning, Braun checked for news on the clash. He wasn’t pleased with what he found.”

Some Jackass On the Pleasures of Attending Readings Wherein the Author (In This Case, Ethan Canin) is Drinking a Large, Very Alcoholic Pink Beverage
“When asked a question, Canin would ramble pleasurably for 10 minutes before moving on, sometimes never actually answering the original question, although no one minded. Canin is a graduate of Harvard Medical School who decided to become a novelist after reading Saul Bellow. He talked at length about his career as a doctor, mentioning, for example, that “the only time I ever got sued” was a result of attempting to treat a gunshot victim, adding cryptically that ‘finding an entry wound is much harder than finding the exit wound.’”

Jeff Kirby Talks to Mike Kinsella of Owen About Being Kind of a Fuckup
“Every other day I wake up and think, “Ugh, I should really get some sort of job,” but then an hour and a half later I’m playing video games saying, ‘God, I am so glad I don’t have a job.’”

Charles Mudede on the Death of Buildings
“We all know the end of, say, Northgate Mall is not going to be pretty. It has in it no proper way to die. It wants to look perpetually new, so if it is not destroyed, it is destined to leave a horrifying corpse. But Kundig’s Delta Shelter, a cabin in Eastern Washington, has an infusion of time in the core of its being. It is very much alive, but it does not conceal its fate, its future, its rust, its temporality.”

Bethany Jean Clement Thinks About Boom Noodle“Boom Noodle would make an excellent cafeteria for an upscale space station. Lightbulbs hang in marshaled rows, not too glaring, like just-pretty-good ideas; diners sit at long tables in curved, ergonomic Eames-alike chairs. The supersleek aesthetic, while nothing new, is nicely accented with green walls and panels of wood—a reminder of the existence, somewhere distant, of trees.”

Also discussed: John McCain as Mr. Magoo, Margarita Prentice suggests that her constituents are poor, Erica C. Barnett on why the city doesn’t classify car violence as assault, bitchery over kitschery in Georgetown, a King Cobra employee on cleaning up Sugar’s violent mess, liking a band despite their promotional videos, whether there’s a worse word for penis than “penis”, and more.

Via the Wall Street Journal:

Speaking to donors at a San Diego fund-raiser last month, Barack Obama reassured the crowd that he wouldn’t give in to Republican tactics to throw his candidacy off track.

“Listen, I’m skinny but I’m tough,” Sen. Obama said.

But in a nation in which 66% of the voting-age population is overweight and 32% is obese, could Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability? Despite his visits to waffle houses, ice-cream parlors and greasy-spoon diners around the country, his slim physique just might have some Americans wondering whether he is truly like them.

The latest web ad from the McCain camp:

The raid that kicked off the Winning the War on Drugs series has gone to trial.

A white police officer told jurors Thursday he thought his life was in danger when he shot at an unarmed black woman during a drug raid, killing her and injuring the 1-year-old boy she held in her arms….

“There was absolutely, positively no doubt in my mind right then and there that whoever this was is shooting at me. They’re trying to kill me,” Chavalia said.

Chavalia told jurors that he now knows the gunfire he heard was coming from downstairs, where other officers shot two charging pit bulls.

In other words, it was fine to shoot this woman and her baby because police were engaged in business as usual. Officers will typically kill any dogs encountered in drug raids—charging pit bulls or complacent Labradors. And when that happens. Blam! (The mother holding the baby, by the way, she was on her knees and apparently complying with police orders when she was killed.)

Of course, when a resident pull a gun on intruders in the middle of the night, they also do it because they fear for their life. However, that’s yet another reason for cops to kill them. So no matter who fears for their life—cop or resident, guilty or not, especially when there’s a dog at the house—that’s a reason to shoot and kill the resident. Your tax dollars at work.

Maybe it’s because it’s a sunny Friday, but I’m having a hard time staying interested in all the finger-pointing over who injected race into the Obama-McCain contest first, what it all means, and what Paris and Britney have to do with any of this.

I’m sure my lack of interest also stems from feeling like I’ve seen this episode before. The McCain camp is very clearly trying to ignite (without being too overt about it) the same kind of white backlash against Obama that Hillary and Bill Clinton, circa March through May 2008, were trying to ignite.

