R.I.P.

The Moore is one of the most beautiful theaters in the city, with its marble and crenellations, its nooks and crannies, and air of decaying opulence. It is a decadent space for a decadent age, and tonight it will be teeming with writers and artists, actors and hiphop-heads, filmmakers and a man who casts headstones out of glass.

The stars: Sherman Alexie, Paul Mullin, Wynne Greenwood, Lynn Shelton, and Implied Violence.

The music: Dyme Def, Daedalus, and motherfucking James Pants on the main stage, with the Emerald City Soul Club spinning soul all night in the Moore’s subterranean bar.

It shouldn’t be free. But it is. Because we love our city.

It starts at 9 pm.

The man will not stop:

John McCain’s campaign is running a Spanish language ad in battleground states that blames Barack Obama and Senate Democrats for the failure of attempts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws — even though the Republican nominee and his Democratic counterpart cast identical votes in the key Senate showdowns on that issue last year

“Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?” asks the announcer in the 30-second spot, “Which Side Are They On?”

“The press reports that their efforts were ‘poison pills’ that made immigration reform fail,” he continues. “The result: No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his Congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead.”

But Obama and McCain cast identical votes in the major congressional showdowns on the issue last year. Both men cast votes in favor of an unsuccessful early June effort to end a filibuster. Later that month, they voted again to end debate on the issue – but again failed to shut down the filibuster effort, led for the most part by Republican senators.

Looks like Palin didn’t make that visit to Iraq after all:

WASILLA, Alaska — Aides to Gov. Sarah Palin are scrambling to explain details of her only trip outside North America — which, according to a new report, did not include Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign had initially claimed.

Palin made an official visit to see Alaskan troops in Kuwait in July of 2007. There, she made a stop at a border crossing with Iraq, but did not actually visit the country, according to a new report in the Boston Globe.

And, those huge crowds that Palin’s been helping McCain draw? Well…

Senator John McCain has drawn some of the biggest crowds of his presidential campaign since adding Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to his ticket on Aug. 29. Now officials say they can’t substantiate the figures McCain’s aides are claiming.

McCain aide Kimmie Lipscomb told reporters on Sept. 10 that an outdoor rally in Fairfax City, Virginia, drew 23,000 people, attributing the crowd estimate to a fire marshal.

Fairfax City Fire Marshal Andrew Wilson said his office did not supply that number to the campaign and could not confirm it. Wilson, in an interview, said the fire department does not monitor attendance at outdoor events.

In recent days, journalists attending the rallies have been raising questions about the crowd estimates with the campaign. In a story on Sept. 11 about Palin’s attraction for some Virginia women voters, Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher estimated the crowd to be 8,000, not the 23,000 cited by the campaign.

The Obama campaign is now moving toward a response that I suggested on KUOW’s Weekday yesterday—at about 24:45. (Not that I believe Obama takes his marching orders from Weekday, but hey, what good is a blog if you can’t use it to note that you were right about something or other.) Here’s the Obama response to today’s news:

The McCain campaign said Governor Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, but now we know she supported it. They said she didn’t seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn’t lying about?

The response is missing one key leap, though. I bet the leap is coming soon, but here’s how I imagined it yesterday:

I think there will come a point sometime soon when there’s enough of a critical mass of media lie-noting, or calling out of untruths on McCain’s part, that the Obama campaign has an opportunity to work that up into a list of indictments, a sort of bill of particulars. And to say, “Lying about this, lying about that, lying about the Bridge to Nowhere, lying about their experience… Sound familiar? It’s like the lies that the Bush administration told you for the last eight years. It’s like the lies about Iraq…”

That, I think, could be a very heavy anchor to wrap around the necks of Palin and McCain—and, it doesn’t fall prey to any of the cultural shields about sexism and so on. This is about an issue [lying] that everyone can grasp. It doesn’t have anything to do with gender or identity.

Again, my guess is that the leap to Bush and Iraq war untruths is coming soon.

Daytime

Rem Koolhaas at Seattle Public Library, Central Branch

• See what else is happening in Art on Saturday »

Nighttime

Stranger Genius Awards at Moore Theatre

• See what else is happening in on Saturday »

The big event of the day is the Hugo House’s Zine Library grand re-opening celebration. I wrote about this yesterday, but it’s important enough that I’ll repeat myself: ZAPP is possibly the largest collection of zines in the world, and it finally has a little bit of organization, which is almost unthinkable. I’ve visited the new digs, and they’re really nice. It’s not quite as spacious as the old ZAPP, but it’s also not as prone to flooding, since it’s on the second floor. The party goes from 3 to 7 pm, and you should go check it out before coming to The Genius Awards. Zines are an important part of modern literary history, and it’s really interesting to watch them change in the face of the internet and blogs. Most zines nowadays are beautiful objects, many with silk-screening and fancy design. Go and take a look, really. It’s free.

At Elliott Bay Book Company this afternoon, Lily Koppel reads from The Red Leather Diary, which is about a red leather diary that Koppel finds and then delivers to its long-lost, 90-year-old author. Later in the day, California Representative Barbara Lee reads from Renegade for Peace & Justice, which is about her efforts in Congress to fight the Iraq War. Before you think, “This lady was Barack Obama before there was a Barack Obama,” Lee also voted against the use of force after September 11th. Which I think pretty much means she’s the biggest pacifist in Washington D.C. And that’s worth checking out.

