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‘The Black Stallion’

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YES ON #8

THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA VOTED ONCE FOR BANNING GAY MARRIAGES IN THIS STATE AND WE’LL DO IT AGAIN.

STAY OUT OF CALIFORNIA POLITICS, DEGENERATE SCUMBAG!!!

Donate to the “No On Prop 8” campaign here.

I’m thinking the last thing two grieving parents need after the tragic death of a child is a mob of angry religious nuts threatening to boycott their businesses—or firebomb them—because the grieving parents didn’t dispose of their son’s remains in a manner that pleases the religious nuts.

Shafayet Reja’s mother is Hindu, his father is Muslim, and his parents brought him up in both faiths. When Shafayet died, his parents had him cremated, the Hindu tradition, and not buried in a shroud, which is the Muslim tradition. An angry crowd confronted the parents at their son’s funeral. And bomb threats followed.

To some Muslims, the fact that Shafayet Reja prayed and attended mosques trumps his family’s wishes.

“It was the community’s business because the community knew he was a Muslim,” said Junnun Choudhury, [a leader of] one of several mosques around the city whose worshipers came to the funeral to plead with the family. “It is our job to bury him in the Muslim way.”

Oh, and this happened in New York, not Afghanistan.

From The New York Times:

Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.”

What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. As the historian Robert Dallek has pointed out, Reagan “saw Medicare as the advance wave of socialism, which would ‘invade every area of freedom in this country.’ ”

Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion?

From Andrew Sullivan:

She really does just make things up. In last night’s debate she said:

“When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars.”

Yep: you guessed it:

A search of news clips and transcripts from the time do not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska’s investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin’s administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure.

The racism in this presidential election has less to do with Obama than with Palin. No black woman (or man) in America could get so far in politics with so little. If Palin were black, she would not be qualified to be a community organizer.

One more note: In an essay on the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, James Baldwin points out this to be one of the problems with the black character played by Sidney Poitier, Dr. John Wade Prentice: he is overqualified. But in the situation of the movie, his great achievements in science, and the fact he is moving to Europe (the land of the liberals), is what allows him to obtain the hand of an ordinary white woman. Like Prentice, Obama is overqualified. But in post-Carter presidential politics, this is not a plus but a minus. Obama won the debate against McCain by not appearing to be what he actually is: overqualified. In both debates, it was the Democrats who had to show restraint, who had to hide the extent of their know-how. The Republicans, on the other hand, were free from restraint.

An open mic, a mystery by a local legal historian, and three other readings today.

Up at Third Place Books, Naomi Wolf, who was discussed on Slog yesterday, reads from Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. Wolf, you’ll recall, once convinced Al Gore to wear earth tones. This helped Al Gore win the presidency in 2000, and that’s why things are so great right now.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, Brian Culhane reads from The King’s Question, which the press release calls a collection of “thoughtful and shapely poems.” You can read two poems of his here. The Anthony Hecht Prize mentioned at the top of that page is not The Stranger’s Anthony Hecht.

And at Grey Gallery, Rivet Magazine is having a farewell party and art auction. Rivet Magazine wasn’t perfect, of course, but in its last couple of years, it really came together as an interesting and chatty read. This is the book event of the night.

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

Posted by News Intern Aaron Pickus

Marriage Obama-meter: Barack and Michelle celebrate the 16th friggin’ year of their traditional marriage.

California Bailin’: Anybody got $7 billion for California?

Lactose Intolerant in China: Another great reason to not drink milk.

Opportunity Knox: King County Superior Court Judge Mike Heavey joins the battle over Amanda “I’m in an Italian Prison” Knox.

Dictator Games: Kim Jong Il, 66, discovers peek-a-boo.

Illegal Immigration: Lawless penguins deported from Brazil.

Victory for Victims: The Washington Supreme Court rules in favor of domestic violence victims who skip out on work to, you know, heal.

Bush the Problem Solver: Our government has cut its funding for supplying contraceptives to one of the biggest providers in Africa.

US-India Civilian Nuclear Deal: The new deal will likely lead to a large increase in US arms sales to India.

PKK Kills 15: 15 Turkish soldiers and 23 Kurdish rebels were killed in a battle near the Turkey-Iraq border.

People without cable: How are you people surviving this election without The Daily Show? HOW?!

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sarah Palin’s televised showdown with Joe Biden drew nearly 70 million U.S. viewers, far surpassing last week’s John McCain-Barack Obama face-off and ranking as the most watched vice presidential debate ever.

Palin, the Republican governor of Alaska, and Biden, the Democratic senator from Delaware, also drew the biggest audience of any nationally televised political debate in 16 years…

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - O.J. Simpson, the former football star who was famously cleared of double murder in the sensational 1990s “Trial of the Century,” was found guilty on all charges in his Las Vegas kidnapping and robbery case on Friday.

Joe Six Pack: Makes a dashing re-entrance into the American lexicon, thanks to Sarah Palin. The term suggests that average Americans go home every night and drink an entire fucking six pack. Or that they look like this guy…

Please Make a Note of It: Don’t call police to your house about a burglary if you’re growing pot inside.

Some Crazy Shit: Ecstasy smuggled under toilet paper.

Zogby: We’ve lost the drug war, voters say.

Three in four likely voters (76 percent) believe the U.S. war on drugs is failing, a sentiment that cuts across the political spectrum — including the vast majority of Democrats (86 percent), political independents (81 percent), and most Republicans (61 percent). There is also a strong belief that the anti-drug effort is failing among those who intend to vote for Obama (89 percent) for president, as well as most supporters of McCain (61 percent).

When asked what they believe is the single best way to combat international drug trafficking and illicit use, 27 percent of likely voters said legalizing some drugs would be the best approach — 34 percent of Obama supporters and 20 percent of McCain backers agreed.

Thus sayeth the latest Rasmussen poll.

Barack Obama has regained his solid lead over John McCain in Washington, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of the state. The Democrat now leads his opponent 53% to 43%.

So, Obama is leading McCain in Washington 53-43, but, as we saw earlier, Gregoire is tied with Rossi here 48-48.

What’s that about? One cause seems to be the very different levels of support Gregoire and Obama are receiving from independents. Gregoire is losing them to Rossi, 37-57. Obama is winning them over McCain, 48-44.

Obama-backing Rossi voters, if this poll can be believed, just might give this state’s electoral college votes to the Democratic ticket while giving the governor’s mansion to a Republican.

Whole Foods just sent me an email regarding the future of its planned Interbay and West Seattle stores.

The grocery chain is being sued by the developer of an Interbay shopping center after Whole Foods attempted to renegotiate its lease.

According to Whole Foods Regional President John Clougher:

“Whole Foods Market is disappointed that TRF Pacific was unable to meet the schedule we all agreed upon several years ago. We have been in ongoing discussions with TRF about downsizing the Interbay store for several months. We continue to believe these negotiations are a work in progress. While we acknowledge that there are legal complexities, we hope to come to a resolution.

Whole Foods Market’s West Seattle store project is unrelated to this issue, and its development schedule is on track.

There you have it.

Update: TRF Pacific responds to Whole Foods’ response:

“It’s unfortunate that we’ve been forced into taking this action. This is the first time in our company’s history that we’ve had to file a lawsuit against an anchor tenant for breach of lease. “TRF has had a great working relationship with Whole Foods. In fact, this is the third development with the company. “The Interbay Whole Foods was configured and custom built based on Whole Foods’ specifications. Whole Foods notified us of its intentions to terminate its lease one week before we were scheduled to turn over the building shell to the company. “We’re hopeful that Whole Foods will reconsider its decision and honor the commitments it has made.”

Story updated. Originally posted at 3:13 PM

A South Seattle man accused of threatening to burn down his 13-year-old autistic neighbor’s home last summer is back in jail after another ugly incident.

According to court documents, at around 10:30 last night, Levison stood outside of his neighbors’ home in the 5500 block of South Leo street and began screaming threats at the autistic boy’s family. Documents say Levison told the boy’s father to “fight [him] like a man” and that he “[did] not want to see that idiot staring at [his] house.”

Police arrived and arrested Levison for investigation of malicious harassment, Washington’s hate crime law. Court records say Levison told police he “told [the boy’s parents] to keep that fucking idiot out of my sight. I pay rent and I don’t have to put up with that.”

The family already has a no-contact order against Levison for a July 8th incident where, court documents say, Levison told the autistic boy’s mother that she needed to “keep [her] fucking retarded son in the house or the backyard like a dog; if you don’t, I’ll burn you[r] room down.”

King County Prosecutors have filed charges against Levison, who is being held at the King County Jail on $500,000 bail.

You know that block and a half of prime Capitol Hill real estate where Sound Transit is building an underground light-rail station? When the station is finished, the entrances will only take up a small part of the above-ground space, and the agency doesn’t know what, exactly, it will do with the rest.

“I don’t want it to be a big frickin’ Walmart or a bunch of condos out of Belltown,” says Carter Kinnier, 48, a Capitol Hill resident. He resents the explosion of boxy condos but he does like the farmers market. So you can imagine his disappointment when he recently heard that his beloved weekly food fair, a block north of the transit station, would be displaced by a four-and-six story apartment building.

Then Kinnier had an idea.

Kinnier wants a new home for the farmers market, one that exists permanently—like a little Pike Place Market—right on top of the light rail station. He envisions a place that supports local vendors, selling everything from butternut squash to local cheeses and ladling out halibut chowder and miso soup. Sound Transit expects 14,000 people a day will board at the station—all potential customers. “Imagine getting a sandwich or a piece of fruit on the way to school or work,” he says.

Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver, B.C. Photo via Matt Jones on Flickr

Reality check number one: Kinnier, wearing a black beret and a lime-green hoodie poking out of a thick brown sweater, acknowledges that his schedule as an IT manager prevents him from personally making this happen. “I am just tossing the idea out there,” he says.

But he’s finding allies. Chris Curtis, director of the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance, says, “It would be lovely to have a permanent location somewhere.” For example, she would like to join “part of project like with Sound Transit,” she says. She cites the increased popularity of the Capitol Hill Farmers Market—up 30 percent from last year—as evidence that Capitol Hill may support a farmers market more than one day a week. She has started talking to Sound Transit about the idea.

Reality check number two: Regardless of what is eventually built above the transit hub, it must house hundreds, if not thousands, of residents. A one- to three-story, Pike Place Market-esque bazaar will never happen. If this were to manifest, the market will be in the first story and basement of a massive residential building. But is that possible; would Sound Transit even go for it?

“You could potentially see some development pretty quick after the station is finished,” says Bruce Gray, a spokesman for Sound Transit. Sound Transit plans to lease the land, rather than sell it, so the agency would retain some control over how the land is used. “Whether it is a farmers market or is mixed use is unknown,” he says. The agency will hold a series of public meetings to field ideas, modeled after the meetings for the station design.

Reality check number three: Farmers are poor. They can’t pay the going rate for retail space in a new building unless it’s subsidized (for example, the Pike Place market is run by the city and will be asking for more public funding on the general election ballot). The city council would have to allow the developer on Broadway to exceed the 65-foot height limits, give them at least two extra stories, so the additional rents from the apartments above pay for the market below. Would neighbors go for an 85-foot building on Broadway? Would it be different enough from the failed Broadway Market formula—corporate clothing retailers and imports stores—to actually stay busy?

It would require a lot of public support, but Kinnier thinks it would be worth trying between now and when the station is finished in 2016. “There is a lot of potential for a footprint of this size on Capitol Hill,” he says. “We will never have an opportunity to do this again in our lifetime.”

Opening this week:

The always excellent Sean Nelson reviews Claude Chabrol’s pervy May-December manipulation A Girl Cut in Two.

In the land of the Blindness, the one-eyed man is the one with the least amount of feces on him.

Eric Grandy wasn’t too into the precious Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, even with the awkward™ stylings of Michael Cera.

Plus: Find out what Brendan Kiley thought about the Ed Harris-helmed Western Appaloosa; David Schmader’s take on How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; and my less than enthused feelings on Bill Maher’s Religulous.

In Limited Runs, make sure not to neglect Northwest Film Forum’s annual Local Sightings, which kicks off tonight with a super fun party and continues for the next week. Elsewhere, protest primer Chicago 10 and desert island dream The Black Stallion play at SIFF Cinema. The Egyptian has Princess Mononoke at midnight (“I hate him! I hate all humans!”); and the Coen brothers’ classic Blood Simple is at Central Cinema.

For everything else, check our Movie Times page.

Submissions to HUMP! 4—Seattle’s biggest, best, and, uh, only amateur (and locally produced!) porn festival—must be in our offices by 5:30 PM on this coming Monday. (Psst! The HUMP! jury won’t actually be gathering to view submissions and decide what’s going into the festival until Tuesday night, so if you need an extra night to work on your film… take it. Just make sure we have your submission in our offices by 4 PM on Tuesday, which is the dropdeadline.) Tickets for HUMP! 4 go on sale Wednesday October 8. Watch this space—and that print edition we sometimes put out—for details, show times, and updates!

More info about HUMP!—including mandatory release forms—here.

Rivet Magazine, which has produced several very good issues in the last couple years, is closing down. I do not know if this is indicative of the death of print or not, but it is still sad.

Tomorrow night at 7:30 pm, Rivet is having a final party and an art auction at Grey Gallery. Here are some the artists who have contributed to the art auction:

Gala Bent, Chelcie Blackmun, Jamey Braden, Ethan Cameron, Celeste Cooning, Tammy Vince Cruz, Diana Falchuk, Nick Greene, Shaun Kardinal, Wade Liostro, Allison Manch, Emily Pothast, Kristen Ramirez, Yanka Sabat, MichaelVincent Santos, Specsone, Laura Wright

I’m certainly no Jen Graves—which is a nice way of saying my opinion on visual art is virtually worthless—but I do like some of the artists on that list. It costs ten bucks to get into the auction, and there will be a Last Dance-themed party after the auction at 9 pm. It should be sad, but it’s definitely worth your time. It’s a real shame that Rivet is fading away.

The $26 burger is no more at the Triangle Lounge, and its creator, Tom Hurley, is no longer involved with the Fremont bar and restaurant. Hurley first gained fame for his namesake French restaurant in Portland, which he closed at the beginning of this year; in an interview with The Oregonian, he blamed the closure on lingering effects of a 2004 protest against foie gras staged at Hurley’s. Hurley opened Coupage in Madrona in the fall of 2006; the signature menu item there was a pricey foie gras burger that met with praise instead of protests. After a number of staff changes (including the departure of the acclaimed opening chefs, who went on to open Wallingford’s Joule), Coupage shut down in August. It was reported that Hurley had purchased the Triangle a year ago, but it seems that the relationship was not so clear-cut, and it is now over.

At the Triangle recently, a server showed little remorse about the tandem departure of Hurley and the burger. Some choice words were deployed about the former, who was apparently not a big hit with the staff; as for the latter, the relief at no longer having to hear “a TWENTY-SIX DOLLAR burger!?” was evident. In the burger’s defense, it was meant for two and came with two beers (and did not involve foie). Mr. Hurley has not returned a call for comment.

Say, I wonder how the lackluster film adaptation of Choke is doing at the box office? The Cult, Chuck Palahniuk’s fansite, has announced a contest:

Clark Gregg and I got on the phone yesterday and decided that we needed to hit the ball out of the park this weekend with the box office numbers on CHOKE. …if CHOKE doesn’t at least crack the top ten in this upcoming weekend’s box office, it’s chances for being around much longer are slim. What’s sad is, CHOKE is competing against movies that opened up in over four times as many theaters. But it’s still averaging better than most on a per theater basis! Why? Because it’s a great film! And it’s one that needs our support! And dammit, that’s what we’re gonna do!

So Clark and I came up with a way to challenge as many people as we could to go see CHOKE this weekend… with as many people as they can convince to go.

THE CONTEST:

We need everyone reading this post right now to go see CHOKE this weekend. But before you do, we need you to email this post to everyone you know. Contact everyone in your address book. Everyone you work with. All of your family and extended family. Everyone on your MySpace page. Your Facebook page. EVERYONE!!!

If you’ve already seen it, go see it again. If it’s more than 50 miles away from where you live, leave enough time for the drive. If it’s out of state, make it your day.

The person who gets the most people to go, gets a character named after them in Chuck’s next book. Yes, this is for real. Clark and I spoke to Chuck on the phone yesterday, and he’s completely on board with this.

Chuck fan reactions, including accusations of desperation, sheep mentality, and vaselined Michael Jackson glitter gloves, are after the jump:

Continue reading "You Are Not Your Fucking Film Grosses" »

According to the latest Rasmussen poll, which finds both candidates getting 48-percent of the vote.

Recount II, here we come?

This year’s race has been anything but steady. Last month, Rossi pulled ahead of the governor, 52% to 46%, after trailing behind by four percentage points in August. Gregoire managed to hold solid leads in May, June, and July, after a virtually tied race through March and February. This year’s election is reminiscent of the exciting match up between the two candidates in 2004 that ended with a controversial win for Gregoire that had to be decided by the state’s courts.

Gregoire’s problem, according to Rasmussen: Independent voters. They’re breaking for Rossi 57 percent to 38 percent.

Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation’s home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon.

On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property “outright” to her.

“We’re going to forgive whatever outstanding balance she had on the loan and give her the house,” Faith said. “Given the circumstances, we think it’s appropriate.”

* Do not try this at home.

Asked, earlier, and now answered by Burner spokesman Sandeep Kaushik:

Her position has not changed. Darcy believes that action is needed, but the bailout proposal voted on today did not do enough to deal with the underlying problems that created this mess. And it did not do enough to protect taxpayers. So she would have voted no on this proposal.

Which puts her in basic agreement with her opponent, Republican Congressman Dave Reichert.

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against the state Republican Party this morning for allegedly violating campaign rules. The party used over $150,000 from a soft money account, which is prohibited from promoting specific candidates, to send three mailers encouraging voters to support Dino Rossi, the Public Disclosure Commission found last week.

The Washington State Republican Party, if found guilty, faces civil penalties in King County Superior Court of up to $10,000 for each of the three violations and liability for court fees.

Earlier this week, state Democrats called for AG Rob McKenna, a Republican, to hire independent counsel in the case to avoid an apparent conflict of interest. Luke Esser, chair of the Washington State Republican Party, worked with McKenna on the King County Council and at the AG’s office.

“Rob McKenna has known Luke since college,” says AG spokeswoman Janelle Guthrie. So, she says, “Attorney General McKenna has screened himself from this case and delegated attorney general decision making capability to his chief deputy, Brian Moran.”

It will be a long time before the party’s lawyers see a judge: The case isn’t schedule for a hearing in King County Superior Court until March 2010.