Here’s how it goes: Inject race into the campaign. Then, when everyone starts to wring their hands about it, claim that it was actually Obama who injected race into the campaign first. (This is not very hard to do since Obama’s presence ipso facto injects race into the campaign.) Then, take it a step further: Claim that Obama is “playing the race card,” position yourself as the victim of reverse racism and white-guilt-tripping, and then wait for the disgruntled white masses to say: “Yeah, me too! I hate it when that happens!”

If it’s not obvious to you that this is the game that McCain is playing right now, watch this clip:

It didn’t work very well for Hillary Clinton to morph from the tough Commander in Chief who was Ready on Day One into the symbol of all working class whites everywhere who feel they are victims of reverse racism. I’m not sure it will work for McCain, either.

But he does have one thing going for him that Hillary Clinton didn’t have going for her: There are far more people in the general election pool of voters (as opposed to the Democratic primary pool of voters) who might be receptive to a white candidate pretending to be the victim of reverse racism and/or race-card-playing.

… but I feel like everyone should know about it.

Via the Northwest Film Forum mail list:

We are pleased to announce that the 6th annual Cephalopod Appreciation Society meeting will be held on the afternoon of Sunday, August 10th at our favorite location—the Northwest Film Forum (1515 12th Ave - off Pine St. on Capitol Hill - Seattle, WA).

We’ll kick everything off at 12:30 pm with some cephalopod-inspired music, art, poetry, impassioned speeches & Other, and end with a cephalopod film (TBA).

The Specifics:
Sunday, Aug. 10th
12:30 - 2:30 pm
@ Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave / Seattle, WA
All ages!
$5 suggested donation
Free stickers!
More info: songsforsquid@hotmail.com

Here’s what you can do:
* First - save the date & come celebrate!

* Second - spread the word to your friends and favorite cephalopods. (Reminder: Cephalopods include the octopus, squid, chambered nautilus, and cuttlefish. All molluscs are welcome, but we’ll only be celebrating cephalopods on this day.)

* Last but not least — if you have (or will have) a CEPHALOPOD-INSPIRED SOMETHING to present or perform at the meeting, please let me know so I can schedule you in! We’re open to all media (music, dance, lecture, fashion, multi-media, art, poetry, puppets, interactive, super-8, slide-show, Other), and although it’s a fairly lo-fi affair we’ll do our best to accommodate your technological needs.

And if you know of someone who might be interested, please pass this on.

Hope to see you there!

This seems like the right time to mention that if plain old Moleskine notebooks have become too dull for you, you can purchase all kinds of etched modifications from Modofly. Those by Dan Hillier tend to involve human-cephalopod hybrids:

(Thanks, Caroline.)

This past Wednesday, Mayor Greg Nickels announced a series of “car-free Sundays” to take place in August/early September along certain stretches of certain Seattle streets.

As the Seattle Times reports:

To get people out of their cars and onto their feet, Seattle will close down major thoroughfares on Capitol Hill, in Rainier Valley and Alki for several weekend hours this summer….The streets will be closed to cars, motorcycles and scooters but open to pedestrians, bicycles, skateboarders and Segways.

Today the plan was attacked by right-wing blow-up doll Michelle Malkin:

Welcome to Seattle’s enviro-nitwit checklist: Bullying residents into buying Gorebulbs and terrorizing pants off children as part of the mayor’s green brainwashing? Check. Anti-plastic bag policing and tax hikes? Check. And now…closing off streets to cars and pushing residents to jump rope and draw chalk art? Check. Yep, who needs drilling? Seattleites will just jump up and down on the streets until they find new energy sources—or draw them with chalk and imagine they’re real!

In other stupid news I’ll report anyway, one stretch of road that will be closed on the Car-Free Sunday scheduled for August 24 is “the western loop of Volunteer Park,” aka Boner Row, where unhappily married men from Kent sit in their Civics and rub their crotches while making horny-sad puppy-dog eyes at the non-closeted queers strolling/rollerblading/cruising by. It’ll be nice to see these guys out and about.

Shot-glass checkers:

Half the shot glasses are round, half are square, and the set comes with a checker board. According to the rules on the back of the box, you’re supposed to fill the shot glasses with booze and when one of your glasses gets jumped, you have to do the shot. One game should put you under the table. Two should send you to the emergency room.