And at Elliott Bay Book Company in the evening, John Witte reads from his new book of poems, Second Nature. He’s a very good poet whose work has appeared everywhere. You can preview one of his books of poetry, The Hurtling, at Google Books. But you shouldn’t go to this reading. You should come to the Genius Awards instead.

UPDATE: Commenter —MC writes:

Aw, Paul. No mention of the TYPHON signing tonight at the Fantagraphics Bookstore at 1201 S Vale St. in hip and fattening Georgetown? From six to nine, TYPHON editor Danny Hellman will sign copies of his groundbreaking new comics anthology, along with contributors D. J. Bryant, Dalton Webb, Pat Moriarity, Max Clotfelter, and Mark Campos. Hellman will present a multimedia cartoon performance and Moriarity will perform a short music set with his 10-year-old son Jack – as seen on Willie Nelson’s website! This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack, featuring exciting visual and performing arts at 30 locations throughout the historic neighborhood. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. at Airport Way S., only minutes from downtown Seattle. Phone: 206.658.0110. Open daily 11:30 – 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00. Admission is always free to the public. And you didn’t say anything about it! Aw, but that’s all right, you’re a busy guy.

I apologize, —MC. That one slipped right by me.I don’t know some of the other names, but Campos, Webb, and Hellman are all excellent comics people and they should have had their spot on the calendar with a little green star next to them. Sorry to —MC and to Fantagraphics and to everyone involved with the reading. (But I’m still going to the Genius Awards.)

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

A little extra pain for McCain and Palin:

Today’s Daily Kos tracking poll (conducted by Research2000) continues to show a close race (MoE +/- 3.) McCain and Obama are tied at 47.

Rasmussen has McCain over Obama 48-45 (no change from yesterday), and the others have yet to report. A new Newsweek poll has the candidates at 46-46%

Of great interest are the internals. Look at Sarah Palin’s fav/unfav, which is now below 50% (49/40) and worse than McCain’s or Obama’s (and Biden’s, for that matter.) We’ll need to keep an eye on those going forward; it’s possible the unfavorable press is taking a toll. Assumptions about how this race is turning out may still need to be adjusted to fit the data (not the other way around). Note that we’ve been much more skeptical of Palin-as-candidate, based on polling numbers. For example, from Newsweek:

Quantifying how much of this McCain bounce is attributable to the Palin pick can be tricky. When asked, only 29 percent of respondents in the poll said Palin makes them more likely to support McCain in the fall, a proportion on par with other running-mate selections in recent history, like Al Gore in 1992 and Jack Kemp in 1996. In fact, 22 percent of voters say Palin makes them less likely to support McCain, more than any other recent vice presidential candidate.

Republican pundits who suggest she’s made of teflon may need to reconsider.

Palin, the honeymoon is over.

Washington - John McCain and Barack Obama head into the fall campaign neck and neck, despite questions in many voters’ minds about whether McCain’s running mate is as qualified as Obama’s, according to a new Ipsos/McClatchy poll.

The national poll finds Republican McCain with the support of 46 percent of registered voters and Democrat Obama with 45 percent. The survey has an error margin of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

The poll finds that registered voters continue to wonder whether Palin, a first-term Alaska governor, is as qualified to step up to the job of president as Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, who’s been in the Senate for more than three decades.

A majority of voters, 60 percent, think that Biden is qualified to be president, while 31 percent think he is not.

By comparison, 48 percent of voters think Palin is qualified, while 44 percent think she is not.

Good news, homos! In France yesterday Pope Benedict XVI endorsed civil marriage rights for same-sex couples. I mean, that’s implicit in statements the Pope made about the secular and religious realms, right?

“At this moment in history, when cultures continue to cross paths more frequently, I am firmly convinced that a new reflection on the true meaning and importance of secularism is now necessary,” the pope said at a ceremony earlier Friday with President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée Palace. He used the word “laïcité,” which denotes the separation of church and state.

But the pope proposed a “distinction between the political realm and that of religion in order to preserve both the religious freedom of citizens and the responsibility of the state toward them.” He distinguished the state’s legislative and social duties from religion’s role “for the formation of conscience” and the “creation of a basic ethical consensus in society.”

Wow—thanks for that ringing endorsement of the separation of church and state, Mr. Pope! This means, of course, that we won’t be seeing any more money from Catholic Church pouring into anti-gay marriage campaigns (or anti-right-to-die campaigns, for that matter), right?

Because if there’s a secular realm, like Mr. Pope said, and a religious realm, and the church has to let the state take care of the state’s business and the state has to let the church take care of its own business, and seeing as marriage is a civil institution as well as a religious institution, well gosh, it naturally follows that states—and citizens—can elect to open the civil institution of marriage to same-sex couples while the church, free to act on its beliefs, can continue to deny the religious sacrament of marriage to same-sex couples.

Great! It’s a deal! Thanks, Mr. Pope!

To what should we attribute this bad blow against Palin? An honorable search for the truth?

The crucial vote to subpoena Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband was cast by a moose-hunting Republican from her own hometown.

Sen. Charlie Huggins, the vice chairman of the Alaska Legislature’s Senate Judiciary Committee, wore camouflage pants to Friday’s hearing, but they didn’t help him blend in among the coats, ties and dress shirts of other lawmakers and national news correspondents.

As the other two Republicans and the two Democrats on the panel argued over the ramifications of issuing subpoenas to Todd Palin and a dozen other people, Huggins held his cards, as well as his fire. When he finally spoke, he made clear — in folksy, plainspoken words — that he’d had enough of the political maneuvering.