In the meantime, the AGs office believes the Republican party will stop sending those sorts of campaign mailers. The party sent a statement to the AG’s office today, saying it “will not be making membership communications that are similar in kind to those that are the subject of the pending dispute … for the balance of the election cycle.”

Guthrie says that if the party does continue, “we are prepared to immediately request an injunction.”

On the website for the Socialist Worker, Britain’s anti-capitalist paper…

a world that is on the edge of…

We old and crusty socialists are not that different from the extremists in Christianity. In every event that happens, they look for the signs of apocalypse; as for us, it’s the signs of revolution. Though looking forward to the future, in reality Christian extremists are always going back to ancient Rome (the world they wanted God to end); though looking forward to the future, socialists in reality are always going back to 1840, going back to every economic crisis that was supposed to be the labor pains for the birth of a new tomorrow. What didn’t happen back then is not going to happen today. We must give up this hope that makes us wait and wait for the “true” labor pains. What we need is a whole new science of revolution. A science liberated from the “weak link,” the point of crisis.

Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits points to this transcript of a press conference held by Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear. If our soccer club manager holds press conferences like this one, I will buy season tickets and follow the club loyally.

JK Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror’s north-east football writer]?

SB Me.

JK You’re a cunt.

SB Thank you.

JK Which one is Hickman [Niall, football writer for the Express]? You are out of order. Absolutely fucking out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can fuck off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that fucking crap. No fucking way, lies. Fuck, you’re saying I turned up and they [Newcastle’s players] fucked off.

SB No Joe, have you read it, it doesn’t actually say that. Have you read it?

JK I’ve fucking read it, I’ve read it.

SB It doesn’t say that. Have you read it?

JK You are trying to fucking undermine my position already.

SB Have you read it, it doesn’t say that. I knew you knew they were having a day off.

JK Fuck off. Fuck off. It’s your last fucking chance.

SB You read the copy? It doesn’t say that you didn’t know.

JK What about the headline, you think that’s a good headline?

SB I didn’t write the headline, you read the copy.

JK You are negative bastards, the pair of you.

There is much more to enjoy.

This month’s Slog Happy is everything you’ve ever wanted in a Slog Happy:

*You asked for it to be up north, so we found a place up north.

*You said you wanted a place with food, so we found a place with food.

*You told us we should bring back trivia, so we’re bringing back trivia!

So join us next Thursday, October 9th, at College Inn Pub for the Best Slog Happy Ever*! The bar has a near-perfect standing in our restaurant reviews, thanks to their yummy chili, nachos, and sandwiches, and they’ll also be serving up $3 wells and $3 micros until 7 pm.

See you there!

^*Maybe.

A second couple who belong to an Oregon church that practices faith healing have been indicted on criminal charges after the death of a child.

A Clackamas County grand jury has charged Jeffrey Dean and Marci Rae Beagley with criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil, who died from a treatable condition.

“What’s the difference between Trig Palin and Sarah Palin?”

[Answer’s after the jump.]

Continue reading "Overheard in the Office" »

OMG Wonkette:

John McCain on those “emotional” ladies:

Also: Impactful, John McCain?

And John McCain making a disturbing Grandpa Simpson noise repeatedly:

Jackie Mason kvetches at Sarah Sliverman for her pro-Obama video, calling Silverman a “sick yenta.”

Via Political Punch.

I wonder where this kid will be in 15 years…

Via BBC News:

The attack happened on Wednesday morning after the boy entered the zoo by jumping over the security fence and evading sensor alarms.

Over the next half hour, he bludgeoned some of the animals to death with stones and hurled others over the two fences surrounding the crocodile enclosure.

At one point, he tried scaling the outer enclosure himself to get to “Terry”, the 11ft (3.3m) saltwater crocodile.

A turtle, four Western blue-tongued lizards, two bearded dragons, two thorny devil lizards and the zoo’s 20-year-old goanna were among those killed.

The zoo is considering suing the parents, since the boy is “too young to be prosecuted.” Read the full story here.

Not with a fence, not with patrols, not with vigilantes—the only effective way to slow immigration is to have a shittier economy.

And we’re succeeding. Two headlines, the first from MarketWatch:

Payrolls sink 159,000, worst job loss in 5 years
Hidden unemployment rises to 11%

And from the Wall Street Journal:

Latest Immigration Wave: Retreat

(To be fair, the article credits Congress’s defeat of the bill to legalize illegals—as well as the slumping economy and construction sector—as responsible for the retreat. But clearly, the clever shittier-economy strategy is working.)

Here are Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott’s remarks to the House of Representatives today, explaining why he switched from a “yes” to a “no” vote on the bailout:

Mr. Speaker,

On Thursday morning, the morning after the Senate passed a very different bailout bill, two things happened.

The filings for new unemployment benefits hit a seven year high, and a number of telephones melted in my congressional office as my constituents called in with their opinions.

By the thousands, the people of the 7th Congressional District are absolutely enraged by what the Senate did.

The rest of the explanation (which gets very… politically intricate) is in the jump.

Continue reading "McDermott: My phones were melting!" »

…by the 16 year-olds our pastors rape.

Arkansas:

A pastor in Pine Bluff has been arrested for raping a 16-year-old girl.

Approximately three weeks ago the Arkansas State Police Hot Line notified the Pine Bluff Police Department’s Detective Office of the reported rape of a 16-year-old in Pine Bluff. The investigation revealed enough evidence to support the report as being factual.

Edgar Franklin Jr., 43, was identified as the person responsible. Mr. Franklin is the pastor of New Bethany Missionary Baptist Church in Pine Bluff.

We already know how our Senators voted on Wednesday: Patty Murray voted “yes” and Maria Cantwell voted “no.”

Here’s how the rest of the Washington State delegation voted today in the House:

Jay Inslee (D-1) NO

Rick Larsen (D-2) YES

Brian Baird (D-3) YES

Doc Hastings (R-4) NO

Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-5) NO

Norm Dicks (D-6) YES

Jim McDermott (D-7) NO

Dave Reichert (R-8) NO

Adam Smith (D-9) YES

What’s changed from the last time around? Nothing, except that Jim McDermott switched from a “yes” to a “no” vote. More on that later, but here’s the immediate most interesting aspect to me:

Dave Reichert stuck with his “no” vote, obviously betting that he needs some populist cred in his eastside race against Democratic challenger Darcy Burner. So, what’s Burner’s move?

She was against the bill on Monday. Today, a strong majority of House Dems voted for the bill, given the sweeteners that were added. But, Burner mentors Inslee and McDermott voted “no.” And politically, it could be trouble for Burner to disagree with a Republican opponent (Reichert) who opposes the bailout. Or, maybe she could spin support for the bill into a “real leadership” mantra. We’ll see.

I’ve asked for Burner’s position on today’s vote, and I’ll let you know as soon as I hear…

If you’re not registered to vote, you have until TOMORROW, October 4, to get your ass registered to vote. We wrapped every issue of this week’s Stranger with a mail-in voter registration form—forms you can drop off at various locations around town (Havana, The Saint, Sonic Boom Records, Cellophane Square, Caffe Vita, Easy Street Records, Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine), or mail in yourself (must be postmarked by October 4)—so there’s no excuse. And you can register to vote online here. Get your ass registered!

And you have until Monday, October 6, to register for Jet City Hoops, Seattle’s new co-ed gay basketball league. Jet City Hoops’ first season begins on October 18th. Get registered!

Rumors are circling the tubes that Thomas Pynchon’s next book will be a psychedelic Raymond Chandler hard-boiled noir pastiche. And it will be just 400 pages. And it will be published in August of next year.

When Tom Nissley reviewed Pynchon’s previous book, Against the Day, for us when it was published a year and a half ago, he had an extreme proposal for Pynchon:

…what if, instead of releasing a white monolith that daunts even his fans, Pynchon put out ten 100-page books from the same material? (How I’d love to see the Chums of Chance storyline captured in a single little book.) The vast mystery of their intersection could remain, but can you imagine how eagerly readers would snap up the pieces of the puzzle? It would be a hit!

I thought that was a great idea. But I’m also excited about the idea of a Pynchon book that doesn’t appear as daunting as his last half-dozen books. I hope this rumor is true.

The Denver Police union is selling this shirt, re: the DNC protests, for a fundraiser.

And I want one.

Thanks to Slog commentor Shawn Fassett.

Sarah Palin Sex Tape Leaked!

^{(and/or your last reminder to make that HUMP! film this weekend… entries due Monday, Oct 6.)}

My advice for the author of today’s “Savage Love Letter of the Day”—and all my advice for SLLOTDs over the next two weeks, and all the advice I’ll be giving in the print edition of my column for the next two weeks—was bought and paid for. Details here. But all you need to know is this: If you’ve got a question and you want a guaranteed response, go to www.noonprop8.com, make a donation of $25 or more, and send me your question along with your donation confirmation email.

I am a 27 year-old straight female. I have been in long term relationships since I was a teenager and decided some time last year that I would like to enjoy the single life for a while. It has been great, and I am loving my freedom. Last week, I was on vacation and had a great night of sex with a friend of a friend of a friend. He has a girlfriend, although he was not aware that I knew this when I slept with him. I didn’t feel guilty about it at the time because I rationalized: “I’m not going to see him again, I’m certainly not going to try to steal him from his girlfriend, we are using condoms, and who knows, maybe she’s cool with it!”

Now, I’m not sure if I did the wrong thing because I think it’s safe to assume that most girlfriends would not be “cool with it.” If a similar situation arises in the future, do I have a moral responsibility to leave the men with girlfriends alone, or should I do as I please and let grownup dudes worry about their own girlfriends?

Worried About Bad Karma

I’m of two minds here.

First mind: As you move through your long overdue slut phase, WABK, would it really be that hard to avoid guys with girlfriends? Judging form my own mail, WABK, I’d say there’s no shortage whatsoever of single straight guys up for a little NSA action. Wanna sleep better at night? Stick to single guys.

Second mind: Sometimes inertia keeps us in failing or failed relationships. And sometimes sleeping with someone else—a.k.a. “cheating,” or getting a glimpse of how much better things could be—provides us with the impetus to do what must be done, i.e. to get on with the messy, unpleasant, protracted business of getting out of a failing or failed relationship. In these instances, WABK, sleeping with someone who’s technically “involved” with someone else is a mission of mercy, the kind good works that pile up rewards in heaven, the kind of change we can believe in, etc. Unfortunately there’s no way to know in advance if the involved person you’re sleeping with is in a failed or failing relationship, so you’re still kind of a slut. But you may be retroactively exonerated.

Bonus third mind: The guy you slept with had a girlfriend, not a wife. Call me old-fashioned—and good luck with that—but “cheating” when you’re dating, even if you’re in a “committed” relationship, isn’t as serious an offense as cheating when you’re married. The seriousness of a commitment increases exponentially as a couple moves from dating to engaged to married. And our primary mission when we’re seriously dating someone—but while we’re merely that person’s boyfriend and/or girlfriend—is to determine if this person is the person with whom we want to spend the rest of our lives. And sometimes sleeping with another person can help us make that determination.

Got a question? Make a donation today at www.noonprop8.com and get an answer!

Sony unveiled their new e-book reader yesterday. It’s pretty similar to their last reader, but it includes front lights and touch screen capability. You can add text by using a stylus on a virtual onscreen keyboard, and you can turn the page by swiping the screen with your finger. The device will cost 400 dollars and will be released later this month.

In other e-book news, the iPhone is far outstripping the Kindle as the most popular e-reading device in America. Forbes says:

Stanza, like Kindle, lets users download new content directly to their device. It has a snappy interface that allows readers to flip through a book simply by tapping the edges of the page and responds far faster than Kindle’s poky E-ink screen, which takes about a second to turn pages. On the downside, the iPhone’s LCD screen can strain eyes after hours of reading and chews through battery power far faster than Kindle or the Sony Reader, both of which can go without recharging for days.

And then there’s what some may call Stanza’s unfair advantage: the application is free, as are its titles.

Of course, an unfair advantage is still an advantage. Right now, the multi-use capabilities of the iPhone make it look like a better deal than the Kindle. I wonder if it’s possible to do a timeline chart of e-book downloads? This year probably looks like a straight vertical line.

UPDATE: If you’re interested in trying out your iPhone’s e-reader, you should download Kelly Link’s last book of short stories, Magic For Beginners. It’s available free, minus two stories that had contractual obligations, here. Link writes great short stories that are kind of fabulist like Aimee Bender, but have a slight sci-fi bent, too.

Music

Why?

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

One of South Korea’s most famous actresses was found dead in her home on Thursday in what the police called a suicide. They linked her death to malicious online rumors, a growing social problem in South Korea, which has one of the world’s most active online communities and one of its highest suicide rates.

The body of the actress, Choi Jin-sil, 39, was found in the bathroom of her apartment with a rope made out of bandages around her neck, Yang Jae-ho, a senior police investigator, said at a news conference.

Already struggling with a messy divorce, she had been deeply troubled by online accusations that she had driven another actor to gas himself in his car a month earlier, Yang said. The actor, Ahn Jae-hwan, was struggling with debt, and the rumors said she had pressed him relentlessly to repay money she had lent. She complained to the police about the rumors, which she called baseless, and they were investigating when she died.

The measure was approved in a 263 to 171 vote, with 172 Democrats and 91 Republicans offering support. … Democrats also won 32 more votes than they had on Monday, despite reservations from some conservative Democrats that the tax package would add to the deficit. […]

In addition, federal legislators noted that the public’s view of the measure seemed to swing following Monday’s precipitous stock market drop. While many lawmakers had said that nine out of 10 callers objected to the measure over the weekend and on Monday, things appeared to balance out later in the week.

Now we can shift our economic panic to the unemployment crisis.

Via The Hill.

Sarah Palin’s thought process, diagrammed:

Naomi Wolf has been freaking out about this article in the Army Times, reporting that a tough, Iraq-seasoned brigade has been reassigned, for the next 12 months, to the control of U.S. Army North. That is, the United States.

From the Army Times:

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

Military units enforcing the law—to help with “crowd control”—was illegal from 1878 until… last year. From columnist Amy Goodman:

Military participation in domestic operations was originally outlawed with the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878. The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, however, included a section that allowed the president to deploy the armed forces to “restore public order” or to suppress “any insurrection.” While a later bill repealed this, President Bush attached a signing statement that he did not feel bound by the repeal.

This is alarming, especially in light of how the police behaved at the Republican National Convention—preemptive raids, preemptive detentions, arrests of nearly 1,000 protesters and dozens of journalists, seizing recording equipment from journalists, and scenes like this:

There’s another tear-gas bomb, and then another, and the riot cops close in from up and down the street, liberally pepper-spraying the protesters and pushing them toward a park. A phalanx of riot police walks ahead of me, on the heels of two young women, who are complying with instructions, going exactly where they’re told. One of the cops lifts the women by their shirts and pushes them, gratuitously, into a cloud of tear gas. Then he douses their faces with pepper spray.

Perhaps we should start thinking seriously about what to do if the president deploys the military to meddle with the election.

A how-to-write-books author and the author of an 800-page book about Steve Goodman will be reading tonight, along with three other authors.

At Open Books, we have Aaron Shurin, reading from his newest book of poetry, King of Shadows. I have never read Shurin, but he has a very complimentary Wikipedia page.

At Town Hall, Naomi Wolf, who has already been discussed on Slog today, will be reading from her newest book, about patriotism and also the lack of patriotism. She’ll also be at Third Place Books tomorrow if you miss her tonight.

And in the U District, Neil Gaiman reads from his newest, The Graveyard Book. It’s a sort-of goth take on The Jungle Book, for young adults. I read it and, frankly, I was underwhelmed. But he’s written lots of entertaining stuff, even with his weird attachment to Tori Amos.

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

With the VP debate over, Biden the apparent winner, and no earthshaking Sarah Palin gaffes to speak of, attention today will turn right back to the House of Representatives, where a (second) vote on the Wall Street bailout appears imminent.

One interesting facet of the bailout debate that I haven’t had time to Slog until now involves the Democrats in the Washington State Congressional delegation. They’re split, and not in ways you might expect.

When the revised bailout bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the mom-in-tennis-shoes populist, was in the majority voting yes (or yea). And Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, who made her money in tech stocks and in general comes off as less of a main-streeter, voted no.

What gives? In a nutshell (because I’m running off to KUOW, where I think we’ll talk about this more), Murray endorsed the economic urgency theory for supporting a bill that she saw as flawed, while Cantwell dug in her heels and demanded an equity stake for taxpayers if they’re to be throwing money at failing firms.

On the House side, only one Democratic Congressman from Washington State voted against the version of the bill that went down earlier this week: Rep. Jay Inslee. He explained his thinking to me here:

It’s not that Inslee was worried about getting re-elected; he won 64% of the vote in the August primary and is expected to easily win a sixth term representing the First District, which includes well-to-do Seattle suburbs and the high-tech enclave of Redmond, home to Microsoft — an area full of people whose 401(k)s and stock holdings would likely benefit from a bailout. Inslee says that he simply felt the bill was being rushed. He describes the situation as the Bush Administration declaring, “Give me $700 billion in unmarked bills or I’ll shoot the economy in the head.”

Inslee also told me that he hopes to vote for the revised bill today—if certain conditions can be met. For a possible insight into his thought process, in the jump you’ll find a letter to Slog from an Inslee constituent who says she participated in a recent bailout conference call with the Congressman.

Continue reading "Back to the Bailout" »

She who compares Sarah Palin to Evita is on KUOW with Steve Scher.

Naomi Wolf compared the Bush administration’s actions to those of notorious dictators like Hitler in her book “The End of America.” Her new book, “Give Me Liberty,” is a handbook for ordinary citizens. She hopes it will help stop erosions of democracy in this country. Recently in the Huffington Post, Wolf argued that Sarah Palin is an Evita–like puppet; a Trojan Horse smuggling the same failed policies of Bush and Rove into the White House. Does she think we are too late to save democracy in this country?

Steve’s saying the names of would-be dictatorships in a weird, tentative, highly liberal voice. This could get good.

Plus, Cliff Mass joins us with a weekend weather forecast.

I like your name, Mr. Mass.

Need a momentary break from election obsession? (Insert folksy Palin wink here.) Relax with some soothing Letters to E.T., courtesy of Pitch.com’s Studies in Crap.

Sample excerpt:

More here.

Are you capable of uttering at least one completely “extemporaneous paragraph”? And by “paragraph” I mean, “a collection of sentences with subjects, verbs, objects and, if possible, an actual meaning?” If so, then you meet the test to be President of the United States—at least according to David Brooks.