The round and square glasses would seem to obviate the need for booze of two different colors—but, hey, if you like shots of Blue Curacao, go for it.

All yours for $14.99 at Value Village on 11th.

Pretend you give a sh*t!

(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? American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT, by James E. McWilliams.

Where’d you go? Look, okay? I was the new Southcenter Mall for a story and I wanted lunch. It’s really hard trying to find anything at the Southcenter Mall to eat that’s not an Ivar’s or some weird chicken place. I even walked down “Lupine Way,” which is a collection of standalone restaurants just outside the mall, places like Racha Noodles and Duke’s Chowder House and something called “B.J.’s,” which I think was a bar and grill. (Public service announcement: Don’t ever eat anywhere called B.J.’s, kids.) I wound up eating at a Zoopa, which is an all-you-can-eat salad bar thingie. Don’t judge me.

What’d you eat? A big-ass salad. I also tried a piece of pizza. (Everything is always $7.99 for lunch.)

How was the food? It was a salad bar at the Southcenter Mall. It was fine. The pizza was inedible and the vegetables weren’t spectacular, but, you know, if I worked at Southcenter, I’d probably eat at Zoopa a lot, just because it resembles real food much more than any of the other options (for one, sad moment, I considered eating at a Pizza Hut in a Target.) It was pretty depressing, though: everyone was really old and sitting alone, staring out the windows at all the concrete.

What does your date say about itself? James H. Jones, Alumni Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the University of Arkansas says it’s “the best in-depth study of the poorly conceived, terribly managed, and utterly futile war on insect pests in the United States.”

Is there a representative quote? Try the first sentence in the introduction (which is titled “The Dunghill of Men’s Passions: The Insect Paradox.”) “The professional fight against insects in the United States began with a man who refused to ignore his passion.”

Will you two end up in bed together? Yes. Not only is it a well-written history about both American culture and entomology, it’s funny, too. Supposedly, it ends with a few dramatic and bold ideas for revisions to our current policies regarding insect-human relations. I can’t wait.

Do you enjoy trolling through mind-numbing court filings? Do you like taking long walks down to city hall to pick up always-exciting legislative action agendas? Do you wish you spent more time interviewing crazy people about everything from the fascinating world of mass transit to gay robot conspiracies?

Then have we got a job for you!

The Stranger’s news department is looking for a few good interns.

If you have any aspirations to be a journalist, can string together a sentence, and don’t mind acting as a drug mule every once in awhile, then send a resume and clips (if you have them) to Barnett@thestranger.com.

Stranger internships: You can’t say you hate it if you haven’t tried it.

This was brought up briefly a few months ago, but I wanted to give it more attention. Isabella Rossellini’s insect-copulation short films are fascinating! She dresses up as different bugs and creatures (bee, spider, praying mantis, dragonfly, and more) and gives a first-person account of the habits, abilities, and mating rituals (If I were a snail…). The costumes are terrific and she really gives it her all: prancing around in bug outfits, humping, regurgitating, being eaten.

Go here to watch the videos.

AP:

Oral arguments set in Sen. Craig sex-sting appeal

It’s rude to talk with you mouth full, Senator.

Via Fleshbot.

Seattle Police have swarmed 14th and Aloha after another fight broke out on the cursed block just moments ago.

Last Friday, police were called to deal with a clash between cyclists and a motorist. This time, the scrap appears to be between two Sound Mental Health patients in a dispute over money.

The fight, described by SPD Spokeswoman Renee Witt as “fairly violent,” appears to be over, but it can only be a matter of time until something else goes terribly wrong on 14th and Aloha.

Music

Film School

• See what else is happening in Music on Friday »

Film

‘Frogs’

• See what else is happening in Film on Friday »

More Stranger Suggests for this week »

This website can allegedly predict whether you are a man or a woman based on your browsing history. Of course, these sorts of things can often be covers for horrendous computer-buggery, so I bravely volunteered my browsing history to see if something awful would happen. Nothing did, and the website seems on the up and up. I’m also pleased with my results—I came up 98% man, 2% woman, which is maybe the most masculine assessment that’s ever been made of me.