Not to mention the suggestion of his Republican colleague Sen. Gene Therriault that the investigation had been hijacked by supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“I do not support Sen. Obama,” the anti-abortion conservative thundered at the start of his remarks.

He went on to make an impassioned plea for government transparency and honesty in this “new era” of Alaska politics. A number of lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, have been indicted or convicted in a wide-ranging federal corruption probe.

“I see all this duck-foot action under the water,” he said, referring to back-room discussions about the investigation. “Let’s just get the facts on the table. The sooner the better.”

The final vote was 3-2. The House Judiciary Committee also approved the subpoenas on an advisory vote.

Around 3:30 this morning, two men entered the Lusty Lady strip club [EDITOR’S NOTE: ECB POINTS OUT THAT THE LUSTY LADY IS A PEEP SHOW, NOT A STRIP CLUB], pulled a gun on the front desk clerk and demanded cash.

SPD spokesman Mark Jamieson says the men forced the employee into the back of the club and then took money from a cash register. Jamieson was not able to say how much money was taken.

A Lusty Lady employee called police, but the suspects were gone by the time officers arrived. No one was injured during the robbery.

SPD Robbery detectives are investigating.

Every time I see or hear about this…

… I can’t help thinking of this:

Which, inevitably, reminds me of this:

Mr. Charlie Lindbergh, he flew to old Berlin, Got him a big Iron Cross, and he flew right back again To Washington, Washington.

Mrs. Charlie Lindbergh, she come dressed in red,
Said, “I’d like to sleep in that pretty White House bed
In Washington, Washington.”

Lindy said to Annie: “We’ll get there by and by,
But we’ll have to split the bed up with Wheeler, Clark, and Nye
In Washington, Washington.”

Hitler wrote to Lindy, said “Do your very worst,”
Lindy started an outfit that he called America First
In Washington, Washington.

All around the country, Lindbergh he did fly,
Gasoline was paid for by Hoover, Clark, and Nye
In Washington, Washington.

Lindy said to Hoover: “We’ll do the same as France:
Make a deal with Hitler, and then we’ll get our chance
In Washington, Washington

Then they had a meetin’, and all the Firsters come,
Come on the walk and they come on the run
In Washington, Washington

Yonder comes Father Coughlin, wearin’ the silver chain,
Cash on his stomach and Hitler on the brain.
In Washington, Washington

Mister John L. Lewis would sit and straddle the fence,
His daughter signed with Lindbergh, and we ain’t seen her since
In Washington, Washington

Hitler said to Lindy: “Stall ‘em all you can,
Gonna bomb Pearl Harbor with the help of old Japan.”
In Washington, Washington

Then on a December mornin’, the bombs come from Japan,
Wake Island and Pearl Harbor, kill fifteen hundred men.
Washington, Washington

Now Lindy tried to join the army, but they wouldn’t let ‘im in,
‘Fraid he’d sell to Hitler a few more million men.
In Washington, Washington

So I’m gonna tell you people, if Hitler’s gonna be beat,
The common working people have got to take the seat
In Washington, Washington.

And I’m gonna tell you workers, ‘fore you cash in your checks:
They say America First, but they mean America Next
In Washington, Washington.

Paul Constant:

“I’m a biiig Clooney whore. I can’t help it.”

Aren’t we all.

Plenty to see! Plenty to do! Plenty to not see! Plenty of air conditioned theaters available!

Opening this week:

The new Coen brothers’ comedy Burn After Reading, a movie I like more and more the longer I think about it: “Burn After Reading is sillier and less thematically cohesive than Fargo or Raising Arizona, but it takes a turn exactly one hour in that reminds you just how fucked-up and brilliant the Coens can be. Brad Pitt is involved.”

Paul Constant very much enjoyed Momma’s Man at Northwest Film Forum: “It sounds like an underbaked Will Ferrell bomb, but Momma’s Man actually more closely resembles 2006’s Old Joy—it certainly shares that film’s patient pacing and oblique sentimentality—or the funny, pathetic sadness of a Chris Ware cartoon.”

Paul Constant very much didn’t enjoy Cthulhu: “Waggish critics will probably comment that Tori Spelling puts in the best performance of the movie, but that’s a lazy zinger: Her acting is exactly as bad as everyone else’s.”

Or Trumbo: “Aspiring documentarians should watch Trumbo as an example of what not to do: The film tells us how charming the man is, but they don’t show us much of anything. Instead, it’s just a bunch of famous people talking at you for an hour and a half about the First Amendment. This isn’t a testament to an underappreciated talent, it’s a boring-ass middle-school civics class.”

And finally, as has been mentioned before, special guest reviewer Diane Keaton is none too pleased about having been left out of The Women: “Hey, Hollywood. Write this down. Next time you make a two-hour vaginal suppository that hasn’t met a feminine cliché it didn’t dip in chocolate and shove down America’s gullet (smoking, shopping, cheating, faked orgasms, diets, supermodels, bubble baths, hunger, water breaking, Botox), maybe you should do your job and fucking call Diane Keaton. Bitches.”

—

In Concessions this week, I attend the Sprocket Society’s Secret Sunday Matinee, where I am irreversibly traumatized by Betty Boop: “When Boop throws a party, it is not humans who come to dine.”