The highlight of the debate last night for the same-sexers had to be Biden manipulating Palin into endorsing Barack Obama’s position on same-sex marriage: opposed to same-sex marriage, marriage-is-between-one-man-and-one-woman, blah blah blah. But Biden got Palin to agree that same-sex couples deserve all the same rights and responsibilities of marriage, even if we’re denied those two magic syllables.

BIDEN: “So we do support, we do support making sure that committed couples [of] the same sex marriage are guaranteed the same Constitutional benefits as a—property rights, the rights of visitation, the rights of insurance, the rights of ownership as heterosexual couples do.”

…

IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation? [This question, like so many of Ifill’s questions, makes no sense. But Palin got the gist of it.]

SARAH PALIN: Not if it goes closer and closer to redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman and unfortunately that’s where sometimes those steps lead. If there is any kind of suggestion from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves. You know, I am tolerant and I—I am tolerant and there are some very dear friends who don’t agree with me on this issue, but in that tolerance, no I would propose to do anything to prohibit visitations in a hospital, or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.

But I will tell Americans straight up, that I don’t support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman. And I think through nuances we can go around about what that actually means but I am being as straight up with Americans as I can in my nonsupport for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.

IFILL: Let’s try to avoid nuance. Do you support gay marriage?

BIDEN: No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage.

We do not support that…. The bottom line, I take [Palin] at her word, that she thinks there should be no civil rights distinction, none whatsoever, between a committed gay couple and a committed heterosexual couple. If that is the case.

PALIN: My answer is the same as his and that is I do not.

So Palin does not believe that there should be any distinction, none whatsoever, between committed gay couples and committed straight couples.

Good to know.

But that moment of bipartisan concord couldn’t have pleased the gay haters in the “base” so energized by Palin’s selection. Conservative fundamentalists oppose any recognition of same-sex relationships; the anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot in Florida this November bans same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. In Virginia “contracts being signed” is illegal for same-sex couples (no wills or powers of attorney for homos in Virginia); in Florida a lesbian from Washington state was “[prohibited] visitations in a hospital” as her partner lay dying.

It’s good to know that Palin is opposed to the kind of discriminatory, mean-spirited, punative laws aggressively backed her co-religionists. I suggest that the Democrats buy up time on right-wing Christian radio stations and alert the fundies that Palin supports Obama’s position on same-sex couples, not McCain’s.

Biden Wins: Post-debate poll shows Biden won 51-36. Respondents also said that Biden was more qualified to be president (87 percent) than to Palin (46 percent).

Recession, Here We Come: Labor Department announces employers cut 159,000 jobs in September.

The reduction in payrolls was much sharper than the 100,000 cuts economists were forecasting. They expected the jobless rate to be unchanged.

It marked the ninth straight month that the economy has lost jobs. The drop underscores fallout from a long slump in the housing market and a dangerous credit crunch that intensified last month throwing Wall Street — and the economy — into chaos. So far this year, 760,000 jobs have disappeared.

“The economy is now sliding down the slippery slope of recession,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

Motoring: McCain terminates Michigan campaign—stops running ads, pulls paid staff to Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio.

Swing Low, Sweet Stage Coach: Wells Fargo will buy Wachovia for $15.1 billion.

Today’s Debate: House squabbles over bailout bill. The key provision are here. Stocks jump in anticipation it will pass.

Good Call: Nokia releases the Tube, a touch-screen phone compatible with any network.

Bad Call: American-owned Skype allowed Chinese government access to text conversations.

“We may never know whether some of those people whose conversations were logged have gone to jail or have had their lives ruined in various ways as a result of this,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, an Internet expert at Hong Kong University.

Boo Hoo: WaMu will tell employees whether they keep jobs by December 1. Some will stay, some will work through a transition, and some will be laid off.

Chained Melody: Federal panel will decide if music downloads are under priced.

Putting Its Foot Down: State rules that pedicures by live carp are illegal, because you can’t sanitize a fish.

Putting Its Hand Out: California needs $7 billion federal loan after being locked out of credit market for 10 days. Needs funding for education, law enforcement, and health care.

Pulling Its Stake Up: Nickelsville moved to Discovery Park, perhaps thinking it was federal land, only to get a 72-hour eviction notice from the city to move its pink tent city.

State Supreme Court: Rules police may destroy property in a drug raid without liability for damage—even if they find no drugs.

Kingston Trio: Founder, Nick Reynolds, dead at 75.

Troubled Water: Washington and eight other states sue EPA over ruling that allows pollution.

In Case You Missed It: Last night’s VP debate.

Barney Frank refuses to let Bill O’Reilly bully him—it’s required viewing.

I’ll be on KUOW’s Weekday this morning, talking about the news of the week with other news-junkie types. Likely topics: The VP debate, the economic bailout, the Nickels budget, the Boeing strike, Rossi-Gregoire, and Paul Newman.

That’s 94.9 FM starting at 10 a.m., if you want to listen or call in.

Anything else we should discuss?

An old, old joke from A Treasury of Southern Folklore: Stories, Ballads, Traditions, and Folkways of the People of the South, by folklorist B. A. Botkin:

A Northerner and a Southerner were discussing matters political in the smoking compartment of a Pullman, when the Northern asked:

“”Why is it that you men of the South are practically all Democrats? In the North we divide; there you will find Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Independents, and so forth, while you of the South stick together in the Democratic party. Why is this? Why, for instance, are you a Democrat?

“Well,” drawled the Southerner, “my father was a Democrat, my grandfather was a Democrat, and my great-grandfather was a Democrat, so, of course, I’m a Democrat.”

“Ah,” said the Northerner, “suppose your father had been a horse-thief and your grandfather had been a horse-thief, and your great-grandfather had been a horse-thief, what would you have been then?”

“Oh, I guess in that case I’d have been a Republican,” was the reply of the Southerner.

I’ll post the actual numbers when they’re up online. But CNN just flashed its snap-poll results on the TV. First, here’s what I predicted at the end of our liveblog:

Palin beat expectations, but you knew she was going to do that. Biden beat expectations, too—and his were a lot higher going in. My guess is the insta-polls will show a Biden win, and much greater comfort with the idea of him taking over [as president] if needed.

And the CNN poll showed: Biden exceeding expectations, Palin way exceeding expectations, voters by a more than 10-point margin declaring Biden the winner, and only a slight up-tick in the percentage of people who say Palin is ready to be president of the United States (with a majority still saying she’s not).

Here are some actual numbers, these on the question of who won:

CBS poll: Biden 46%, Palin 21%, tie 33%.

CNN poll: Biden 51%, Palin 36%.

If you can’t read it, the bottom line reads, “Try and score a ‘media blackout’ by filling in all the boxes on your card!” Not quite there, sadly. Damn you, Karzai.

You know the drill. Send us your comments through the liveblogging widget and we’ll post them if they’re worthy.

SNL, Letterman… everything old is relevant again, huh?

The state set new rules today establishing the amount of marijuana an authorized patient can possess and grow. The law passed by voters in 1998 allowed a “60-day supply,” which was ambiguous. Under the new guidelines, set by the Washington State Department of Health, authorized patients may possess up to 24-ounces of usable marijuana and grow up to 15 plants.

That may seem like a lot of pot, but some patient advocates—who are just reacting to the news—disagree. They say many patients use more marijuana than recreational users because they eat the pot, smoke it throughout the day, or have a high tolerance.

“Patients are not going to have enough,” says Joanna McKee, director of the medical marijuana advocacy group Green Cross. She says that if someone starts with 15 seeds, only three to five will survive to maturity. That will leave sickest patients without enough harvestable marijuana to treat their conditions, which range from intractable pain to cancer. “They are going to have to go to the black market to get it,” she says.

Tim Church, a spokesman for the Department of Health, says, “We were trying to come up with a number [of plants] and an amount [of marijuana] that the majority of patients need to treat their illness, and we think they have hit that.” He says there was very little scientific research on which to base the decision. The DoH gathered input from numerous public meetings with patients, doctors and law enforcement. “There is always someone who needs more for a particular reason,” he says.

“This basically means it is open season on every medical patient that law enforcement encounters because nobody is in compliance with this rule,” says Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney who defends medical marijuana patients. Hiatt worries the rule would set a “clear bright line” that encourages police to arrest medical marijuana patients who exceed the amount set under the rule.

“I am going to file for an injunction to stop the rule from taking effect,” says Hiatt. He says scientific reports show that many patients need more marijuana that the rule would allow. “Then I am going to file to overturn the rule based on them failing to follow science.”

The legislature tasked the DoH with establishing the guidelines to clarify the amount of pot a patient could possess, because, under the law passed a decade ago, police would routinely arrest medical marijuana patients for any amount and allow a court to decide whether or not the patient was in compliance with the law. Although the rule still does not provide patients protection from arrest if they are under the limit, it may help them being arrested. The patients still retain retain their legal defense in court if they exceed the limits. “It’s a good start,” says McKee. The rule is slated to take effect on November 1.

Just a quick roundup of what some of the pundits are saying in anticipation of tonight’s VP debate:

Tom Hayden thinks Palin will come out swinging with some of the dumbest-sounding votes Biden has made during his 26 years in the Senate, and suggests some ways of countering such an attack.

Washington Monthly on the expectations game.

The BBC has a rundown of Biden’s and Palin’s most memorable gaffes.

The Washington Independent notes that nearly one third of all vice presidents have taken over as President eventually.

Biden’s comfortable, Palin’s stiff, when delivering party talking points.

The McCain campaign tries to drag Biden down.

One pundit thinks Democrats should ignore tonight’s debate.

Ooh! Sarah Palin shares a debate coach with Jerry Falwell.

Wonkette’s VP debate drinking game.

The AP reports that only 25 percent of likely voters think Palin is prepared to serve as president.

One foreign policy expert thinks that unless someone tells Palin the world can’t be broken down into “good guys and bad guys,” we’re in for “one uncomfortable debate.”

The New York Times compares Palin, unfavorably, to Dan Quayle.

Jason Linkins suggests Palin go for “silences of epic length.”

Steve Benen thinks Palin will be helped by low expectations.
An independent candidate who’s debated Palin more than 20 times says she’s a “master of the nonanswer.”

Paul Abrams thinks Biden needs to work hard to counter Palin’s prepackaged speaking points without coming across as condescending.

…to a metal box on the streets of Los Angeles.

(Via The Hot Blog.)

Curious about why the huge historical feminist exhibition “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution” chose Vancouver, B.C., as the Northwest stop on its U.S. tour (it opened in L.A., went to N.Y. and D.C., and opens in Vancouver Saturday) instead of, say, Seattle, I called Seattle Art Museum chief curator Chiyo Ishikawa.

SAM had a chance to take “WACK!,” Ishikawa said. The exhibition was offered to SAM. But SAM already had its own show of Salish art scheduled. The Salish show had been bumped twice already, first to make way for an exhibition of Spanish art a few years ago, and then for the museum’s expansion. “WACK!” got pushed out by a traffic jam.

That’s a drag considering that SAM just expanded its building precisely in order to solve its perennial traffic-jam problem, especially in order to take important shows like “WACK!” Regardless of whether “WACK!” turns out to be a great show, it is a landmark in the history of art, and an amazing catalyst to talk about everything from race to gender to international relations smack in the middle of an election year. This is Seattle’s loss.

Two days ago, when I said in a post about a group of comic book artists for Obama that a lot of comics fans are conservative, someone commented:

Nerds are conservative? That’s silly.

Comics are apolitical? Also silly.

Well, yesterday, comics fansite Newsarama posted a story about Comics Industry for Obama, including an interview with CIfO founder Eric Powell, the creator of The Goon, which is a very funny comic book. Many of the comments on the story—I’m pretty sure a majority of them—prove my point:

Wow, more media and artists bringing their political agenda into their work (where it usually doesn’t belong). I’m shocked. Whether you like Obama or not, the media is so clearly biased on his behalf, it isn’t even funny. Actually, it is the opposite of funnyl. I guess this bothers me a lot less than having actual journalists who are supposed to present the facts or both sides of an issue being in the tank for one candidate, but it is essentially more of the same.

Well, I guess I won’t be reading the Goon or the Savage Dragon anymore. Adios.

Democrat, Republican, they’re just different sides of the same coin. Wake up people.

I want to know something,Mccain and Obama have never clearly stated their plan to help ease the economy. Both fuddle their words and give no concrete answers.

Ask Obama what he plans to do to heal the economy. This is his reply “time for a change” “it is not about me,but what you can do for everybody” Catch phrases are cute,but they are not an answer to a serious problem

Eric Powell is a pig who’d better watch his back when this is all over.

But this one is my favorite:

Yogsothoth wrote:

NADER/GONZALES 08!

Yes, the dark gods of Cthulhu demand you vote for Ralph Nader.

I am sorry, nice woman sitting next to me at Cafe Presse right now, that I just made that really, really gross loud noise.

See, I was just trying to clear my throat, but then midway through it awkwardly transformed into a cough, which resulted in this involuntary, open-mouthed, protracted sound:

“UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Did it help that I pretend-coughed for an unnecessarily long time afterwards, as though it would somehow obliterate the memory of the really gross loud noise? I hope so. Enjoy your latte.

Love,
Lindy

(On a related note: I enjoy the Croque Campagnard very much.)

Besides (see below), there’s absolutely no reason to criticize Palin for anything but her own statements and policies. A few examples:

She may think that making rape victims pay for evidence-gathering kits is “crazy,” but that’s exactly the policy she signed into law as mayor of Wasilla.

She slashed funding to a program benefiting impoverished teenage mothers.

She goes to a church that’s truly scary.

She thinks lengthening the amount of time for women to sue their employers for pay discrimination would be a “boon to trial lawyers.”

She mocks Joe Biden for being old—while running alongside a 72-year-old.

She won’t stop talking about how she has foreign policy experience because you can see Russia from Alaska—even though she’s never been to the one island in Alaska where this is true.

She is tremendously incurious about other nations, bragging that she didn’t even have a passport until 2006 because she wasn’t part of “that culture.”

She opposes unions but brags of having gotten a “good union job.”

She believes that being gay is a choice.

She thinks global warming is due to “cyclical” changes and that it “kinda doesn’t matter” whether it’s caused by human activity.

She doesn’t know her own running mate’s position on Pakistan.

She opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

She can’t name a single newspaper or magazine that she’s ever read.

Et cetera. See? No need for sexist attacks whatsoever.

Twenty-four artists who rent studios from the city at Magnuson Park in Sand Point will have to move, after the City Council this week adopted an ordinance to allow a developer to take over the building where they work in a long-term (30-year-plus) lease.

The artists want to stay at Magnuson Park, the old Naval station where the city says the buildings are crumbling and uninhabitable without major upgrades—upgrades this developer is willing to do.

But the artists say they’re trying to work out a development plan of their own for another building in the park, and the city sounds closed to that idea. City spokeswoman Dewey Potter said she’d provide more details in a forthcoming email, but today she said the artists will definitely not be able to stay in Magnuson Park. That’s news to the artists.

Artists renting at Building 11, a humble and creaky building but one that’s drenched with perfect studio light from the large windows overlooking the waterfront, include Claudia Fitch, Francisco Guerrero, Eugene Parnell, Juliana Heyne, Carolyn Law, Carolle Rose, Liz Bruno, Nancy Loughlin, Tom Collicott, and Anne Hayden Stevens. They opened their studios for the building’s first open house this past Saturday, but got the bad news Tuesday. They say the developer plans to put in an Ivar’s and a Kidd Valley, and to turn the converted studios into expensive offices.

More as I hear from various sources.

As Megan noted in her post previewing the liveslogging of tonight’s debate , I’m concerned about sexist attacks on Palin because I think that once you start making sexist (or racist, or ageist) attacks, you lose your moral authority to make legitimate ones. I defend Palin not because I agree with her politics or policies, but because gender-based attacks are always illegitimate—not just when they’re made against women I like.

What constitutes a misogynistic attack? Here are a few examples, many of them from Supposedly Progressive Doodz like Bill Maher.

Calling a candidate for office a “bimbo.”

Calling her a “MILF,” or a “VPILF,” or any of the many variations thereon.

Implying that she’d be a bad VP because she “failed to become Miss Alaska.”

Referring to the 44-year-old Alaska governor as a “girl.”

Joking that McCain has chosen a “trollop” as his running mate. (I know there’s a double-reverse-backflip irony intended here, but it doesn’t work).

Implying that the her hairstyle has anything to do with how smart she is.

Saying things like “McCain doesn’t pick his women for their brains”—then calling Palin an “airhead.”

Saying that Palin (double sexism alert!) may not “win over the die-hard armpit-hair feminists” who supported Hillary Clinton, but that average Joes like her because she “embraces femininity with open legs,” whatever that means.

I could go on. But I won’t —the point is that sexist attacks don’t constitute arguments. And you can’t get mad at sexism when it’s aimed at Democrats and embrace it when it’s aimed at Republicans. Feminism doesn’t work that way.

Ever since last night’s episode, when Kenley attempted to blame her hair-trigger bitchiness on having been “raised on a tugboat,” I can’t stop thinking about this song. Kenley is Pirate Jenny. (Even if you don’t who Kenley or Kurt Weill is, you should listen anyway, for Nina Simone is amazing, and kind of terrifying.)

In addition to the cuts I wrote about yesterday—namely, three programs aimed at keeping youth and others off the streets and out of jail—Mayor Greg Nickels’s proposed budget includes significant cuts to youth-violence prevention, emergency preparedness, and domestic violence programs. Here are a few more of Nickels’s proposed cuts:

•$135,000 in city funding for SOAR, a program aimed at helping kids succeed early in life and promoting early-childhood education. SOAR’s other funding comes from United Way and cash-strapped King County.

• Funding for domestic-violence and sexual abuse prevention programs, including $20,000 in funding for CHAYA, a community-based program in South Asian immigrant and refugee communities that Nickels has targeted for elimination before; and $19,000 for “protocol development for conducting parenting evaluations in domestic violence cases.” (City Council budget chair Jean Godden’s office says she plans to propose restoring funding for both programs.)

• $500,000 for emergency preparedness assistance to community organizations.

• $278,000 for services for senior citizens, including $78,000 from the homesharing program, which matches homeowners with seniors looking for a place to live, and $200,000 added in 2008 for senior centers.

• $288,000 from programs that match homeless and low-income people to community services.

• $78,000 from Reinvesting in Youth, a countywide effort to reduce the high school dropout rate.

For a complete list of budget committee meetings, public hearings on the budget, and documents related to the budget itself, go to the city council’s budget page.

Maud Newton reports on another reason to fear and hate Florida:

According to parents and students in Greg Howard’s seventh-grade social studies class, Howard on Friday, Sept. 26 asked the class a question regarding Obama’s call for change, and proceeded to write out what the letters C-H-A-N-G-E stood for.