TheRealMcCain.com today offers a number of moments:

ABC News on the curious fact that typing www.ObamaBayh08.com into your web browser takes you to the Democratic National Committee’s official website.

ABC tries a number of other potential Obama/VP combinations—ObamaKaine08.com, ObamaBiden08.com, ObamaSebelius08.com—and comes up with nothing.

Coincidence? Red-herring hacking? Who knows?

In the meantime, meet Indiana Senator Evan Bayh.

UPDATE: As a number of commenters have confirmed, it’s just some garden-variety cybersquatting. Carry on.

…reads this.

The Bush administration has ignited a furor with a proposed definition of pregnancy that has the effect of classifying some of the most widely used methods of contraception as abortion.

A draft regulation, still being revised and debated, treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying “the life of a human being.”

Many medical groups disagree. They hold that pregnancy isn’t established until several days after conception, when the fertilized egg has grown to a cluster of several dozen cells and burrowed into the uterine wall. Anything that disrupts that process, in their view, is contraception…. Dozens of Congressional Democrats—including presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama—have signed letters of protest blistering the proposal. His Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, declined to comment.

The goal of this proposed regulation? To make it harder for women to come by contraceptives. If standard methods of contraception are reclassified as abortion then laws crafted to allow pharmacists and other medical personal to “opt out” of providing treatments that violate their religious beliefs—morning-after pills, abortion referrals—would suddenly cover the pill and IUDs.

Helloooooo? Straight people? The GOP and the religious right don’t just hate the gays and gay freedom to host gay brunches, enter into gay marriages, and do gay adoptions. They hate your freedoms, too.

There’s a whole bunch of events going on tonight, but only one reading.

At the Seattle Mystery Bookshop at noon, Ron Lovell reads from Yaquina White. It’s a thriller about a man who has just returned from the Arctic Circle. Apparently, he’ll have to confront his demons at a lighthouse, which is a pretty classic place at which to confront one’s demons.

And then, tonight, tons of bookstores are hosting midnight parties to celebrate the release of Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final book in Mormon author Stephanie Meyer’s Vegan Vampire Twilight series. This is the first big midnight-release YA book since Harry Potter, for what it’s worth.

A brief and incomplete rundown of events:

At the University Book Store’s stores, from 10 pm to midnight, you can “undergo Vampirization;” argue over whether vampire Edward or werewolf Jacob is a better match for Bella, the protagonist; make bookmarks and friendship bracelets; and play in trivia contests.

Up at Third Place Books, at 11 pm, they’re having a Breaking Dawn prom party, and suggest that you come dressed for prom. There will be music and a contest to choose an Edward look-a-like, which is interesting because, apparently, Edward is repeatedly described as the most beautiful human being on the face of the Earth. Those of you in the market for a beauty contest between teenage boys would probably do well to get up to Lake Forest Park tonight.

At Secret Garden Books, they’re selling the books at 12:01 am and you can enter into a raffle to win “two highly sought-after prizes of Meyer-phernalia.”

And pretty much every Borders and Barnes and Noble in the area will be open tonight, with Barnes and Nobles starting their festivities at 10 and Borders kicking off at 9:30. Both will feature Edward Vs. Jacob debates, costume contests, and trivia.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.

Seattle Times:

The state Department of Transportation has said for months it wants to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, not repair it.

Yet it has just agreed to spend $17,000 to study fixing the aging structure—even though it has no intention of doing that. In all, the state has spent $1.2 million in 12 separate studies on a retrofit of the viaduct since the 2001 Nisqually earthquake.

The state will hire California structural engineer Kit Miyamoto, the same engineer who reviewed a plan by Port Townsend engineer Victor Gray, who for years has been urging the state to repair, rather than replace, the viaduct…. Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond said the state agreed to hire Miyamoto as a concession to Gray and others who want to retrofit the viaduct.

The governor yesterday, responding to a question from a Slog reader, assured us that “nobody is going to jail” when the Viaduct falls down. But maybe she’ll make an exception for Hammond and Gray.

Now, I’m no economawhatsit (not going to put my lot in with ‘em, either), but this graph seems troubling.

I trust that some commenters here can explain just how bad this is (or not). Where’s Golob? He likes graphs.

Somebody call Al Gore, we’re going to need a bigger scissor-lift.

Source: Economi