—

And in Limited Runs:

Paul Constant fucking luuuved Viva: “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an homage film as note-perfect and entertaining as Viva. It’s a callback to early ’70s sexploitation films, where busty blondes refer to whiskey and a copy of Playboy as ‘coffee and the morning paper,’ where orgies are the Greatest Thing Ever, and women are expected to cook and clean in transparent lingerie.”

Charles Mudede wrote this really, really funny sentence about Audition aka Competition: “The pleasures of this documentary (or at least I think it’s a documentary) can only accessed by that extraordinary type of human being whose life is utterly meaningless when it’s not directed toward the painfully slow activity of accumulating more and more knowledge about very rare Czech films.”

And these extremely satisfying ones about Alain Robbe-Grillet: “Why did Alain Robbe-Grillet make movies? Because he was the one who put a bullet into the old head of the novel.”

Also:
Donnie Darko at the Egyptian!
This Is Spinal Tap at the Grand Illusion!
And a whole bunch of other stuff!!!

AND FINALLY, I just noticed that I totally fucked up and left some ancient information for Soul Nite! in the print edition. Soul Nite! at the NWFF is not, in fact, “Thurs July 31 at 8 pm.” It was actually last night, September 11, at 8 pm. My apologies to anyone patiently waiting for next July to roll around.

It’s been a while… But, clearly, the Prayer Warrior is still as busy and important as ever.

Friday, 12 September 2008

I have been asked to participate in a one-on-one interview on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Please be praying about this tremendous opportunity to share the Lord with his audience.

Pastor Hutch

Politico:

Obama’s team showed some new energy today, releasing a series of hard-hitting ads that question McCain’s credentials as a change agent. And as the press gives McCain’s recent spots a harder look, there’s been a steady trickle of critical, fact-checking stories that will catch up with the Republican ticket over the long run. Obama-Biden still has work to do if it wants to regain a controlling role in the campaign, but the elements of a new strategy started to become clear today.

McCain had a somewhat harder day, taking a beating from his questioners on “The View,” of all places. Sarah Palin continued to hold up under Charlie Gibson’s questioning, but at this point you have to start wondering: when is McCain-Palin going to unveil its second act? While Palin-driven rallies coupled with negative advertising worked for this week, it won’t carry the campaign through November.

From The Page, which also cites a Newsweek poll that declares Obama and McCain tied at 46 percent each. After the week we’ve had, I consider a tie a victory.

South Lake Union resident Red Reddick was wary of a letter that arrived in her mailbox last month on a letterhead for Vulcan Endeavors, LLC. It said that by using public records, the company had ascertained she owned land in the area, and that “if you would like to sell your property… we may be just what you are looking for.” It continued, “We guarantee you an offer.”

Reddick is a member of the Shelter Project, a low-income housing collective that owns three side-by-side apartment buildings. The project’s bylaws prohibit the owners from selling. Reddick says she’s concerned that Paul Allen’s Vulcan Real Estate is systematically buying up affordable housing in South Lake Union and turning it into high-end developments; already, Vulcan has bought up more than 60 acres of the neighborhood.

Several years ago, Redddick and her neighbors tried unsuccessfully to protect the Lillian Apartments, which Vulcan bought and then demolished. “Our property taxes are much higher than they were five years ago,” she says. “We’re pretty much talking about wide-scale gentrification.”

When Reddick called the agents named in the letter, she asked if they represented Vulcan Real Estate. They replied “no,” but said that they “are working with Vulcan,” she says.

But in a bizarre twist, Vulcan denies Vulcan’s claim.

“We have never heard of the company Vulcan Endeavors,” says Vulcan Real Estate spokesman Aaron Blank. He says Vulcan has never used the “Vulcan Endeavors” name to buy property nor has it ever worked with the company. Neither the web site nor the mailing address on the letter are shared with Vulcan Real Estate. So it isn’t clear if Vulcan Endeavors is anything more than a letterhead. Blank asked for a copy of the letter so Vulcan could follow up.

The agents named in the letter from Vulcan Endeavors, LLC have not returned phone calls or emails to comment.

King County prosecutors have filed felony harassment charges against a Seattle man for threatening a fellow member of the Idris Mosque in Northgate last month.

According to court documents filed on September 11th, the accused, Khalid Bouhdili, had been confrontational with other members of the mosque for about a year and had tried to “usurp leadership” of the mosque’s prayer services and “enforce his ‘radical’ views on the rest of the mosque’s attendees.”

Records say Bouhdili unsuccessfully attempted to take over the leadership of several prayer sessions at the mosque on July 12 and 14. On his second attempt, according to the documents, the victim—who we’re not naming—confronted him.

During the confrontation, court documents say, Bouhdili began yelling that the victim was wearing “non-Islamic clothes” and accused the man of being an FBI agent and “an enemy of the Prophet’s tradition.” Bouhdili then left the mosque, yelling, “The end of your life is near!”

One week later, Bouhdili returned to the mosque, again accused the victim of being an FBI agent, and attempted to take over another prayer session. According to the court filing, the victim subsequently contacted police, fearful that Bouhdili would “follow-through on what he construed as a…death threat.”

According to the victim, in conservative Islam, calling someone an “enemy of the Prophet” is considered a “death sentence” that “allow[s] and even encourage[s] anybody to kill the named ‘enemy’”

King County prosecutors have issued a warrant for Bouhdili’s arrest.

Don’t use up all of your genius power right away, lest you end up like this:

From the Washington Post:

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts since March 2003, plans to announce today that in January he will leave the federal agency he is credited with helping revitalize.