“She told me that he wrote on the board ‘Can You Help A (expletive) Get Elected, and then laughed about it,” said Shelia Christian, a mother of one of Howard’s students.

Thanks for ruining my day, Maud.

I like a comfortable hotel as much as the next guy…

…but this ad for Extended Stay Hotels doesn’t exactly make me wanna book a room in one of their stank-ass hotels. Via Sullivan.

Solid-gold Kate Moss statue unveiled at British Museum.

And another one by the same sculptor, Marc Quinn.

Quinn sculpts people with physical disabilities. The Moss series is an extension of this work.

I’m going in.

And then later today, you’re going in. Oh, yes. Meet you back here for LADYSLOG.

As you know by now, I bring a batch of advance reader copies to Slog Happy, with the caveat that the person who reads (or tries to read) the book has to review it for all of us here on Slog.

Today’s book review by Abby is a little bit special. Two Slog Happies ago, we had a drawing for Bumbershoot tickets. We also had a book called The Wolfman that I didn’t think anybody was going to take home. So when Abby won the Bumbershoot tickets, I made her take The Wolfman, too. I immediately felt guilty about that, especially when I learned that Abby was actually reading the book—I kind of foisted it on her as a joke.

But Abby is strong and good and she actually went ahead and read the whole thing. Anything you don’t like about this review no doubt is due to the editing process and not at all Abby’s fault and you should blame the editor. I am the editor.

A book about a werewolf that solves murders. That’s not what I look for in reading material—in fact, those elements (werewolves, murder mysteries) usually direct me away from a book. But this one came with Bumbershoot tickets. So I gave it a chance.

And it turned out that I really liked it.

The Wolfman is the story of Marlowe Higgins, a Vietnam vet who’s also a werewolf who has to kill whenever he transforms. He’s managed to direct the werewolf (referred to always as ‘the wolf’ or something like that, separating it from Marlowe himself) towards killing bad guys instead of random people. He’s managed to set himself up in a small town, getting a job as a line cook and a friend on the police force who feeds him information about suspicious deaths and murders. It works for him. And then a serial killer shows up in his town and things get messed up.

There’s more to it than that, of course, but it’s a mystery, and going into the story any more here would ruin it. I’m too nice of a person to do that, especially since The Wolfman is worth reading. It’s a well-crafted book, telling the story both of how the murders are solved and how Marlowe got to where he is, managing to use flashbacks in a way that doesn’t seem ridiculous. Not knowing a whole lot about werewolf mythology, I found this conception of it very interesting and to me, unique. And it all makes sense, which is important for a story like this- if it’s a book that’s about a werewolf who catches a serial killer, it better be consistent in the world it creates.

The star, though, is Marlowe himself. Just familiar enough to be recognizable, unique enough to be memorable. Badasses with hearts of gold are familiar territory, of course, but there’s enough in Marlowe to make him interesting, anyway. He’s a badass more by circumstance than by design. Pekearo does a great job of revealing that, piece by piece, personal tragedy by personal tragedy. What I especially like is the attention to little details—Marlowe’s T-shirts and favorite metal bands, the small things that round out a person and a character. I like seeing little irrelevancies in characters, particularly leading ones; everyone should contain multitudes.

Apparently, Pekearo envisioned a series around Marlowe Higgins, turning him into the kind of anti-hero that mysteries thrive upon. The tragedy of The Wolfman is that this is the only one. Nicholas Pekearo was an auxiliary policeman- a volunteer cop that didn’t get a gun or bulletproof vest- in Greenwich Village in New York, where he grew up, and was killed in the line of duty in 2007 at the age of 28. (Admittedly, that was another reason why I wasn’t expecting much from his book- the human-interest level was far too high for something readable, right?) So there is no more Marlowe Higgins. And that’s a shame- there are far worse protagonists out there who get to continue existing.

Many thanks to Abby.

As the city council debates new legislation that would make it easier for restaurants and bars to open sidewalk seating, an interesting tension is developing between proponents of more outdoor seating (of which Seattle has woefully little) and advocates for pedestrians and the disabled, who argue that the proposed rules trample on pedestrian and wheelchair access. From an email being circulated among pedestrian advocates (by all-purpose city gadfly Chris Leman, hence the hotheaded tone), urging them to contact the council and human rights commission before a meeting of the Human Rights Commission this evening and the council’s regular weekly meeting next week.

Among the points Leman suggests people hype in their testimony and emails to council members:

Don’t turn this decision from a Master Use Permit decision into a street-use decision, which will compound the City’s current tendency to ignore a café’ or bar’s impacts. Keep and strengthen the role of the Department of Planning and Development; don’t turn the decision over to the Seattle Department of Transportation, which already does a poor job on the street-use permits it now issues. […] Write into the ordinance a higher priority for pedestrian safety, convenience, and dignity. On public sidewalks, the benefit of the doubt should be with pedestrians, especially the disabled. […]

Don’t allow sidewalk cafés or bars within fifteen feet of a bus stop (current proposal is only five feet, leaving no space to stand). Don’t allow sidewalk cafes or bars within six feet of the curb (current proposal is three feet, making it difficult to use curbside parking).

Require at least six feet of straight, clear walking space in neighborhoods, and ten feet downtown (under the proposed legislation, pedestrians would be guaranteed a space only six feet wide downtown and five feet in neighborhoods—amidst an obstacle course of poles, circuit and newspaper boxes, signs, trees, and parking kiosks.) […]

Require that the sidewalk café or bar barriers be removed during the roughly nine months of the year when they are not being used. The supposedly “temporary” enclosures, which typically are used only in the summer months, remain as year-round barriers to pedestrians, and a risk to public safety.

Although Leman’s tone can be a bit hysterical (and although I could frankly give a shit about giving people six feet of clear space in front of their cars), his email does highlight an interesting question: Who are the public sidewalks for, and to what extent should the city be willing to mortgage off this right-of-way? I tend to think that the best cities in the world are that way, in part, because they enable people to live part of their lives in public—by encouraging things like sidewalk cafes, parks, and other public gathering spaces. Agree? Disagree? Attend the meetings or let council members know by email.

A deadly fire in downtown Osaka!

A pre-dawn fire has killed at least 15 men and injured 10 others in a video rental shop in western Japan.

The fire broke out at about 0300 (1800 GMT Tuesday) and swept through the 32 rooms of the first-floor premises.

The business, in the city of Osaka, rented videos and DVDs and hired rooms where the customers could watch them.

Such shops are often used by workers who have missed the last train home, as they provide a cheap alternative to hotel rooms.

The store, called CATS, was on the first floor of a seven-storey building in downtown Osaka.

More than 100 firefighters and 40 fire engines tackled the blaze, which was extinguished in one and a half hours.

The Japanese Kyodo news agency quoted a 37-year-old customer who managed to escape as saying he had gone to CATS around 0100 after work in order to stay there overnight.

He said the layout of the establishment was “so complicated that customers who visited here for the first time may have found it difficult to escape”.

A customer could stay at CATS for up to 11 hours from 2300 at a cost of 1,500 yen ($14; £8).

This is huge.

John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.

McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush.

The AP confirms it here.

Go ahead, try to figure out how McCain realistically gets to 270 electoral college votes if he can’t win Michigan. (It’s possible, but based on recent polling it’s a difficult path.)

What are you waiting for? Saturday, October 4 is the deadline for Washington State residents to register to vote. Fortunately, we’ve made it easy for you. Here are three quick ways to get registered and ready to vote on November 4.

1) Pick up a copy of the Stranger. Instead of our usual front cover, you’ll find a voter registration form. Cut it out. Fill it out. Mail it in. (For more information on how to do this, look here.)

2) Register online at the Secretary of State’s office. It’s easy, takes less than five minutes, and you don’t even have to print anything out. (Don’t know if you’re already registered? Find out here. Need to change your address? Do that here.)

3) If you don’t want to register online, you can always print out a registration form and mail it in. Here’s one , in PDF format.

Want to know why you should bother voting (and filling out the entire ballot, not just the races at the top of the ticket)? Find out here. Want to know what to do on election night, once you’ve voted? That’s here.

Happy voting.

Rolling Stone magazine tells it like it is:

This is the story of the real John McCain, the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather.

In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

The fate of a critical link on Sound Transit’s initial light-rail segment depends on this November’s election. In 2005, the Sound Transit board voted to eliminate a long-planned light rail station on First Hill from the initial light-rail line—a decision that prompted protests from First Hill residents and board member Richard McIver, who argued that it made no sense for rail to bypass one of the densest neighborhoods in the city. The compromise solution was a streetcar line connecting First Hill, Capitol Hill, and downtown, allowing Sound Transit riders to get off light rail in either the ID or Capitol Hill and take the streetcar to First Hill. However, because the Sound Transit plan included no funding for the streetcar, the fate of the $158 milloin line (which, whatever you think of streetcars, remains the only viable potential non-bus link between Capitol Hill and First Hill in Sound Transit’s proposal) rests on whether voters adopt or reject Prop. 1 in November.

The Green Lake branch of the Seattle Public Library has been closed temporarily on account of mold. A city industrial hygienist found Stachybotrys mold in a crawl space in the library. The branch’s re-opening has not been scheduled, but regular Green Lake Library patrons are encouraged to check the library’s website for more details. Full press release is after the jump.

Continue reading "Library Closed by Rampaging Stachybotrys" »

Cover photo by Kelly O.

Erica C. Barnett on Seven Reasons to Fear Dino Rossi
“Rossi doesn’t just oppose abortion rights. He opposes all reproductive rights—from students’ right to learn the facts about pregnancy, STDs, and birth control, to women’s right to buy contraceptives with a prescription. Rossi opposes requiring pharmacies to stock emergency contraception, which works by preventing fertilization, because some pharmacists assert, falsely, that it causes abortions. How trivial does Rossi consider women’s right to emergency contraception? On one occasion, he compared requiring pharmacies to dispense the medication to ‘forcing Safeway to carry my favorite brand of sport drink’…”

John McCain Refuses to Make Eye Contact—Again!
“Republican presidential nominee John McCain, reeling from widespread accusations of racial bias following the presidential debate last Friday, has made matters worse by slighting one of America’s best respected bands.”

Jen Graves Reviews the Art at Harborview
“Early on a bright morning last week, the intensive-care waiting area was messy with slept-in makeshift beds of hospital-issue pillows and blankets spread on couches. An older woman held her head in her hands on one side of the room; across it a red-eyed younger woman told a phone, ‘She died last night.’ The art in here is by Anne Appleby, a Montana artist who paints dusty colored panels that seem to have light inside them. Three tall paintings in an almost alien yellow-green hue hang at one end of the waiting room…”

Joan Hiller Goes Searching for the the Best Sloppy, Simple, Completely Delicious Enchiladas
“Structurally, the cheese enchilada has three main components: the tortilla, the delicious cheese guts, and—most importantly—the sauce. You screw up the sauce and the whole thing goes to shit. The sauce is the glue that holds the enchilada world together, the spicy ocean in which the tortillas with their bellyfuls of cheese swim.”

Sean Nelson on Kinky French Film A Girl Cut in Two
“The affair is an exercise in light depravity and consensual abasement: He directs her to give him head under the desk as he does his morning writing; she surprises him (on her birthday) by crawling into the room almost naked, on all fours, with fanned-out peacock feathers sticking out of her ass. Ah, love. The thing is, she’s super into it and into him—she feels neither embarrassed nor ridiculous.”

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: the terrifying mannequin in the ladies room at the Buck; a news story about renters benefiting mightily from the home foreclosure crisis; Larry Mizell Jr. on local hiphop producer Jake One; an interview with David Berman; Paul Constant on two new political novels; lots of new film reviews; three new theater reviews; and all the usual columns and calendars.

This week, every issue of The Stranger comes wrapped in a legal voter registration form. It’s a new project for the paper, done in coordination with Washington Bus, and it has the potential to reach tens of thousands of potential new voters.

The idea is to make it so easy to register that all the usual excuses fall away.

Pick up a Stranger each week? The form is right there in your hands. Can’t deal with the envelope-licking and stamp-buying that it would take to mail the form in? Fine. Drop the form off by 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 4, at any of the locations listed in the paper (Havana, The Saint, Sonic Boom Records, Cellophane Square, Cafe Vita, Easy Street Recrods, and Hidmo Eritrean Cuisine) and the people at Washington Bus will drive around, pick up your form, and take it to Olympia for you in time to meet the registration deadline.

What? You still think you have a good excuse for not registering? Turn one page and read my piece on the subject. Because you don’t have a good excuse, I assure you.

Or turn one more page and read Dan Savage’s piece, in which he holds your hand and walks you through the process. Dan Savage hates holding people’s hands. And he’s holding yours! How can you not get registered?

And then, once you’ve abandoned your lame excuses and registered, read Erica C. Barnett’s piece on the glamorous election-night parties that await you—if you get registered and vote.

We are honored that the wig John Adams died in is now contributing to The Stranger.

Via Ben Smith, this new feature “organizes and prioritizes your contacts by key battleground states, making it easy to reach out and make an impact quickly”!

Which reminds me of this, also via Mr. Smith: Barack Obama is Google, John McCain is AT&T.

Music

Brightblack Morning Light

• See what else is happening in Music on Thursday »

Downtempo

Mark Farina

• See what else is happening in Music on Thursday »

Mary Temple spent weeks at Western Bridge making a huge painting that opened to the public last weekend. (The image above is from an earlier, similar installation on the East Coast.)

The painting is extremely quiet. It is white paint on white walls, and depending on the light, it can almost disappear entirely. It is painted to fool you into believing, at least for moment, that it’s not there. When you walk in, it looks like there’s nothing in the room at all, just the shadows and light beaming in from the windows of the building. This is what Temple calls “the doubting zone.” She has her reasons for sending you there.

Listen to her explain.

The painting will be up for a year.

Stranger-certified Genius Jonathan Raban on Sarah Palin in the London Review of Books:

Like Wally the Green Monster, Baxter the Bobcat, the Mariner Moose and other giant furry creatures who accompany major-league baseball teams from game to game, Palin is the adored mascot of the anti-fiscal crowd. Her actual performance as mayor and governor counts for little beside her capacity to keep the fans happy during the intervals between play, which she does in the style she developed as mayor of Wasilla and then perfected in her triumphant gubernatorial campaign in 2006. Transcripts and videos from her time in Alaska show her parlaying the barest minimum of rhetorical and intellectual resources into a formidable electoral weapon. The least one can say of her is that she quickly learned how to make the most of herself.

What is most striking about her is that she seems perfectly untroubled by either curiosity or the usual processes of thought.

It’s really a great piece of writing. You should go read it all, right now.

This is the last one. Aren’t you sad? One final taste of mid-’80s morality:

“You are a homeowner. A social agency wants to establish a residence for seven retarded adults next door. Do you sign a petition opposing this step?”

Seven! Seven retarded adults! So specific!

Keep them retards off my lawn!

You jinxed it.

There is, of course, our liveblogging of the debate and our pre-debate feminist cage-match, both of which you shouldn’t miss.

But for those of you looking to watch Palin v. Biden with the masses (good bars have good wireless! bring your laptop! don’t miss a minute of the liveblog!), I now offer the official Stranger list of party people and party places. Among them:

BottleNeck Lounge; Cafe Presse; Central Cinema (hosted by the 37th District Democrats); The Department of Safety (Anacortes); Moe Bar; On the Boards; SOLO; Spitfire (hosted by “Lots of People That Support Obama”); Sport Bar and Restaurant (hosted by Washington Women for Obama); Twilight Exit; and various other locations from Mount Vernon to Vancouver.

The full list, with addresses, start times, drink specials, tickets prices, and wireless info, is in the jump.

(What? Your party didn’t make the list and you can’t understand why? Send me an email with the party info and I’ll add it to the list if it’s worthy.)

Continue reading "The Stranger List: VP Debate Watch Parties" »

Lil’ O’Reilly…

Via Bitten & Bound:

House Peters Jr., the original Mr. Clean in Proctor & Gamble’s television commercials for the household cleaner, died of pneumonia Wednesday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Los Angeles.

The 92-year-old actor played many supporting roles throughout his career, but became best-known in the 50’s and 60’s for his role as the hoop earring wearing, muscular bald man known as “Mr. Clean,” who took a tough stance on dirt and grime.

Variety also has a full obituary.

Trapped in a culture of poverty:

Black bears that live around urban areas weigh more, get pregnant at a younger age, and are more likely to die violent deaths, according to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

…[B]ears in urbanized areas weighed an average of 30 percent more than bears in wild areas due to a diet heavily supplemented by garbage.

…[T]hey are giving birth at an earlier age – on average when they are between 4-5 years old, as compared to 7-8 years for bears in wild areas. Some urban bears even reproduced as early as 2-3 years of age around Lake Tahoe.

…Urban bears also tend to die much younger due mostly to collisions with vehicles.

^{James Martin’s Zoo Lion (1995), gouache on paper, 16 by 23 inches}

At the Wright Exhibition Space.

Awww.

Among last night’s revelations:

*The roots of Kenley’s hair-trigger bitchiness! (Apparently, she was raised on a tugboat—like, for real—where I can only imagine she worked as a scullery maid and was taught to respond to any human interference with a switchblade.)

*The identification of Leanne’s Achilles’ heel! (“It’s all so sad,” said Nina Garcia of Queen Leeann’s somber librarian aesthetic.)

*Tears, tears, and more tears! From everyone! (Even me—because the judges failed to kick off the person who most deserved it, but that’s how it goes…)

We have an open mic, a young adult fantasy book, and many other readings tonight, nearly all starting just as the vice-presidential debates end.

At the Seattle Public Library, Marilynne Robinson reads from Home. Her second novel, Gilead, is one of Barack Obama’s favorite novels. Doesn’t that make you want to see her a little bit more?

At the University Book Store, Rowan Jacobsen reads from Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis. This is a fascinating subject, but for some reason it took me until just now to realize the title is a play on Silent Spring, which is a little bit too precious.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, Danny Goldberg reads from Bumping into Geniuses: My Life Inside the Rock and Roll Business. One day, everyone who ever even said one sentence to Bonnie Raitt is going to have a book.

And at Town Hall, Peter Galbraith reads from Unintended Consequences, which is about our misadventures in Iraq, and the title is fairly self-explanatory. Oh, crap. Peter Galbraith has cancelled tonight due to a family emergency. Apologies to readers and sympathy to Mr. Galbraith.

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

A new McCain web ad. It’s funny, but it also works toward lowering expectations for the Democratic VP candidate.

And given the strange, ritualized game of setting candidates up to be perceived as preforming better than expected, I’m not sure this serves McCain’s overall interests.

More good news to fuel DP gloom:

A second poll shows McCain slipping in Georgia.

For the second time in two days, a statewide poll shows Republican John McCain slipping in Georgia as a result of the nation’s fiscal crisis.

This time, the survey comes from a partnership of WSB-TV and InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position. To be precise, the poll puts McCain at 50 percent and Democrat Barack Obama at 44 percent. Margin of error is plus-or-minus 4 percent.

Two percent prefer “other” candidates — not good news for Bob Barr, the Libertarian. And 4 percent are undecided.

On Tuesday, a SurveyUSA poll backed by two TV stations, WXIA in Atlanta and WMAZ in Macon, showed a similar drop in McCain’s fortunes, with the Republican at 52 percent and Obama at 44 percent. Margin of error was plus-or-minus 3.8 percent.

InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position had McCain up by 18 points three weeks ago. SurveyUSA had the Republican up by 16 points two weeks ago.

In a hardcore Republican state like Georgia, a McCain recovery is well within the reach of possibility, even probable — despite the first signs of an Obama surge here. But if he’s falling this far, this fast in Georgia, then McCain has other, larger worries elsewhere in the country.

…from a Hillary supporter no less:

For what it’s worth, I believe this woman would make a more viable Vice-Presidential candidate than Sarah Palin. I base this belief entirely on the woman’s familiarity with the word “Lebanon,” but there you have it.

I also like to think the woman and her two friends are all straddling the same burro, which they’ll soon ride to the drive-in.

Thank you, WoW Report.

Washington:

A 41-year-old Enumclaw man has accused his former youth pastor of sexually abusing him more than 20 years ago, saying the abuse continued even after he told church leaders.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in King County Superior Court, the man said David Bennett started abusing him in about 1979 when he was about 12. The man said he told two pastors of Trinity Lutheran Church in Enumclaw about the abuse at that time, but that they took no action.

In the early 1990s, the man told his parents about the abuse, but they apparently took no action, said his lawyer, James S. Rogers. He said his client suffers from depression and is in therapy.

The Surge That Isn’t Working: Unemployment rate hits seven-year high.

The Stock Market: Dow and S & P take morning dive in reaction to tight credit and unemployment rates.

The Senate: Passes bailout bill, with 74 votes in favor, including McCain and Obama. Heads for vote in the House, where passage is less certain.

Boom: Bus driver hears explosion in downtown Seattle parking garage, bomb squad deployed.

Gloom: NYPD officer who gave orders to use a Taser on a man, who subsequently fell to his death, commits suicide.

Gamer: Nintendo announces new DS handheld gaming console. For $179 you get dual cameras, music playback, and a pony.

Bomber: Suicide bomber kills 19 and injures 50 people in Baghdad.

Soldier: Pleads guilty to role in killing four Iraqi prisoners—bound, blindfolded, shot, and dumped in ditch. Gets only eight months in prison.

March of Nickels: Nickelsville moving to Discovery Park.

Nickels and Dimes: WaMu CEO refuses $11.6 million severance package.

Ankles and Crimes: State requires Level-3 sex offenders released from prison to wear tracking bracelets. Estimates about 200 will wear them at any given time.

Tonight! Watch the ladies of Slog (and Eli Sanders) duke it out over the VP debate. And to get you in the mood, please enjoy this flashback to Admiral Stockdale’s bumbling appearance at the VP debate in 1992:

The $700 billion bailout plan, now newly saddled with $110 billion in tax breaks for “businesses and the middle class,” has been approved by the Senate. It’s now en route to the House, and the AP report merely hints to their having a “Friday” vote.

You’ll find this bit 13 grafs deep into the story:

It doesn’t designate a way to pay for many of the tax cuts, though

Ahem.

…and June, July, and August are forgiven, Seattle.

Tonight is the third (of five or possibly six) debates in the Washington State governor’s race. Are you still awake?

The debate begins in a few minutes (7 p.m. on PBS), so consider this your open thread for discussing whatever transpires. I’ll be watching, and will have a few things to say tomorrow morning on Slog I’m sure. Meantime, here’s a bit of what Erica C. Barnett has to say about the race in her new story, “Meet Your New Governor,” which is out in the current issue of The Stranger.

In the years since she eked out that victory in 2004, Gregoire has been a cautious governor in the Gary Locke mold—taking solidly progressive positions on safe-bet Democratic issues like stem-cell research and global warming, but hedging her bets on shakier ground like gay marriage and the fate of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Gregoire is tough, but she comes across as brittle under pressure—unlike Rossi, whose dodges are so artful you hardly notice when he fails to answer a question. In last week’s debate, for example, Rossi dodged a question about Gregoire’s budget with a story about his daughter “little Jillian,” and couched a call for reducing workers’ compensation in an anecdote about starting out in business with “$200 in the bank and a $200 car and nowhere to go but up.”

Perhaps more importantly, Rossi is proving himself to be a far more robust, adaptive, and compelling candidate than the Rossi of 2004. Dino 2.0 is as smooth and soothing as a shot of Ovaltine, in stark contrast to his slick real-estate- huckster persona four years ago. Despite winning statewide election four times—three times as attorney general, in addition to her narrow 2004 win—Gregoire has always had trouble connecting with voters on a personal level and motivating Democratic voters to turn out for her. Although Washington State went heavily for John Kerry in 2004, hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters failed to support Gregoire, leading to two recounts and Gregoire’s subsequent razor-thin margin of victory.

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that others have already posted better, more comprehensive lists of tomorrow’s VP debate-watching parties. So please consider the below parties to be ECB-endorsed, and attend or stay away as you will. (Without you, of course, Columbia City remains an ECB party of one.)

I’ve been gearing up for tomorrow’s vice-presidential debate between Sarah Palin (boo!!) and Joe Biden (yay?), about which I’ll have much, much more to say tomorrow… In the meantime, though, I wanted to invite all Slog readers to two events at Spitfire, 2219 4th Avenue. The first is a (free!) debate watch party tomorrow night, starting at 6:00 pm, with drink and food specials until 7 pm. The second is a presidential debate watching party on Tuesday, October 7, hosted by Washington Conservation Voters and featuring Gov. Christine Gregoire; doors at 5 pm, discussion with the Gov at 5:30, debate at 6. The suggested donation is $250, but all are welcome—give what you can. To RSVP online, go here.

And for those who’ll be in the South End during tomorrow night’s debate, I’ll be liveslogging from the Columbia City Ale House at Rainier and Ferdinand; feel free to stop by and say hello.

Meet Rob McKenna, state chairman for the Washington for McCain campaign:

To learn more about McKenna’s Democratic opponent, Pierce County executive John Ladenburg, go here .

In addition to the two budget changes I’ve written about elsewhere—namely, a $4.4 million boon to the Department of Information Technology to convert the city’s email system to Microsoft technology and a the elimination of planned pedestrian improvements on Aurora and Linden Avenue in North Seattle—Mayor Greg Nickels’s 2009-2010 budget includes a number of changes beyond the mere “administrative” cuts the daily papers alluded to in their coverage. As revenues from sources like real estate taxes continue to drop (in the words of a finance department staffer at this morning’s council budget briefing, “we have now completely fallen off the cliff”), it’s safe to say that the relatively minor cuts the mayor has proposed this year are just the beginning. A few highlights and lowlights:

Remember when the city council announced, with great fanfare, that the city was finally increasing the library’s collections budget—allowing the Seattle Public Library to fill up all those shiny new branch libraries with actual books? That didn’t last long—as I noted in June, the library was one of the the most vulnerable city departments going into this year’s budget cuts, and the increase they received last year to buy more library materials—a relatively modest $2 million—is going awa. However, city finance department director Dwight Dively noted a silver lining: At least “there are no proposed changes in library hours.” Which is good, since most libraries are open no more than six hours on Sunday, and neighborhood libraries don’t open until 1:00 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Three public-safety programs—Get Off the Streets, Co-Stars, and Communities Uniting Rainier Beach—are being proposed for elimination. Get Off the Streets is a program aimed at “lowering crime in the Central Area by providing services to people involved in non-violent street crime who are drug or alcohol dependent and homeless”; Co-Stars was intended to help homeless people get into and stay in permanent housing; and CURB, formerly known as Clean Dreams, attempts to identify, reach, and reeducate young people at risk of causing public safety problems in crime-ridden areas. Cutting funding for all three programs—which Dively said were targeted because they “did not actually save any money in jail usage… by the people that were actually served by the programs”—will save the city $456,000.

The city will also be eliminating a $350,000 fund to pay tenants displaced by condo conversions - a subject Jonah has covered here and here—on the grounds that, according to the budget,”due to the significant reduction in condominium conversions, there has been little demand for this program.”

In contrast, funding for the Mercer Corridor Project—a street-widening proposal that I also wrote about in this week’s column—is slated to go up by $82.5 million, reflecting the mayor’s belief that, as Seattle Department of Transportation deputy director Bob Powers told a meeting of the Othello Neighborhood Association last week, Mercer constitutes “critical infrastructure” to serve the additional 20,000 workers the city estimates are coming to South Lake Union. According to the mayor’s budget, “none of the money appropriated for 2009 for SDOT’s Major Project Budget Control Level can be spent to pay forconstruction until authorized by ordinance.”

More, doubtless, to come. For more on the budget, including a schedule of upcoming council meetings and public hearings, check out the city’s comprehensive budget web site here.

…but if you’re hankerin’ for a happy hour, We Are Change, Seattle’s preeminent 9/11 Truth organization, is having a meetup tonight:

Monthly WACS Social - 1st Wednesday

October 1, 2008
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location

Linda’s Tavern

707 East Pine St Capitol Hill Seattle, WA 98121

Full invite after the jump:

Continue reading "Slog Happy Isn't Until Next Week..." »

The developer of a new shopping center in Interbay is suing hippie grocery store giant Whole Foods after, the suit says, the company broke the terms of their lease when it tried to delay the opening of a planned store, setting back construction of the project.

In a lawsuit filed in King County Superior Court on September 26 by the Interbay Urban Center (IUC), the developer says Whole Foods—which was supposed to open the new 60,000 square foot store on December 10th, 2008— claims that grocery chain’s absence as an anchor store will cost IUC millions of dollars for delayed construction and “will create an appearance of a ghost town at the Whole Foods Interbay Shopping Center.”

IUC claims Whole Foods also attempted to renegotiate its lease, reducing the size of the planned store to 40,000 square feet. According to court records, Whole Foods told IUC that its larger stores are not currently profitable.

Whole Foods has four other stores in the Seattle area. The Westlake store is 48,000 square feet, the Roosevelt Square location is 50,000, Bellevue is 56,000 and Redmond is 60,000 square feet.

IUC says that Whole Foods owes $655,000 for construction costs and estimates that the value of Whole Foods’ lease and property at about $37,128,000.

It’s unclear whether Whole Foods still plans to open the Interbay store, but IUC is asking a judge to force the company to stick to its lease and pay for the delayed construction

Whole Foods also has a store scheduled to open in 2010 the Fauntleroy Place shopping center in West Seattle. Eric Radovich, spokesman for the Fauntleroy developer Blue Star, says the store is still expected to open on time.

Whole Foods would not comment on the status of future projects in Seattle.

The Palin clip that everyone’s been waiting for has now aired on The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

Watch CBS Videos Online

And here’s the key part of the transcript. After Palin discusses her opposition to Roe v. Wade, Couric asks…

COURIC: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?

PALIN: Well, let’s see. There’s –of course –in the great history of America rulings there have been rulings, that’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are–those issues, again, like Roe v Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know–going through the history of America, there would be others but–

COURIC: Can you think of any?

PALIN: Well, I could think of–of any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a Vice President, if I’m so privileged to serve, wouldn’t be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.

This was part of Couric’s “Vice Presidential Questions” series, so she asked Joe Biden the same thing. How did he respond?

COURIC: (to Biden): What are the Supreme Court decisions you disagree with?

BIDEN: You know, I’m the guy who wrote the Violence Against Women act. And I said that every woman in America if they are beaten and abused by a man should be able to take that person to court. Meaning you should be able to go to federal court and sue in federal court the man who abused you if you can prove that abuse. But they said no that a woman, there’s no federal jurisdiction and I held, they acknowledged, I held about 1,000 hours of hearings proving that there’s an effect in interstate commerce. Women who are abused and beaten and beaten are women who are not able to be in the work force. And the Supreme Court said there is an impact on commerce but this is federalizing a private crime and we’re not going to allow it. I think the Supreme Court was wrong about that decision.

Another key moment:

COURIC (to Palin): Do you think there’s an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

PALIN: I do. Yeah, I do.

As The Caucus rather gently puts it:

Ms. Palin also said that she believed there is an inherent right of privacy in the Constitution. She did not explain how she could believe in a right of privacy and still oppose Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that established a Constitutional right to abortion. The decision rests on the belief in a right to privacy.

Another decision that rests on the Constitutional right to privacy: Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay sex. I wonder which side of that one Palin is on. Maybe both?

eHow.com is a website that offers thousands and thousands of tutorials on “How To Do Just About Everything.” Seriously. Topics include: How to Assign Power of Attorney for an Offshore Bank Account; How to Avoid Being Picked Out Of A Police Lineup; How to Acid Wash Clothes (“Get access to two industrial washing machines…”); How to Act Around Your Boyfriend (“Were not going to stop liking you because we just saw you eat a turkey sandwich”); How to Build a Small Robot (“Place the vibrator on the back of the toothbrush head…”); and so on and so on.

A friend who works for the site recently e-mailed me a submission they received, which, unfortunately, is a little too risque for publication on eHow. But not for Slog!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your edification, How to Get Face Sat (full text after the jump):

How to Get Face Sat

Difficulty Rating: Challenging

Introduction:

Give a woman multiple orgasms by having her sit on your face. Any woman you date is a potential candidate to sit on your face. Each woman has a primal desire to sit on a guy’s face—even through most don’t know this until they get a taste of it. There’s no reason why this should only exist in your fantasies. This is an easy and effective way to please a woman.

Continue reading ""Many women refuse to sit on faces because they’re conscious of what a butt smells like."" »

…is a fundraiser for Barry Obama.

Drop by after tonight’s fundraiser at Chop Suey for Martha Manning.

As last week’s Stranger sets in the west, I’d like to call your attention to Sean Nelson’s lovely books lead, about Philip Roth. Nelson is one of the best readers of Roth I’ve ever met; he’s got an almost-instinctual understanding of how the man’s books work. Here’s a sentence:

One of the perils of being a close Roth reader is the often-irresistible assumption that he spends his life conjuring up ways to tantalize his audience by blurring the distinction between autobiography and fiction.

In a time when Nobel literature heads are saying America doesn’t produce word-class literature, it’s good to have such a great writer explain why Roth is one of the best in the world.

My fiance is male and a touch bisexual and, like the SIL in your column today, very much into spanking. Before we started dating he frequented he maintained several profiles on kinky websites. Through his personal ads he got to know a number of spanking “bottoms.” He gets together with these people—all of them men—for regular spanking “sessions.” These sessions don’t involve “intercourse,” just spanking and masturbation. My fiance doesn’t masturbate, only “his bottoms” do. (I say “a touch bisexual” because spanking is the only thing he does with men.)

While we were dating I gave him the okay to continue to see some of his regular spanking “friends.” But now that we’re about to get married I feel that he should stop “seeing” these men. He says I am asking him to forgo an important part of his sexuality. I think it’s time for us both to be grown ups. I’m not interested in being married to a man who whips other men’s behinds.

Wedded Blister

P.S. I do not like to be spanked myself, so I am asking him to forgo his “kink” for me. Love requires sacrifice.

I don’t know how long you’ve been reading my column, WB, but either you haven’t been reading for long or my writing hasn’t had an impact on you. I mean, you can’t seriously expect me to back you up here, right? If you didn’t want to marry a man who whips other men’s behinds, why were you dating one? Why did you accept a marriage proposal from one?

I know what you were doing, WB: You liked this guy well enough and thought he was good husband material—save his kinks—so you lead him to believe you were cool with his fetish and that “touch” of bisexuality and his play buddies. But you intended, consciously or not, to “edit” his sex life just as soon as you could. And now—after he’s proposed and after you’ve accepted and after the wedding plans have been made—you’ve delivered the ultimatum: It’s me or your kinks.

Here’s hoping he recognizes you for the manipulative little piece of shit that you are, WB, and picks his kinks over the long, hard, castrating slog that life with you would amount to.

Defamer reports that the president of the National Federation of the Blind is calling for a boycott of the movie Blindness, which is based on Nobel Prize laureate Jose Saramago’s book of the same name. The plot of Blindness, in which everyone in the world goes blind at the same time except for one person, is supposed to be hateful toward blind people somehow:

The National Federation of the Blind condemns and deplores this film, which will do substantial harm to the blind of America and the world. Blind people in this film are portrayed as incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do. Blind people are a cross-section of society, and as such we represent the broad range of human capacities and characteristics. We are not helpless children or immoral, degenerate monsters; we are teachers, lawyers, mechanics, plumbers, computer programmers, and social workers.

This movie looks bad on so many levels, but I can’t rustle up any sympathy for the NF of the B on this one. And I’m not sure that a boycott of a movie by a group of blind people is going to do much damage to a film’s box office receipts.

This slide-show-with-captions is pretty fucking funny. And, in the end, oddly sweet.

Thanks to Slog tipper Matt.

The folks behind the new blog Flat Palin want Sarah Palin—or at least Palin’s picture—to see a bit more of the world before the election. So far it looks like Flat Palin has seen a whole lot of Chicago and not much else. Any Slog readers in foreign countries want to help out? You can create your own Flat Palin here, and email pictures to flatpalin@gmail.com.

Any Slog readers in Russia? Because a picture of Palin in Red Square would be awesome…

I feel like an idiot, but the David Foster Wallace story I recommended earlier today was fiction, not autobiography. (I’m still trying to track down where my source found a reference to it that way.)

I guess it still hurts to read, though in a different way. I’m so sorry about the confusion.

Remember when Mr. Savage wanted you to VOTE SQUIRREL? Now the squirrels are throwing their support in for Mr. Obama!

^{Via Cute Overload.}

As you may have read, last week Sharon Stone lost custody of the now-8-year-old son she adopted with her now ex-husband Phil “lizard bait” Bronstein.

Today TMZ plunders the court’s “Tentative Statement of Decision” for clues as to what Stone did to lose primary-parent rights:

Sharon Stone is an alarmist parent who has gone off the deep end over and over, according to the judge who rejected her request to move her son down to L.A. Among many things, the judge says, “Mother appears to overreact to many medical issues involving [son] Roan.” In one case, the judge describes Stone believing Roan had a spinal condition, but “there was no evidence to support this allegation….Another example of an overreaction is that Mother suggested that Roan should have Botox injections in his feet to resolve a problem he had with foot odor. As Father appropriately noted, the simple and common sense approach of making sure Roan wore socks with his shoes and used foot deodorant corrected the odor problem without the need for any invasive procedure on this young child.”