Yeah, he revitalized it by turning it into the most cowering, deferential source of government arts funding this side of Syria.

Which was, arguably, his job. Once Bush got elected, everybody in the arts world knew—or should’ve known—that the NEA was in serious fucking trouble. An evangelical businessman (whose favorite philosopher is Jesus) needs to do some cutting to make good on his small-government campaign promises? The NEA had to put on its body armor.

Or cower in a corner. Which is precisely what it did, with an adult literacy program, some eduction stuff (particularly jazz), lots of “Shakespeare in the heartland programs.”

Those are all virtuous activities, but not the NEA’s jobs—the first two should be coming from education budgets and if there is a single goddamned playwright in the whole goddamned world who doesn’t need the NEA’s help, it’s Shakespeare.

The NEA doesn’t have to hang Tim Miller from his testicles with a rope made of $20 bills to prove its art-street cred, but it should at least spend American arts money promoting American playwrights: would it kill us to see a little more Tennessee Williams or August Wilson?

Anyway.

Gioia—and his immediate predecessors—deferred to social conservatives, put a muzzle on the NEA, and saw its budget rise a little bit to $144.7 million. (Up from $99 million in 1996.) Which is, perhaps, what he had to do to save his ass and his agency. But we won’t be sorry to see him go, along with the era he represents.

I sat in on a group interview with Gioia in Los Angeles last February. Somebody asked if he would resign at the end of Bush’s second term. He gave a non-answer that seemed like a yes.

He, at least, is a man of his non-word.

Scott White, one of two Democrats seeking the state house seat from North Seattle’s 46th legislative district, has included the $6,250 he spent in attorney fees fighting off a challenge by his opponent, Gerry Pollet, to remove him from the ballot as a campaign expenditure on his disclosure reports with the state Public Disclosure Commission. That means the money will be counted as an official campaign expense. White says he decided to file the expense report after he was told “I should file it because it was associated with my candidacy” by advisers who “felt that it was the most appropriate to make sure that we were being fully transparent” in disclosing campaign expenses.

White’s opponent Pollet, in contrast, has not filed his own attorney fees as a campaign expense or as an in-kind contribution to his own campaign—even though a successful case would have benefited his campaign tremendously by removing his main opponent from the ballot. Pollet says he didn’t see the lawsuit (officially filed by seven of Pollet’s supporters in the district) as “a campaign activity,” adding that White “chose to involve himself” in the lawsuit, which was officially addressed to King County. “That’s his call. He chose to involve himself in that, and to do so [using] his campaign contributions,” Pollet says. “If I were you, I would ask whether that’s even allowed.”

Curious whether White was right in filing his lawyers’ fees as a campaign expense—and whether it was OK that Pollet chose not to do so—I called the Public Disclosure Commission’s Lori Anderson, who told me, basically, that it’s up to the candidates. “I think defending a challenge to yank your name form the ballot is a legitimate campaign expense, and if the money came out of the campaign account then I think it needs to be reported” by White, Anderson says. As for Pollet’s own expenditures, “if he reported it as an in-kind contribution that he made himself, I don’t think that would be wrong, but if he didn’t I don’t think that’s necessarily bad either.” Had Pollet filed the fees as a campaign expense, Anderson adds, “I think we would have to decide whether that was legitimate.”

I can’t actually share today’s “Savage Love Letter of the Day” with you, dear readers, because the boy who wrote it asked me not to print his letter. He wanted private and confidential advice lest his boyfriend spot the letter—and their business—in my column. Now normally those requests annoy the crap out of me. But the author of the letter writer was kind enough to include a photo of his pretty spectacular ass and all was forgiven. Click on the image above for the full and—does it even need to be said?—NSFW shot.

Report:

VP candidate Sarah Palin is a Seahawks fan.

And not just a casual Seahawks fan, folks—Palin’s a member of the Seahawkers, the team’s official fan club.

Theory: Maybe this has something to do with McCain allegedly closing the gap in Washington State?

Prescription: Palium.

This is what Slog Happy has done to Megan Seling:

She refuses to take the corn suit off and has been walking around the office mimicking Sarah Palin for the last half-hour.

I say we put her in the microwave and be done with it.

The Joy of Sex has been updated. There is apparently much more about pleasing women in the book—the female orgasm wasn’t discovered until 1998, after all—and the book now includes cybersex, including something called “teledildonics.” There’s also a whole section devoted to horseplay. As in equine role play. It remains to be seen if the illustrations are still those same hairy hippies who were getting it on when the book was introduced in 1972:

Superstar gay journalist and blogger Rex Wockner has a post up on his blog today made me cry like a little Palin. San Diego City Councilwoman Toni Atkins married her partner of eight years, Jennifer LeSar, on September 6. Rex was there, got quotes from the happy brides, and took a few pictures. And it was one of the pictures—and its caption—that made me choke up.

Imagine the impact that attending the wedding of his openly-gay aunts had on that kid. What must it be like for young gays and lesbians to live at a time when—and in a state where—gays and lesbians are fully-enfranchised citizens, and gay relationships are afforded the same respect and protections that straight relationships have always been afforded. To know that love and marriage are possible for you too—not compulsory, gay “radicals,” but possible—must be incredible.

Help preserve marriage equality in California. Send a few bucks to the folks fighting a state constitutional amendment that ban same-sex marriage in that state. Donate here.

This just in:

A 4-month-old girl was fatally mauled today by her family’s two pit bulls, according to the North Las Vegas Fire Department. The grandmother who was babysitting the child was also bitten when she tried to save her, Capt. Cedric Williams said.

“Somehow the dogs got inside the house,” Williams said. “They were the family pets.”.

The police had to shoot and kill the dogs to get ‘em off the kid and her grandmother. Nice pets.

I don’t know from liquor licenses and leases and derelict fast-food-franchise locations. But I do know from fags and gay bars. And every invert I know is still mourning the untimely demise of Pony, the late, great, trashy gay bar/temporary instillation that occupied the old Cha Cha space on Pine Street for a few glorious months. (Pony was always supposed to be temporary; the block was coming down before the bar opened. Pony’s demise was untimely because an empty lot now stands, and has stood for months, on the spot where Pony—and Manray and Kincora’s and Bus Stop, etc.—once stood.)

Anyway, it seems to me that Seattle’s hipster inverts—young and old—enjoyed Pony not just for its, you know, “divine decadence,” but also for its ephemeral, fleeting quality, for the sense, when you walked through the doors, that Pony was too good to last, and that we had to enjoy the free air hockey and the go-go boys and the friendly, flirty, non-lifer bartenders while we could.

Walking past the shuttered KFC franchise on Capitol Hill today, it occurred to me that it would make an excellent, thoroughly trashy Pony 2. I’ve heard that this spot will never be the site of a fast-food franchise again (the building doesn’t come with the parking lot or the drive-through lane), and the building is likely to be torn down soon. It is currently for lease, according to signs in the windows, and the building is attracting new tags hourly. So… is it even possible to get a liquor license for that spot? Black out the windows, paint the awful dingy cream exterior stucco walls black, put a bar behind the counter that’s already in there, tear out the bolted-down seating… and… ta-da!

Pony 2!

It would be just as trashy and trashed as the original Pony location—but trashy in an entirely new and different way—and it would be just as fleeting and, I believe, just as legendary. Someone make it happen!

Updated at 3:15 on Friday.

As several local papers have reported, the Edmonds School District has rescinded its policy denying hot lunches to kids whose parents owe more than $10 in lunch money to the district. (They received a cold cheese sandwich instead). What outraged parents and readers might not know, however, is that Seattle Public Schools actually has a more onerous policy, at least for kids in grades 6-12: If they can’t pay, they don’t get any lunch at all.

An official school-lunch calendar provided by Seattle Public Schools’ nutrition services division (and, digression: I would not want to be a teenage vegetarian in Seattle schools; Cheese Pizza Munchables, anyone?) states the district’s policy as follows: When an elementary-school student fails to pay for lunch (which costs $2.25) three times, he or she “will receive a substitute meal of a cheese sandwich and milk.” After three cheese sandwiches, “your child will no longer receive a meal.” Moreover, “students in 6th-12th grade without funds [lunch price: $2.50] are not provided substitute meals.”

SPS spokesman David Tucker says the district’s calendar misstates the district’s policy regarding lunches for elementary-school children. “We continue to provide those students with a substitute meal, and that doesn’t end,” Tucker says. “We want to make sure that those children get hteir nutritional needs met.” He adds, “What is in the calendar is not accurate.” The calendar does accurately state the district’s policy for kids in grades 6-12, who Tucker says have generally “been in our system for quite a while; there’s insitsuttional knowledge about how our system works. … We want to focus on the younger students and ensure that they get fed.”

I understand the need to recover losses in tough economic times, but punishing kids—even those who know how the district’s electronic-payment system works—for their parents’ failure to pay by taking away their food seems a little harsh.

(Thanks to Slog tipper Sara for the calendar).

Yesterday, One World Report on KBCS aired an interview with me about 9/11 Truth groups. (Coincidentally, yesterday was September 11th.) That interview is up for free at KBCS right now.

Jesus.

Residents in one area of the Texas coastline have been warned they must evacuate before the arrival of Hurricane Ike or “face certain death.”

The storm has already killed more than 70 people in the Caribbean, with Haiti and Cuba particularly badly hit.

Via Ben Smith: Former Democratic darling Paul Hackett (who knows something about losing in Ohio) says today on DailyKos that Obama is not in a position to win the state:

While the polling is close I believe it is far worse than the numbers reflect given social apprehension of middle of the road uncommitted respondents to appear racist by not supporting Obama. There has been much speculation across America regarding this phenomenon and as such can impact the accuracy of polling by at least 5 points. Thus instead of being down in Ohio by 3 or 4 points I would argue that for planning purposes the working assumption should indicate that Obama is down in Ohio by roughly 10 points. That’s a lot of ground to make up in less than 60 days, and as such there must be an aggressive offense to cover such a distance.

What he’s talking about here is the Bradley Effect. What you probably need after reading that is some Bradley Effexor.

Thanks to Slog tipper Ryan.

TPM:

The Obama camp has just unleashed one of its toughest hits on McCain’s character yet, signaling a newly aggressive effort to hammer McCain’s supposed honor and integrity over the lies and adver-sleazements that have come to dominate his campaign.

An Obama spokesperson just blasted out a statement comparing McCain’s current campaign to the infamously despicable 2000 campaign run against him in South Carolina—true fighting words—and adding that McCain “would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.”

…

I guess this must be that new sharper tone the Obama campaign has been promising.

About fucking time.