Oh come on—shots are way easier than washing. And the kid has to learn how to get Botox sometime, right? (Full grubby story here.)

Voting in Seattle is dangerous! So dangerous, in fact, that the city is stepping in to hold a voter-registration conclave this Saturday in the relative shelter of City Hall. October 4—one month prior to the general election—marks the registration cut-off. City Council Member Bruce Harrell said in a statement today that Seattleites know the challenges that “prevent youth from engaging in the election process.” He has vowed to provide those youth “a fun, safe environment to assist with voter registration while finding solutions to barriers that may keep young people from ages 18 to 25 from voting.”

Jonah, across the office from where I sit, is a 25-year-old youth, and I’d hate to see him hurt. So as a 31-year-old infant, I share Harrell’s concerns. A pitfall lurks under every voter-registration card. Cardstock ballots cause papercuts. Chads may punch back. Pens really are mightier than the sword. So watch your back, doe-eyed voters and 70-year-old toddlers, and head down to city Hall this Saturday between 1 p.m. and 4p.m. … if you dare.

Seattle Police are investigating a bizarre burglary in Maple Leaf after a foreclosed home was stripped bare just days before it was auctioned off.

On September 17th, a Seattle man called police to tell them that the home he’d purchased a home in the 8800 block of 5th Avenue NE “sight unseen.” Three days after the sale, the man went to the house and discovered that the toilets, sinks, piping, cabinets, appliances, marble counter tops, furnace, two gas fireplaces, light switches, floor boards, front door and even the house’s cedar fence had been removed.

The buyer told them police he’d been by the house several days before the sale and and didn’t see anything missing.

Neighbors told police that a week before the auction, a work crew showed up and spent three days gutting the house.

The police report estimates as much as $200,000 worth of damage was done to the home.

According to King County records, the house sold for around $400,000 in 2006.

Asked what newspapers or magazines she reads, Sarah Palin replied, “Um, all of them.” Liberal elites sneered, insisting that Palin couldn’t name a single newspaper or news magazine. Well, who’s laughing now?

Of course! She meant Um, All of Them magazine, not “Um, all of them.”

Alice Wheeler’s next show at Greg Kucera Gallery—tentative title “Women Are Beautiful”—is scheduled for August 2009.

And other ceramic artists, too.

The first comment to a post called Sarah Palin—The Damage Done:

Whether or not McCain loses the election, the Palin nomination is the end-game for the cynicism that has been the life-blood of the GOP for more than 30 years.

I’m a small businessman, a gun owner, a multiple property owner. I’m white, middle class, and (mostly) live in the suburbs. I’m pro-military. I have nothing but contempt for the anti-commerce position of the left.

But I’ve never voted for a GOP candidate for national office, and even went as far as registering as a democrat in 2004. As much as the GOP might seem to represent my interests, I simply cannot stomach their ongoing cynical appeal.

Maybe now, and finally, with the Palin nomination, the GOP is exposed for the farce that it has been for more than 30 years.

If the GOP is the party of cynicism, then the DP is the party of doom. I have yet to hear or feel any real excitement about how well Obama is doing in the polls. Even now, with so little time left, with each day bringing brighter and brighter news, the Dems refuse to be cheerful. If McCain where in Obama’s position, the GOP would be ecstatic to the hilt, the reporters on FOX drunk with joy, and the fundamentalist clapping their church-happy hands. We would never see an end to this intoxication. But now that McCain is down, all of America (the GOP and DP) is gloomy. If McCain was up, at least some Americans would be dancing and clapping.

More battleground state polls, further supporting the toast theory from earlier today:

FLORIDA: Obama 51, McCain 47

MINNESOTA: Obama 54, McCain 43

MISSOURI: Obama 49, McCain 48

NEVADA: Obama 51, McCain 47

VIRGINIA: Obama 53, McCain 44

Tele-Read says that Peter Sunde, co-founder of torrent site The Pirate Bay, has requested that someone send him a Kindle. I predict that if Sunde finds a way to get pirated books onto a Kindle, it will double the sales of the thing.

In other e-book news, Sony is supposed to make a major e-book related announcement tomorrow at 6 pm ET. I hope it involves book pirates.

“One of the reasons I’m strongly for Palin is because the Democrats in Alaska are assholes,” says Sarah Palin’s gay friend. “And half of the stuff that the media has reported about Palin that’s negative was perpetrated by that small group of assholes.”

Sarah Palin’s gay friend spoke to me on the condition that I not reveal his name. While he’s out to everyone he knows, including Palin, and while he says he’s not embarrassed to be identified publicly as Palin’s gay friend, he doesn’t want to come forward at this time. So we’ll call him SPGF, for “Sarah Palin’s Gay Friend.” SPGF provided me with a photo of him with Palin, a link to a personal ad on a gay dating website created before Palin ran for governor, and a news story written about him in an Alaskan newspaper.

“I met Sarah met during her campaign early in 2006,” says SPGF. “That picture I sent you was taken at our first meeting. She was dancing and there was this chronically inebriated guy in the room who made her way up to her, and I was the only one who would cut in and rescue her, and she was very grateful.”

SPGF is 36, originally from California, and moved to Alaska 11 years ago. Earlier this summer he had the honor—long before Cindy McCain—of holding Trig Palin, Sarah Palin’s infant son with down syndrome.

How does an openly gay man like SPGF support an anti-gay candidate like Palin?

“Palin keeps her politics separate from her beliefs—her personal values, her religion, all of that,” explains SPGF. “I have never never seen her bad mouth anybody—gay, black, anybody.” And since being elected, says SPGF, Palin “has never once initiated a policy proceeding that was homophobic or anti-choice.”

But Palin endorsed an amendment to Alaska’s constitution banning same-sex marriage while she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

“I blame that on the Mormons,” says SPGF. “They drove that campaign up here. That was one of the most divisise battles I’ve ever seen. But the amendment was very popular, you know, with voters up here. I have friends and people I associate with across the board who were for that amendment, who voted for it. What can you do? I don’t expect Sarah Palin to be the vanguard of the liberal elite on that issue. She’s practical. She’s not going to take on battles that she can’t win.”

What about Palin’s membership in a church that hosts ex-gay conferences, and encourages people to believe that we can “pray-away-the-gay”?

“A lot of people believe that crap,” says SPGF. “But there is no religious test to run for office. Those are her religious beliefs. I saw the video where she stood up there and had the guy put his hands on her, the witchcraft guy. But I’m not going to hold that against her, just like she’s not going to hold being gay against me.”

From there our conversation jumped the rest of the way through the looking glass. SPGF is confident that John McCain is pro-gay—or tolerant of gay people—because he saw him on Ellen and he was polite to Ellen Degeneres, wishing her “every happiness.” Never mind McCain’s insanely anti-gay voting record, or his opposition to same-sex marriages like the one Ellen just entered into. And SPGF is confidant that McCain—or Palin, if McCain drops dead—won’t pack the Supreme Court with extremist, right-wing justices because, he says, the Senate is going to be dominated by Democrats. And besides, McCain or Palin could accidentally wind up nominating liberal justices like Kennedy and Souter, right?

So I finally asked SPGF the obvious question: Is he crazy?

“No,” he said. “This is the first time I will ever have voted for the GOP candidate. My eyes have been opened. it’s not us vs. them. We have to make friends with as many of these people as we can. It’s the only way we’ll ever make any true progress…. If we’re there and we’re at their tables so that when the gay issue comes up, or when someone says something anti-gay, I can be there to say, ‘Dude that’s me.’ We need a place at the table.”

But what earthly good is a place at Palin’s table if knowing you—and being “best friends” with a lesbian—doesn’t moderate her views on gay issues at all?

“We need to be there present and fighting,” says SPGF, “but fighting in a way that’s effective. We can’t just have Barney Frank. He’s a terrible spokesperson for being gay. I don’t mean from a policy perspective, I mean from a snapshot perspective.”

Sarah Palin claimed to have gay friends when she ran for governor of Alaska in 2006. Gay bloggers and reporters have attempted to locate Palin’s allegedly gay alleged friends in the weeks since John McCain selected her as his running mate. No luck. So last week I offered to be Sarah Palin’s gay friend because, hey, everybody should have at least one—and Palin’s kids clearly need an adult around who knows something about birth control.

Well, guess what? Someone claiming to be one of Sarah Palin’s gay friends—an Alaskan!—saw my post and got in touch via email. It’s not the lesbian friend Sarah Palin mentioned in her interview with Katie Couric—an interview in which Palin asserted that homosexuality is a choice—but an openly gay man. Now before we get to my interview with Sarah Palin’s gay friend, here’s Palin talking about her lesbian friend…

“As for homosexuality, I am not going to judge Americans and the decisions that they make in their adult personal relationships. I have… one of my best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay and I love her dearly. She’s not my gay friend, she is one of my best friends who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I’m not going to judge people.”

Well, well. Palin’s lesbian friend made a choice that Palin herself could have made but didn’t. Which means, it would appear, that Palin doesn’t just believe lesbianism is a choice but heterosexuality as well. Good to know.

And while Palin isn’t going to judge her lesbian friend for the choices she’s made about her “adult personal relationships,” Palin is going to do what she can to deny her lesbian friend the right to marry. Palin also wants to make sure her lesbian friend can’t serve openly in the military, she doesn’t want her lesbian friend protected by hate crimes statutes, and she thinks employers should be able to fire her lesbian friend just because she’s a lesbian. And if Palin’s lesbian friend were to fall in love with a lovely Russian lesbian that she could see from Alaska—and enter into an adult personal relationship with that Russian—Sarah Palin doesn’t think her lesbian friend’s lover should be able to emigrate to the United States.

But, hey, at least Sarah Palin refuses to judge her lesbian friend—and that’s something, right? It’s not equality or fairness or respect or full enfranchisement, of course, but it’s… um… something.

Right?

Coming up: Some questions for Sarah Palin’s gay friend.

And that something is Strangercrombie, our annual exercise in fund-raising and do-gooding.

Last year’s Strangercrombie gift auction raised over $60,000 for FareStart, an downtown restaurant that trains homeless folks to work in professional kitchens and finds them beds, counseling, and social services.

Readers bought all kinds of improbable stuff like a private concert with superstar cellist Joshua Roman (sold for $1,225), a cover song of the buyer’s choice recorded by the Presidents of the United States of America (sold for $1,525), and pages of The Stranger (the cover sold for $3,350).

(There were more affordable packages, too. You can see all the auctions here.)

It’s time to choose this year’s good cause. The Slog vote isn’t binding, but it is influential. And if you don’t see a cause you like in the polls, nominate yours in the comments.

Who Should Get the Money?

Speaking of David Foster Wallace (with reference to the link Jen posted earlier): This piece of reporting about his final days is hard to read. The analysis is generic but the stuff his family offers up to the Salon reporter is horrifying: crippling anxiety, hospitalization, electro-convulsive therapy treatments. When the news first broke a lot of people in comments here on Slog were jumping in with their “analysis” about how “selfish” DFW’s suicide was. Would you like to know how DFW’s sister thought about it? She says:

Inevitably our thought was, if only he could have held on a little bit longer. And then we realized, he did. How many extra weeks had he hung in there when he just couldn’t bear it? So we’re not angry at him. Not at all. We just miss him.

American Poet, dead at 87. I always found Carruth’s poems to be eminently readable and accessible. Everything Billy Collins claims to be, Carruth actually was.

Try “Letter to Denise,” with its argument over whether bears pee or piss, and then you can hear him read a poem of his own called The Cows at Night,” with its references to “…girls very long ago/who were innocent, and sad/because they were innocent,/and beautiful because they were/sad.” And then read his marvelous “Regarding Chainsaws,” about a friendship viewed through the history of chainsaw ownership. He was one of the greats, and a real populist poet.

Only five more days to make a HUMP!… Uh, Bust a Nut^TM!

Back in April, Miz Lindy West reviewed Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Here’s a bit of the very funny review:

Segel wrote and stars in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which was produced by Judd Apatow), the movie that dunked my week in delight and then stuffed it down the fun-time esophageal canal of entertainment. Formulaic to perfection, it’s the story of a hapless, harmless musician named Peter (Segel) whose TV star girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Veronica Mars or whatever), dumps him for the world’s Britishest rock ‘n’ roll longhair.

For some reason—perhaps I was suffering from Apatovian-related film fatigue—I didn’t see Forgetting Sarah Marshall in the theater, but it came out on DVD yesterday, and I watched it last night.

Seriously, what Lindy said. I was not prepared for this movie to be so completely charming (and also maybe a little smart.) And I’m kind of glad I didn’t see Forgetting Sarah Marshall in theaters, because it’s perfect for a night on the couch with popcorn and beer and blankets. It takes a little while for it to warm up, but once things move to Hawaii, the movie stays consistently funny and actually works on developing most of the characters as though it was…you know, a real movie or something. I have seen some very bad romantic comedies this year (Ghost Town, anyone?) and this movie was a just-about perfect antidote to awful, studio-made romcom trash.

Well, Frizzelle, I think I’ve found your Alaskan man of letters, a latter-day Robert Service who wrote a couple of poems during a standoff with the police:

Poem number one:

Boy I could use a smoke.
“Scarey” very noise bullets.
Fucking scrary.
My, my maybe
the holy father
would help
wish someone would
pray for me

And the story, from a friend who works as a detective up there:

The guy, who was in his 50s and has no criminal history, just went nuts. The day before he flipped he used a backhoe to tear up his son’s septic system because he was mad at his son. Then the next day he grabbed a bunch of his guns, went to a Texaco, and had a standoff with cops for hours. At one point he yelled “I’m coming out” and came out with two guns on his shoulders and two small vases in his hands with a flower in each vase. He walks out half way to the nearest SWAT team cop and says “these are for you,” puts the vases down, then goes back to his hideout spot.

Eventually the cops tricked him with cigarettes

Poem number two:

Out a cigs
shit o dear
“He expects me to walk down and get some.”
Shit o dear NO WAY
shit o dear
gonna stop smoke today

And more from the cop:

He came out and they tazed him.

At arraignment he told the judge his name wasn’t his name on the charging documents because “that name is all in capitol letters, and all caps is reserved for DEAD PEOPLE.”

And yesterday, from jail, he wrote a very polite and lucid letter to me asking to have his guns returned ASAP because he needs them.

I bet he needs them.

Tired of Scruple™ of the Day? Liar.

Here’s another one!

“You are a high school principal. Will you hire a competent teacher who is a homosexual?”

Keep in mind that some students might be allergic to feather boas. Think of the children.

In 1984, at the age of 21, David Foster Wallace wrote an account of his mental condition a fictional story that seems to borrow liberally from his own experiences, as an essay published in the Amherst Review. It turns out he had a lot to say about his own depression, hallucinations, and an early suicide attempt. Just reading it hurts.

Everyone’s playing the expectations game heading into tomorrow night’s VP debate. Now you can, too!

What are your expectations for Sarah Palin’s performance at the VP debate?

Music

Leslie and the LY’s

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

The reality of American politics:

Ms. Couric received a rush of attention for the two interviews, in which Ms. Palin, governor of Alaska, spoke haltingly on, among other topics, her state’s “narrow maritime border” with Russia. Clips turned up across the spectrum of television and Web sites.

The first interview last Wednesday, for example, has been viewed more than 1.4 million times on YouTube, while the parody of the interview on “SNL” was streamed more than 4 million times on NBC.com, viewed in full more than 600,000 times on YouTube and in shorter clips many more hundreds of thousands of times.

Today Google turns 10, and to celebrate, they’re directing users to their “oldest available index,” which isn’t exactly ten years old—it’s from January 1, 2001—but it’s still a fascinating portal into olden times.

For example, Googling “Sarah Palin” in 2001 brings up nothing on the current VP candidate until page 4, where the Frontiersman expresses it’s gratitude that “Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin has approached city council members about using Wasilla’s bountiful sales-tax revenues to erect” something or other. (The link stubs out.)

Also in 2001, Googling “Chris Crocker” got you a New Zealand music writer and an Austin doctor, but no weeping Britney fans.

Experience the virtual time-traveling pleasures for yourself here.

Do you want to have fun with it? But do you worry that if you play a Sarah Palin-themed drinking game you might wind up dead from alcohol poisoning? Try the straight-edge version:

Palin Bingo!

From a newly dug-up second-century housing complex in Italy.

Here’s the LeWitt wall drawing SAM owns (it used to be in the lobby).

Here’s images and a cool time-lapse video of the huge LeWitt wall-drawing retrospective currently being built at MASS MoCA (and opening in November).

Tomorrow’s VP debate starts at 6 pm (on every channel everywhere), but log on to Slog an hour early for an all out cage-match between Jen Graves and Erica C. Barnett—a debate about feminism started at an editorial meeting last week and they’re going to bring it to Slog for the masses to enjoy (and comment on)!

Erica will also talk about why sexist jokes about Palin backfire and highlight some of last week’s great Palin hits (“e.g. being unable to identify ANY Supreme Court case besides Roe v. Wade,” she says).

And what will Bethany and Lindy be bringing to the pre-debate party? Bethany says: “Lindy and I will have a pillow fight in our underwear.”

Hot!

See you there!

^{*And Eli Sanders.}

“Who are all these anti-bailout Republicans?” people keep asking. “And what do they mean?” Rachel Maddow asked on her new show on MSNBC last night. The Wall Street Journal is asking on its blogs. The Irish Times is asking in its paper.

But Slog has already met them here, here, and here.

They were at the Republican National Convention this year, from some of its youngest attendees (Saul Farber, 22, running for New York State Assembly) and some of its oldest (Tim Babcock, 89, former trucker and governor of Montana).

They’re the growing movement of fiscal conservatives, not social conservatives. They like Goldwater and grumble quietly about toxic evangelicals and big government and the wrong turns their party has taken in the last ten years. They’re not interested in fighting for constitutional marriage amendments and the War on Drugs—they’re the better half of the Republican party and they’re starting to rebel against the worse.

(And they haven’t been conjured by the McCain campaign: all eight members of the Arizona delegation, McCain’s home state, voted against the bailout bill.)

They’re reason to hope.

We have a poetry slam and many other readings tonight.

Tess Gerritsen reads at Seattle Mystery Bookshop from her new mystery, The Keepsake, in which a supposedly ancient mummy turns out to be a very recent murder victim. (Cue Law & Order ch-chung! sound effect here.)

Up at Third Place Books, Emma Donoghue reads from her latest book, The Sealed Letter. Donoghue wrote Slammerkin, which was a pretty fun Victorian novel. I have not read anything by her since, however.

And Tony Wagner is at Town Hall with The Global Achievement Gap, which is a book about how our education system is well and truly fucked, especially when compared to other countries.

Then we have a couple different readings with poets and fiction. Up in Wallingford, Donato Mancini, who has created a giant poem constructed from “enormous chains of vinyl letters,” reads with Shin Yu Pai, who also plays with the visual aspects of letters.

And at Elliott Bay Book Company, Leni Zumas (who wrote a lovely collection of short stories called Farewell Navigator that I took on a Lunch Date some time back) reads with Stranger contributor and very good poet Travis Nichols. Nichols will be promoting his contribution to State of the Union, an anthology of political poems published by local press Wave Books.

Either of those last two readings would be a fine time out on the town.

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

Via Gawker.

TPM:

And here’s the bad news for Palin. Time says that McCain is losing women at a faster clip than Palin was able to gain them—before the two conventions, Obama led among women by ten points, which then narrowed to one point after she was picked. Now he leads by 17 points.

And in Pew, Palin’s public image has taken a very serious fall. Three weeks ago, Palin was seen as qualified to be president by a 52%-39% margin. Now that number has been reversed: Only 37% think she’s qualified, and 51% say she is not.

Indiana:

A jury returned a guilty verdict late Tuesday for a former youth minister who had been accused of sexual misconduct with a minor.

A Marion County jury deliberated for four hours before finding Tyree Coleman, 29, guilty.

A 15-year-old boy said Coleman forced himself on him as he spent the night at Temple of Refuge Church in 2006. Coleman claimed that the teen initiated the encounter and that he thought the boy was of legal age.

And this just in…

What are you teaching your children about sex offenders? That they’re on the Internet in chat rooms or social sites? The scary truth is, that sex offenders may be closer to your child than you ever imagined!

90% of sexually abused children are abused by someone they know.

“Sometimes they are the little league coach, youth minister, pastor, a family member,” says Randy Christian of the Jefferson County Sheriff Department.

Sometimes?

And, as a lot of people are saying this morning: What was McCain doing in Iowa anyway?

The state has been pretty firmly in Obama’s hands for the entire fall campaign. The Des Moines Register, whose editorial board McCain was getting testy with, is not going to endorse him. So, again, why was McCain in Iowa?

Asked why McCain was in Iowa, one veteran Republican there replied: “Because he’s running a senseless, non-strategic campaign. Why else would he come here?”

Fox News on a “split” vote at a Pennsylvania diner:

Link via DavidC in comments.

And not gotten a response? Well, now there’s a way—for two weeks only—to make sure you get a response. From this week’s column…

A NOTE TO MY READERS: I get more letters at Savage Love than I could ever hope to respond to personally and infinitely more letters than I couldå ever hope to fit in this space. There’s really no secret to getting your letter into the column: I just have to find your problem somewhat interesting, basically. (You are, however, better off e-mailing me on Tuesdays, when I sit down to write, than you are on, say, Fridays, when I sit down to drink.) The fact that I can’t respond to every letter leads to a lot of hurt feelings. Every day I get complaints from readers who can’t believe I replied to the dude with shit on his dick and not to them.

Well, dear readers, for two weeks—and two weeks only—you can get a guaranteed response from me. Just go to www.noonprop8.com, click “Donate Now,” and do your part to help preserve marriage equality in California. On the left-hand side of the donation page, there’s a spot where you can indicate that you’re making your donation in someone’s honor. Type in “Savage Love,” put my e-mail address—mail@savagelove.net—in the space provided, and then send me your question in another e-mail along with the e-mail confirmation that No on Prop. 8 sent you after your donation cleared. The six biggest Savage Love donors get their letters in the October 16 and 23 installments of Savage Love. Everyone who makes a donation of $25 or more by October 16 gets a personal reply to their question from yours truly. The cutoff dates for donations that qualify for a letter in the column are October 9 for the October 16 column and October 16 for the October 23 column.

So, Cake Fart Fetishist, you’ve been badgering me with inane e-mails for years. This is your chance to finally get a letter in the column. You too, David in Brooklyn. Put up or shut up. But you don’t have to be a stalker to participate. Got a good question and wanna help fight the good fight? Make a donation at www.noonprop8.com, send me your letter along with your receipt, and you’ll hear from me in print or privately.

…by trying to prevent two boys from finding a permanent one.

A North Miami gay man began the court fight Wednesday to adopt two children he and his partner have cared for since 2004 through the state’s foster program…. The case is a new challenge to Florida’s 31-year-old law that allows gay people to foster children but forbids them from adopting.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman is presiding over the trial to determine whether [Frank Martin] Gill, 47, and his partner, 34, can adopt two half-brothers whom they’ve had custody of since December 2004. The boys’ mother and respective fathers lost their rights to raise the children in 2006.

In court records, Assistant Attorney General Valerie Martin wrote that the state is trying to uphold public morality and working to “encourage optimal family structure by seeking to place adoptive children in homes that have both a mother and a father.”

But Gill’s attorneys maintain the state is discriminating against gays because no scientific research suggests that children fare better when raised by heterosexual parents.

Okay: the state of Florida placed these boys—foster kids, older kids, kids that are hard to find homes for—with this gay couple nearly four years ago. And now the state blows into court and argues that these men shouldn’t be allowed to adopt these two boys because that would be an affront to “public morality,” and besides the state wants to encourage “optimal family structures,” a.k.a. “every child deserves a mother and a father.”

But if being placed in a home with a vagina and a penis is important when a child is adopted, why isn’t it important when a child is fostered?

The state of Florida wants to have it both ways: Florida panders to the prejudice of homophobes and bigots by denying gay people the right to adopt—and punishes children by preventing them from finding permanent homes and a sense of real security—but Florida refuses to take the next, logical step and ban gay people from acting as foster parents too. Why is that?

Because willing foster parents are scarce, finding and screening foster parents is expensive, and the state of Florida—like all US states—can’t afford to turn away qualified foster parents, regardless of sexual orientation.

For decades Florida has been placing kids with gay foster parents indefinitely—again, those boys have been with that couple for four years—and it has gotten away with this hypocrisy because gay foster parents were afraid, quite rightly, of making waves. Sue the state to adopt kids you’ve been raising for years and the state could swoop in and take those kids from the only stable home they’ve ever known. Foster children placed with gay couples aren’t wards of the state, they’re hostages.

But increasingly gay foster parents aren’t willing to be used like this anymore. IF we’re fit to foster, we’re fit to adopt. Gay foster parents are suing and they’re winning.

Slog tipper Mikki writes:

Slog used to put cute animal pictures up all the time and I thought this was perfect. This deer is tiny and darling and deserves to be seen by people everywhere:

More photos at the Daily Mail, plus details that will give you diabetes of the mind:

…staff at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital in Buckinghamshire believe Rupert, as he has been named, will make a full recovery….

At five days old, he is being kept in an incubator and has just opened his eyes.

Mikki, we apologize for being remiss of late in the cute animals department. Efforts are being redoubled.

I especially like his (bitchy!) claims that polls show no evidence of any anti-Palin sentiment. (See Eli’s post below.) If he keeps up like this, we’re going to be afforded the pleasure of watching his big old head explode.

(Thanks for the link, Towleroad.)

Republicans are fretting about McCain’s chances, and here’s why: If new polling like this holds up, McCain is toast:

FLORIDA: Obama 51, McCain 43

OHIO: Obama 50, McCain 42

PENNSYLVANIA: Obama 54, McCain 39

Those are all incredibly striking numbers, and from a polling organization, Quinnipiac, that’s thought to be one of the better ones.

Obama has been behind in Florida since… ever. Suddenly he’s opened an eight-point lead? The new poll suggests it’s all about the economic crisis in Florida, and all about the way that Obama has reacted to the challenge (steady, deliberate) as opposed to McCain (unpredictable, unclear). The Florida polling also suggests that people like this are slowly being won over:

But back to the serious business of reading poll tea leaves… The numbers for Ohio and Pennsylvania are equally shocking.

In Ohio, a state that’s been neck-and-neck (with McCain usually slightly ahead) for most of the fall, Obama is now close to having the ten-point cushion that a lot of people think he will need to counter poll-skewing racial discomfort in the state. And early voting just started in Ohio. Polls can always change, but you can’t change your vote once you’ve cast it, and if a large portion of people in Ohio vote now, in a political environment that clearly favors Obama, that’s bad, bad news for McCain.

Pennsylvania, too, had been close all through the fall—and now a 15-point lead for Obama? That’s huge. Pennsylvania has always been a must win state for Obama. His electoral math really doesn’t work if he’s losing there. (With the assumption that if he’s losing there, he’s also losing OH, FL, VA, NC, and others.) But with Pennsylvania now apparently in Obama’s pocket, along with the unexpected additions of Ohio and Florida, what might the electoral map look like on election night?

It might look like a blowout:

The McCain camp reaction:

These polls are laughable. We hope Obama thinks they’re true.

Zero Down: Revised bailout bill heads to floor vote in Senate tonight. Obama and McCain to return to D.C.

First Question: Can Americans even pass the new citizenship test?

Second Delay: Bailout web traffic slows House web site.

Third Coming: Bloomberg reverses previous position—seeks to scrap mayoral term limits in New York to stay and help economy.

Bond Fire: Cities cut out of bond markets can’t pay for projects.

Sick Pay: Medicare reverses policy—refuses to reimburse hospitals for medical errors.

No Parachute: WaMu creditors may try to seize $16.5 million severance package from ousted CEO.

Where Rubber Meets Monroe: Thief pepper-sprays armored car driver, steals a sack of cash, and escapes on an inner tube down Woods Creek.

Building a Defense: Rossi denies influencing builders association to support his campaign. Says he had called to mediate a dispute, and then the group just happened to spend millions on an anti-Gregoire ads.

Building a Case: UW sues Northern Trust Bank for failing to return $1.4 billion investment when requested on Sept 17. While the bank lollygagged, the university’s investment lost $7.5 million.

Oh, Girl: Disneyland double books Miley Ray Cyrus’s 16th birthday party and Gay Days this weekend. Responds with plans to kick the gays out at 5 p.m. and send them over to California Adventure.

It’s a big umbrella.

Looking for a Sarah Palin lookalike for an adult film to be shot in next 10 days.

Major adult studio.

Please send pix, stats etc. ASAP

Pay: $2000-3000

No anal required

via gruber » remiel » babiejenks

Neighbours, Seattle’s venerable gay dance club, filed a lawsuit last week fighting for its right to remain in a warehouse-style building in the Pike-Pine neighborhood. The bar opened there in 1983, started serving liquor a few years later, and has since made a patchwork of remodels, from go-go cages to another dance floor in the basement.

But the building’s owners, a land trust comprising several individuals, sent a letter to the bar owners in early August terminating the lease and telling the bar to vacate by the end of the month.

In the letter, landlords claim the bar violated terms of the lease signed in March of this year. It says the lease allows the tenant to use the space as a “tavern… commissary, restaurant. … and cabaret.” But, it says, “No food, however, is prepared and served on the premises. Furthermore, the current operation of the Premises as a dance club is not a permitted use.” The letter goes on to say that the club remodeled without permission and allowed liquor to be taken outside of the bar, as examples of further lease violations.

But there is no secret that Neighbours is a dance club. Leases over previous decades used similar language, the lawsuit shows. So it seems extremely unusual that the landlords would, after signing another lease in March, suddenly act surprised that Neighbours is, in fact, a dance club. An attorney for the landlords has not returned calls to comment.

“We don’t think there is any merit whatsoever to the landlords’ claims,” says Mark Kimball, an attorney representing Neighbours. He says owners were informed about how the space was used. “We believe the business is accurately described in the lease.”

Kimball would not speculate on why the bar owners were attempting to negate the lease after 25 years. He says the bar owners and the landlords are currently in negotiations. “I am extremely confident that the dispute will be resolved favorably to Neighbours,” he says.

Some conservative douchebag named Hugh Hewitt got the first national radio interview with Sarah Palin today. Unsurprisingly, Palin was a hell of a lot more poised on the staunchly Republican radio show than in her Couric interviews. If you want, you can listen to the interview here or find a transcript here. Listening to the interview, I was a little more nervous about Thursday’s debate—even though it’s entirely possible Palin was just reading the answers off a sheet of paper in front of her, and none of the questions required knowledge of anything in particular—because she’s totally fucking shameless:

HH: Governor, your candidacy has ignited extreme hostility, even some hatred on the left and in some parts of the media. Are you surprised? And what do you attribute this reaction to?

SP: Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it, but it’s motivation for John McCain and I to work that much harder to make sure that our ticket is victorious, and we put government back on the side of the people of Joe six-pack like me, and we start doing those things that are expected of our government, and we get rid of corruption, and we commit to the reform that is not only desired, but is deserved by Americans.

The last candidate I heard refer to himself as a normal person so much was Willie Stark, and he’s a (mostly) fictional character. I just hope Biden remembers on Thursday to do what Obama did and swing for the undecideds, not the liberal base; it’s surely what Palin’s going to do, and when she’s not fucking up in a massive way, she can be awfully charming.

Sloane Crosley is the author of the collection of humorous first person essays I Was Told There Would Be Cake. I loved the book. Both Bethany Jean Clement and Slog commenter PopTart hated the book—maybe it’s a boy/girl thing?—but I at least have confirmation, with her list of 6 favorite books, that Sloane Crosley is a great reader.

Five of the books—Birds of America by Lorrie Moore, The Chosen by Chaim Potok, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield, and Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion—are wonderful. I haven’t read the sixth, On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleza. But the way Crosley describes it, “A droll philosophical novel about a Croatian man who, one day, decides to speak his mind during a dinner party and conversational and social chaos ensue,” pretty much guarantees that I’ll read it soon.

Can you name another prominent Republican politician who doesn’t read newspapers or news magazines? Give up? The answer is here.

He walks into the Oval Office in the morning, Bush said, and asks Card: “What’s in the newspapers worth worrying about? I glance at the headlines just to kind of (get) a flavor of what’s moving,” Bush said. “I rarely read the stories,” he said.

Instead, the president continued, he gets “briefed by people who have probably read the news themselves.” Rice, on the other hand, is getting the news “directly from the participants on the world stage.”

Bush said this had long been his practice.

“I have great respect for the media,” he said. “I mean, our society is a good, solid democracy because of a good, solid media. But I also understand that a lot of times there’s opinions mixed in with news.”

And if there’s one thing Bush’s aides don’t have—besides souls, of course—it’s opinions.

TRICK OR TREAT….This Ain’t the Munsters XXX Hits Streets Today!

Hustler Video’s much-anticipated release, This Ain’t the Munsters XXX finally hits streets today!! If you’re wondering how to celebrate Halloween this year, then look no further…Hustler Video brings you the sexiest and naughtiest Halloween treat with the release of This Ain’t the Munsters XXX!!

“This flick will entertain the cum right out of you. It has it all: spot-on acting, great music, highly detailed sets, believable plot and some hot Munster fucking … One of the most entertaining story porns of all time,” enthuses Evan at RanchoCarne.com.

I hate it when Evan at RanchoCarne.com enthuses.

A 35-year-old Seattle man has been charged with indecent exposure after, prosecutors say, he wagged his genitals—as well as a prosthetic penis—at several teenage girls in Green Lake Park earlier this month.

King County Prosecutors say Kelly Lee Fischer repeatedly exposed himself to a 38-year-old woman, the woman’s 17-year-old daughter and her daughter’s 18-year-old friend in three separate incidents at Green Lake.

On September 11, records say the 38-year-old woman spotted Fischer at Green Lake, playing with himself through his gray spandex shorts.

The next day, the woman and the two teenage girls were sitting near the park’s playground when they saw Fischer in the park—again in his spandex shorts—doing stretches, pelvic thrusts, and masturbating with what was apparently a fake penis attached to his penis with rubber bands.

The girls began laughing at Fischer before he approached them and, court documents say, told them they “must like what they saw,” Fischer also told the girls that “what turns me on is you guys looking and laughing,” before he left.

Again on September 15 the 17-year-old girl’s mother again saw Fischer at Green Lake—this time with a fake penis hanging out of his pants—and called police.

Fischer was arrested and, court documents say, later told an SPD detective that he “has a fetish of exhibitionism” and admitted that in the past he has approached women in his car and asked them for directions before masturbating in front of them.

Court records indicate Fischer has a prior conviction for a similar incident in July 2007 and has also been arrested four times since 1997 for exposing himself, including a 2004 incident where he locked a woman inside of a business so he could expose himself.

Fischer is being held in the King County Jail on $100,000 bail.

I think this is unprecedented. Comic books are usually a fairly apolitical field because lots of comics fans tend to be conservative, but now there’s a social network called Comics Industry for Obama. Members include Mike Allred, who created a comic called Madman and also a comic book adaptation of The Book of Mormon, and Mike Mignola, who created Hellboy. The site is for fans and comic pros alike, and its tagline is “Let’s make sure the good guy wins.” Awww. Also, they have a nice logo. But this doesn’t mean you have to suddenly start thinking Hellboy II was a good movie.

Also weird and new to this election cycle: Gamers for Obama. One blog reads:

We need to find ways to help Barack Obama, not simply in the real world, but in the virtual world. We need to create our own echo chamber where we can answer the lies, answer the distortions head on.

We also need to find ways to test messages and understand just how tough a job organizing is and find more effective ways to organize.

I think maybe they got the real world/virtual world bit mixed up, but still: it’s nice to see geeks doing their part and being more vocal about politics than they usually are.

This WaMu ad from 1996:

Slog tipper NaFun says, “Not so funny anymore, is it?”

I’ve gone Microsoft-heavy with my gaming lately, and for good reason: the Wii’s release calendar for the foreseeable future is a motion-controlled mess. Other than this fall’s Mushroom Men—a decent-looking Mario clone, but still not that original—it’s looking like another year of cheaply made family games that mimic the best of Wii 2006.

The exception, I suppose, is the online Wii Ware store, where the past few weeks have seen fanboy fare like a new Mega Man and some Homestar Runner point-and-click adventures. Fine on both of those—and their respective fanbases have been served solid, authentic fare at a nice price, based on my playtime—but it’s hard to get excited about yet another Trogdor joke.

Then yesterday, the Art Style series landed with no advance notice or hype. Not sure why they were so silent; I would’ve piled on the hype. Nintendo called it bit Generations in Japan, and I fucking loved it. It’s as if Nintendo hired some garage developers to make stylish, thoughtful games that could hold their own without having Mario awkwardly slapped on the box—incredibly refined Flash games that even Mom could dig.