They’re occurring primarily among young African American men and older gay white men. The closet (a.k.a. “the downlow”), poverty, the insanely homophobic African American church, and a lack of access to medical care drives the AIDS epidemic among young African American men. But what accounts for the new infections among gay men in their 30s and 40s? Despair? Stupidity? Does our luck just run out at a certain point? (And, yes, luck does play a role in staying HIV-negative.)

And seldom is it asked, is our HIV prevention strategies working? Doesn’t look that way.

… including cigars, $230 Scotch, transsexuals playing carnival games, lots of riot police, and lots of pepper spray—$1.9 million dollars’ worth.

I wrote a story for this week’s paper about crashing the RNC (and how the RNC crashed into me), which includes the tale of 19-year-old Elliot Hughes.

Hughes was arrested at a protest, jailed, then smacked around by a dozen police officers who put a bag over his head and used him to practice their pain-compliance holds. All while the Republicans—and I—were sitting around at a party, getting drunk on fancy liquor:

We are served veal meatballs and gallons of rare Scotch and cognac, and young women in black party dresses walk around with boxes full of cigars. Unbeknownst to Ryan, Brian, and Tony, my skin still tingles from the pepper spray (and unbeknownst to all of us, Elliot Hughes is in jail, being used like a rag doll). I take a cigar from one of the cigar sirens, sniff it, and accept a light. Ryan, Brian, or Tony does the same.

(Meanwhile, Hughes is coughing blood and vomiting while police call him “gay” and “a princess,” as he will later recount at a press conference.)

A reader just sent me a photo of young Elliot Hughes being arrested:

The kid looks scared. And he has no idea of the pain that’s coming.

(The wicked liberal media has been bizarrely quiet about this kid and the cops who threw him around like a rag doll. But there’s a small story from last week in the Minneapolis Star Tribune here.)

My books section was tiny this week due to massive Genius profiling, but if I had the space, I would’ve written about this: Tomorrow is the day that ZAPP (the House’s zine library) reopens to the public at the Hugo House, from 3 to 7. I highly recommend going.

I know some commenters have smart-assy things to say about zines—mostly comments of the “Is it 1994 again?” variety—but they’re missing the point. This is a zine library, possibly the largest zine library in the world, and as an archive of the period just before the Internet, it’s invaluable. They have zines from the Riot Grrl scene in Olympia archived away, including the original Bikini Kill zine. There’s also early work by Miranda July and dozens of other comics artists, musicians, and writers you’d recognize.

ZAPP has been closed for about a year now, because its former basement home was flooded, and the new digs are a little smaller but much more organized. It’s actually possible to find a particular zine now, which is a nice change from before. There’s still dedicated areas and supplies to make zines, and the library is still taking on new zines.

On the whole, zines have become a little more sophisticated in the time since the Internet: as objects, many are beautiful, and the content is often reliant on the format, making it the sort of thing that can’t be duplicated in a blog. The free, four-hour celebration of ZAPP’s reopening will involve zine readings and tours of the new space. It’s a pretty great precursor to the Genius awards, too: After all, how often do we get to celebrate the re-opening of a library in this town? I think the Hugo House deserves credit for being custodians of a little-celebrated branch of literature and providing a place for people to explore this unique store of information.

Yesterday, like any other morning, I woke up and opened my eyes. But unlike any other morning, I was confronted with the TERRIFYING DEMON FACE OF A BABY GHOST staring back at me out of the wall:

Clearly there’s some sort of restless spirit trapped within the bricks. My question for you, Slog, is WHO THE FUCK IS IT? I can’t figure out who it looks like.

Is it Beaker from the Muppets?

Little Karl Pilkington and his baldy roundy head?

Baby Ronald McDonald?

Thoughts? Ideas? Exorcists? All I know is that it’s there, PEEKIN’ at me while I sleep, and I want it to stop.

ABC:

Alaska state legislators were asked to approve subpoenas for the husband of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and 12 others, as part of an ongoing investigation into whether Palin abused her power as state governor.

And CNN:

A former ethics adviser to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin warned in July that firing her public safety commissioner would become a “grave concern” for her administration.

And, my favorite, from Marketwatch:

Palin may seek to quash subpoenas in trooper case.

You go ahead and do that, Ms. Big-Shot Reform Governor. That’s gonna look great!

The Worst Trip: Teacher on mushrooms stabs himself to death with shards of a broken bottle.

Whiner: Colombian drug lord requests a bigger cell because he’s “claustrophobic.”

Stoner: Man reeking of pot flags down police in the U-District. Cops take the dope and release the dopehead.

Popper: Cindy McCain the pill maven.

McCain’s addiction also embroiled her with one of her charity’s former employees, Tom Gosinski, who reported her drug use to the DEA and provided prosecutors with a contemporaneous journal that detailed the effects of her drug problems. He was later accused by a lawyer for McCain of trying to extort money from the McCain family.

Hired Help: FDA brings on 1300 employees to recoup from staff exodus.

Double Dutch: Tobacco ban getting pot smokers more stoned than ever.

Cannabis Camera: Police may post photos of folks busted in drug raids.

Winning the War on Drugs: In Nigeria.

A Nigerian was shot dead by police during a raid on suspected drug traffickers in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, police said Friday….

“In line with our procedures, they resisted and endangered police so they were shot,” he said. Police found “hundreds of grams” of heroin in the raid, [police spokesman] Yoga Ana said. The Jakarta Post daily reported that both men were unarmed when they were shot by police.

(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? Salvation Boulevard, by Larry Beinhart.

Where’d you go? Mirch Masala. I was inspired by Dave’s review this week.

What’d you eat? I had the lunch buffet ($7.95.)

How was the food? Delicious! The butter chicken and the paneer curry were my favorites, but the piping-hot naan delivered to the table was great, too. This is by far the best Indian lunch buffet I’ve had in Seattle. But the other options are so depressing I stopped going to Indian lunch buffets quite some time ago.

What does your date say about itself? It’s a thriller by the man who wrote the novel American Hero, which was the basis for Wag the Dog. American Hero was kind of crazy—the author wrote himself into the book, and it was very different from Mamet’s script for Dog, basically claiming that the first Gulf War was a plot to get the first Bush re-elected. If your tolerance for conspiracy theorists is all right, I recommend Hero. This new one is about religion and politics, and it’s more of a legal thriller.

Is there a representative quote? “Manny slammed his fist down on the desk. He was wearing a shirt that cost $300, $350. A $150 tie, wide and straight, pimp my neck. The jacket of his $2,400 suit hung over the back of his chair. The view out his window made it the priciest real estate in the city. Manny loved money, and Manny made money. But here he was, slamming his fist down on the desk so hard his coffee mug took a little hop and clack. “Not if I can fuckin’ help it.”“

Will you two end up in bed together? Yes, but I’m losing patience. I got 39 pages into it and I’m on Chapter 9, and the characters aren’t really characters yet. As with the above quote, they have one attribute (in Manny’s case, love of expensive things.) If I don’t see a little more depth soon, I might abandon ship.

“This is how you conduct an interview,” says Andrew Sullivan:

HuffPo has more video, including Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg clashing with McCain over Roe v. Wade and strict constructionism. Have to agree with Sullivan: This is the toughest interview I’ve seen McCain receive in a long time.

O Canada #3! After the post-election move to Canada, we’ll be eating this 24 hours a day…

Suuure. “Ready.”

Thanks to Meags for the photo.

Dolly Parton is the greatest celebrity in the history of the world.

From my beloved WoW Report:

Last night, at the Ahmanson Theatre in LA, we saw the first ever public performance of 9 to 5: The Musical. There’d been anxious chatter about the show after previous previews were canned at the last minute. But the show was a feel-good scream-a-thon: fabulous Allison Janney, fabulous sets flying about, and fabulous songs from Dolly Parton. The only hitch proved to be a huge bonus: at one point the hyperkinetic set jammed and they had to stop the show, lower the curtain, and start banging away.

“Uh-oh!” shouted a familiar voice from the audience. Dolly Parton was right there, and she jumped up and entertained everyone for a good 20 minutes, tossing off a quick performance of “I Will Always Love You.” “OK, so I don’t sound as good as Whitney, but I make more money off that song than she does,” she quipped.

The rest of the show went off without a hitch and a standing ovation deservedly followed. Don’t worry if you can’t get tickets to the fab musical – you can always come see the art show in her honor opening this Friday at the World of Wonder Storefront Gallery.

Here’s some footage of the impromptu Dolly show.

Goddamn I love her. Speaking of goddamn love: My fella Jake and I will be seeing Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5: The Musical on September 27 in LA—the day after we get married. (Here’s a story I wrote about it for this year’s Queer Issue. To those who’ve already read it, I’m happy to report that Jake’s dad will be coming to LA to conduct the ceremony, which makes me so happy I can hardly stand it.)

Dear God: Please let something go wrong at the show so Dolly can appear. Also, please defeat Proposition 8. Amen.

Something like 25 books found new homes at last night’s Slog Happy, and hopefully we’ll be running commenter reviews of those books very soon. Unfortunately, there was one book that nobody wanted to read. Sitting on the bench at 9:20, all alone amidst the empty beer bottles and melted ice, was Babylon Rolling, by Amanda Boyden. It’s a novel about people in New Orleans.

Here’s what Toronto’s Globe and Mail had to say about Babylon Rolling:

“Few contemporary novels are, at their root, as compelling about the relationship between a city and the people who live there. Boyden’s Babylon Rolling is a love letter, sometimes sad, sometimes angry, sometimes beautiful, between New Orleans and five people who live on one of its streets.”

I know that Sherman Alexie loved the book, too. He was walking around Book Expo America this year with an armload of advance copies, handing them out to everyone with a gushing recommendation.

So why didn’t anyone take home the free copy of Babylon Rolling? Speaking for myself, I’ve got kind of a bad case of New Orleans fatigue in my fiction. I’ve read so many bad books and seen so many bad movies about New Orleans since Katrina that I’m naturally fearful of any new ones. (I can’t read enough non-fiction about New Orleans, though. The newest issue of the Oxford American is all about New Orleans and it’s amazing.) I shall consign Babylon Rolling to the Island of Misfit Books, where it will play with remaindered Anne Geddes books and Atkins Diet Carb Counters.

The most delicious part of the forthcoming Charlie Gibson interview (airs on KOMO in Seattle at 10 pm tonight) is probably going to be this moment, when Palin fumbles a line of persistent questions about the Bush doctrine:

Continue reading "The Bush Doctrine" »

Oregon:

A former private school teacher and high school coach must now register as a sex offender after being convicted of having sex with a 17-year-old girl.

Andrew John Humphreys, 27, appeared in Douglas County Circuit Court for sentencing T