From the sound of Nintendo’s press blast, they’re releasing three of the seven bG titles on Wii Ware by the end of October. No word on the final two yet, but first up yesterday was Orbient, in which you use only two buttons—attract and repel—to pilot a little star around a bunch of other stars, each with their own orbit. The push-pull system becomes imprecise as the game chugs along, but with zillions of easy retry chances and a relaxing, spacey presentation, there’s charm in floating around in this one—like a cosmic version of the PS3’s flOw. And at $6, it’s a steal compared to the older—and simpler—import version. The loving care given to this Wii update bodes well for the rest of these bG-into-AS titles; fingers are crossed for a 2-player version of the bizarre Digidrive.

Up next either this week or early next: Rock Band 2. The game and the updated “instruments” showed up earlier today, and I’ll wear ‘em out to learn whether or not pretending to be in a band has gotten any better this year.

Isaac Layman!

Here he is in Middleman, twisting the John Baldessari trick of the artist telling you what to look at:

Layman is a totally deserving artist. From the list of finalists the committee was considering—Layman, Wynne Greenwood, Eric Elliott, Alexis Pike, and Nicholas Nyland—I’d have chosen Greenwood myself (um), but Layman’s art can also be a sincere sensation. This Box Spring and Apple Tree video, for instance, was as dreamy as a young Balzac hero.

This is one of my favorite Laymans. The shadow around the shirt is real but the rest of the marks are drawn on the shirt itself, so that this is a photograph of a folded shirt with a drawing of a folded shirt on it.

As for Greenwood and Elliott, they won $2,500 each in secondary awards. (More Elliott here.)

Nobel literature head: US too insular to compete.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: “Put him in touch with me, and I’ll send him a reading list.”

As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year’s award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it’s no coincidence that most winners are European.

“Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world … not the United States,” he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.

Let’s see how he likes our literature when we send Randy “The Macho Man” Savage over there to shove some John Grisham novels down his snooty-ass throat. U!S!A! U!S!A!

Palin!

The original comments came at an Ohio rally Monday, when Palin told the cheering crowd, “I’m looking forward to meeting [Biden] too, I’ve never met him before — but I’ve been hearing about his senate speeches since I was in, like the second grade.”

Some political observers found that comment peculiar, given her own running mate is the oldest man ever to seek a first presidential term. But Palin said she was merely contrasting the differences she sees between herself and Biden.

Your review of Twyla Tharp’s new works at Pacific Northwest Ballet seems a little… disengaged. You spend most of your words on describing how the choreography looks but not what it might mean.

Tharp’s choreography has always been thick with ideas (about gender, about youth culture, about art both haute and pop, about sex and death) and to not wrestle with the ideas (or lack thereof) in two brand-new ballets by the reigning queen of dance seems a little weak. Maybe even a little irresponsible.

(The ballets: Opus 111 is a florid, ballet/kitchen-sink fusion set to Brahms; Afternoon Ball is maudlin tragedy about fucked-up street kids.)

The closest you get is in the final paragraph:

Of the pair, “Opus 111” may be the work that survives in its present form, but there is a sense that, with “Afternoon Ball,” Ms. Tharp has not quite finished exploring the dark side. Her cautionary tale points to a subject larger than dance. If Ms. Tharp is worried about the slipping away of grace and tradition, so should we all be.

You must have ideas about Tharp’s ideas—what does it mean, for example that the woman who rocked the dance world by fusing pop with avant garde with ballet has positioned herself as the defender of grace and tradition?—but you veil them.

And that “may be the work that survives in its present form” is an oblique way of saying that, in some respects, the ballet fails. Why don’t you state that plainly?

Is it because you feel an obligation to defer to an artist of Tharp’s stature? Because you’ve taken on Pacific Northwest Ballet and its young, imaginative director Peter Boal a pet project? Because you have to justify flying across the country to your editors by making the work seem more important than it is?

What gives?

For comparison’s sake, here’s The Stranger’s review, which will be out in this Thursday’s paper:

All Tharp
Pacific Northwest Ballet
Through Oct 5.

Twyla Tharp was once a daring choreographer. Four decades ago, she structurally reorganized the dance world by bringing low-falutin’ movement to high-falutin’ stages. The paradigmatic example: Deuce Coupe, a 1973 commission for the Joffrey Ballet set to the Beach Boys, with graffiti artists painting upstage during the performance. It was the world’s first ballet with a pop soundtrack.

But both of her world-premiere ballets that opened at PNB last weekend—Opus 111 (set to Brahms) and Afternoon Ball (set to minimalist Vladimir Martynov)—seem like burlesques of Tharp’s old glory. In the first dance, Tharp trots out samples from her myriad influences, presenting a Tharpean pupu platter: Broadway skips, jazzy jumps, playful gymnastics, cross-armed kicks redolent of Hungarian czardas, syncopated steps borrowed from tap dancing, and florid ballet. Opus 111 is an airy, insubstantial thing that slides right off the retinas, barely leaving an impression.

Afternoon Ball is more striking, a maudlin tragedy that casts a double gloss—one jaundiced, the other piteous—on youth culture. Three youngsters tweak out in what seems to be an alleyway. (Black walls on the stage give the piece a claustrophobic feeling.) One is a punk/metal hybrid in cutoff cargo pants, one a grunge boy in flannel. The lone girl wears fishnets and Daisy Dukes—a New York punk circa 1985. These are afflicted children: They throw punches, slip and fall, beat their heads on the floor, worm along the ground, and lapse into mindless, mechanical movements.

A fancy couple in black formal wear occasionally dances upstage, oblivious to the small apocalypse below. The lights dim, the punk/metal kid shivers and—spoiler alert!—freezes to death. (Or something.) In Tharp’s world, the kids used to be all right. Not anymore. Afternoon Ball critiques its aloof elites, but also condescends to its shivering, cartoonish urchins. (The evening’s third piece, Nine Sinatra Songs, is a series of ballroom vignettes from 1982. It is easy-listening dance. People love it.)

How crotchety. Time was, Twyla Tharp was an artist doing double duty as a radical critic, bringing Promethean fire to cold, sterile stages. But her new work feels remote and cynical—she has forgotten how to burn. BRENDAN KILEY

(It’s been a Tharpapalooza around here for the last two weeks: You can read The Stranger’s occasionally tense interview with Tharp here. And listen to it here.)

A columnist whose work I’ve never read before, Gwen Daniels, at a student newspaper I’ve never heard of, The Maneater, at a university I’ve never visited, the University of Missouri, introduced me to a trend with which I wasn’t familiar: Saving your first kiss for your wedding night. Basically it’s like saving your virginity for your wedding night only, um, a whole hell of a lot crazier.

Kids? It’s a bad enough idea to marry someone prior to determining whether or not you’re sexually compatible. But marrying someone before you figure out whether you like how their spit tastes? That’s just nuts.

Here’s Daniels on the phenomenon:

I first heard of the decision to save kissing for marriage—the virgin lips movement, my best friend and I called it—in Joshua Harris’ book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, a Christian relationship guide that advocates courtship and prayerful and deliberate dating with the expressed aspiration to marry, over conventional dating.

In my Southern conservative town, where churches are even more common than Walgreens stores, I Kissed Dating Goodbye is practically required reading for teenage girls…. In Christian relationships, “God wants us to seek guidance from scriptural truth, not feeling,” Harris writes. “Smart love looks beyond personal desires and the gratification of the moment. It looks at the big picture: serving others and glorifying God.”

How can romance glorify God? Harris suggests that Christians should commit their plans, motives, actions and desires—including dating—to God.

There’s so much to say. For instance, what is it with Christians moving the goal posts around? It’s no longer enough to be a virgin on your wedding night; now, if you want to be right with God, you better not have kissed before your wedding night. It’s no longer enough to seek to ban abortion; now they want to redefine birth control as abortion and ban it too. Gay people were a threat to the family when we were all sex-crazed hedonists getting it on the shrubs; now we’re a threat to the family because we want to get married ourselves, have babies, and stand on the sidelines in the rain with other exhausted parents at soccer games.

But here’s what really caught my attention: Daniels quotes a student whose eagerness to get down on his knees and serve Jesus seems just a little intense…

Jeff Pudelek, a sophomore at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, decided to save his first kiss for marriage so that he will continually seek his satisfaction in God, he said.

After ending a long-term relationship, “I began to see that a lot of my relationship decisions were centered around finding satisfaction in a person,” Pudelek said. “The truth is that true satisfaction, what I was seeking in relationships with girls, can’t be found in any person, only in Jesus Christ.”

“I want to enjoy the fullness of what God has for me, and I think that includes cultivating intimacy with him above all else,” he added.

Okaaaay. So Jeff really loves Jesus. And here’s hoping Jesus comes along and fills you with the fullness you’re aching for, Jeff. (Do Jeff’s quotes remind anyone else of Faith +1?) And now, apropos of nothing in particular and making no insinuations about Jeff’s sexuality whatsoever: Christian girls? You might wanna think twice before marrying a boy who doesn’t want—at the very least—to make out with you once or twice prior to your honeymoon. Some God-fearing, red-blooded, robustly-heterosexual Christian boys are willing and able to save their virginities for their wedding nights, of course, and more power to ‘em. But make out with your boyfriend at least once before agreeing to marry him—and get close enough to verify that the lump in his pants is a hard cock and not an iPhone, okay?

Because you’ll be really sad Christian wives if you wind up marrying boys who claimed that they wanted to kiss you but couldn’t because they were saving those first kisses for your wedding nights—and until your wedding night they were finding true intimacy with their Lord, savior and imaginary boyfriend, Jesus Christ—but were actually great, big, scared homos who were able to delay their coming out until after marriage because, thanks to Joshua Harris and his stupid fucking book, your husbands didn’t have to perform sexually with a woman in even a minimal fashion until after their wedding nights.

Okay, back to Jeff:

Besides, physical activity such as kissing and intercourse does not sustain relationships, Pudelek said. “I still want to be madly in love with my wife even if we can’t kiss anymore,” he added.

An uncharitable man might suggest that Jeff sounds like he’s looking forward to the day when he and his future wife can’t kiss anymore. But I am not an uncharitable man. Instead I’d like to reassure Jeff that the kinds of illnesses that prevent people from kissing their spouses—oral cancers and, um, spontaneous combustion of the lips and tongue—are very, very rare indeed. Once you find a girl willing to marry you, Jeff, you can look forward to kissing that woman over and over again and again, day after day after day, one decade after another, for the rest of your natural life.

Oh, and you get to feel her boobs too—you’ve got that to look forward to as well. Hmm… boobs. But for now, of course, you can focus on the fullness that Jesus wants to stuff inside you. Hmm… fullness…

The Washington State Republican Party broke election law over the summer but hasn’t been punished. Last week, the state Public Disclosure Commission ruled that the party sent out three mailers that advocated voting for Dino Rossi, at a cost of over $150,000, in violation of state election law. The Republican Party paid for the mailers using a soft money account that is supposed to be used for general party-building, not to advocate for specific candidates. However, as you can see from parts of the mailers, they did advocate for a specific candidate.

As of today, the AG’s office hasn’t taken action on charges. Democrats are demanding that Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna seek an injunction against the Republicans. They’re also seeking that McKenna hire outside counsel to handle the case, citing the fact that Luke Esser, now chairman of the state Republicans, worked for McKenna in the AG’s office and at the King County Council. “There is a conflict of interest,” Steele says.

“Without an injunction in place to say, ‘Hey, shitheads, you can’t do this,’ there is nothing that stops them from doing what they did in the primary again in the general election,” says Steele. “They can flood the mailboxes of every person in the state with mailers for Republican Dino Rossi … even thought the PDC said it’s illegal.”

John White, Jr., an attorney for the Republicans, defended the mailers by explaining that they were sent “exclusively to members of the Republican party.” Under the top-two primary system, the party is allowed to define its membership however it wants, White said in a statement to the PDC. (Republicans have not returned calls for comment.)

But in its decision, the PDC said the mailers were “not permissible expenditures” as defined under state law. It then recommended that the attorney general’s office take “appropriate action.”

Janelle Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, says the AG’s office has not decided how it will handle the case, or if Esser’s involvemnet presents a conflict of interest. She notes that the office has historically prosecuted most cases on its own, rather that hiring outside counsel, even when charging defendants of the same political party as the sitting attorney general. “I think we will have an announcement soon,” says Guthrie. “Obviously, we’re not going to file it after the election.”

Sydney Carton and the Slingshot of Doom, a Charles Dickens fanfic.

“And where is Evremonde? He must also come,” declared the guard.

“I am right here.” said Sydney as he stabbed the man’s heart with his dagger which he had in his boots.

Blood spilt from the man’s heart as he fell to the hard ground. With haste, Sydney took off the man’s clothes so the blood would not spread and stain. He took off his own clothes, and put on the guard’s.

Wake me when we get to the Great Expectations slash.

(Via the always-entertaining Bookshelves of Doom.)

The building under construction at the north end of Broadway, across the street from the nearly-finished Brix development, is slated to include 357 underground parking spaces—or more than 1.2 parking spaces for every single residential unit in the building.

Contrast that to legislation the city council adopted in 2006, eliminating minimum parking requirements for new buildings in urban centers and around light-rail stations. (Outside urban centers, multifamily buildings must still include 1.25 parking spots per unit). The legislation was an explicit acknowledgment that people who live in dense parts of Seattle don’t necessarily need to own a car; it was also intended to reduce the traffic impact of thousands of new center-city residents. The added benefit of eliminating parking requirements is to reduce the cost of housing; parking adds between $20,000 and $30,000 to the cost of a unit.

The problem with simply eliminating minimum parking requirements is that developers can still build as much parking as they want—and that extra $20,000-$30,000 gives them a strong incentive to do just that. It doesn’t matter that this new development will be four blocks from a light-rail stop, and on three Metro bus lines; as long as developers can build, and charge for, additional parking spaces, they will.

Parking maximums, in contrast, both acknowledge that you don’t need a car to live in the central city and eliminate the incentive to build as much parking as possible. And they work: In San Francisco, maximum parking standards in the densest neighborhoods range from .75 to one parking space per unit. According to one study, housing without parking sells for 12 percent less in San Francisco than housing with parking, and is affordable to 24 percent more households. Other studies have found that reducing residential parking decreases traffic congestion and improves streets for bikers and pedestrians.

Another smart reform—also in San Francisco—requires developers to sell parking separately from residential units. This, again, makes housing cheaper, because people only have to buy as much parking as they need. As Seattle’s neighborhoods densify and it becomes easier to get around the city without a car, these are the kind of reforms that both non-drivers (who’ll save money on housing costs) and car owners (who’ll benefit from reduced congestion in the urban core) should be able to get behind.

Nina Katchadourian has a collection of photos of stories told in book’s spines. They’re pretty great. This one is my favorite:

So Belgium is trying to break up with itself, like it has since the 19th century when its two ethnic groups—the Flemish (who are slovenly and have chronic coughs) and the Walloons (who are adorable and favor yellow galoshes)—resolved to stop getting along.

The political crisis has paralyzed its government, enhungered its illegal immigrants, and compromised its masculinity.

Which is too bad, since the combined forces of the Flemish and the Walloons have produced some of the world’s greatest inventions, including beer, colonialism, and awkward silences.

And, of course, Plastic Bertrand…

… who is, in fact, the new identity of Joseph Pujol, aka Le Pétomane, le grande fartiste.

Some of the highlights of his stage act involved playing a flute through a rubber tube in his anus, farting sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms as well as farting La Marseillaise. He could also blow out a candle from several yards away. His audience included Edward, Prince of Wales, King Leopold II of the Belgians and Sigmund Freud.

Mr. Pujol faked his own death in 1945—to get away from child stalkers who followed him around with cigarette lighters—and reinvented himself as Plastic Bertrand.

When asked for comment on the delicate political situation in Belgium, he responded with a YouTube video (be sure to watch when your boss is standing right behind you):

Also: Belgium is an anagram for “I be glum.”

I think we all finally understand why.

What’s Kenneth Callahan, Paul Horiuchi, Dennis Evans, Mark Tobey, Richard Gilkey, and Sherrie Wolf got to do with Damien Hirst?

Beats me, but his Last Supper prints are showing at their gallery, Woodside/Braseth, opening Thursday.

Welcome to Fur Hat World!

SALE! SALE! SALE!

How about Coonskin Hat With Face for $189.95 $129.95:

Lookin’ good there, mannequin. Nothing like a hat with its own face. And here’s the ever-popular Coyote Fur Mountain Man Hat for $429.95 $289.95:

Hmmm. It’s not a hat, per se, is it? Really more of a dessicated pelt draped o’er the head. I mean, I just don’t know if Coyote Fur Mountain Man Hat is a sensible purchase for anyone who isn’t the skinned and reanimated innards of a coyote. Realistically, where are you going to wear it? The PTA meeting? The gym?

Hey, wait! Where are you going? I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Okay, it’s a hat, and it looks totally good on you. Yeesh, you’re touchy. Please don’t be mad.

That’s better. Let’s make out.

Thanks to Melissa and Meags for the link.

I’m predicting this will be even better/more hilarious than the first presidential debate!

Slog reader Elaine writes:

Eli—do you know of any Sarah Palin look-alike debate parties scheduled for Thursday night? I’m trying to imagine the best place to find dozens of beehives and over-sized eyeglasses watching the event.

Thank you.

Be assured, Elaine, that I will tell the world if I hear of such a thing happening in Seattle. Meanwhile, I continue to collect debate party info for this Thursday (and will publish party listings on Slog starting tomorrow).

Same drill as for the prez debate: If you’re hosting a public party for watching the VP debate, shoot me an email. Your email must have “VP Debate Party” in the subject line and must include time and place details, whether your bar/home/restaurant has wireless, whether beehives are involved, and any relevant food or drink specials.

This morning, Slog tipper Stuart wrote:

Brendan,

Did you see the sign in front of the Wamu building? It must be a joke (not PDL, I already checked): it’s one of those change of use signs that states the WaMu building is being converted to condos.

It was gone by the time I got there, but the trip was worth it for this sign:

This is the last straw. Up right now at the dealer’s choice show at Wright Exhibition Space in South Lake Union is a photograph by Alice Wheeler of Kurt Cobain wearing sunglasses.

I’m thrilled that Wheeler was selected for the show, because her photographs are electric and strange. The way they use color, movement, and voyeurism? Every one of them is alive.

SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CAN WE SEE SOMETHING BESIDES HER KURT COBAIN PHOTOGRAPHS, PLEASE?

Wheeler has plenty of subjects, not just the one. Here are a few.

^{Girl with Orange Hair, Hempfest}

^{What Women See at Night}

^{Yellow Cityscape}

She’s represented by Greg Kucera Gallery but hasn’t had a show there since 2003. I just called there; she’s not on the schedule for 2009.

Say it with me: WE WANT ALICE!

Via Bookninja:

An editorial says that California’s (awful-sounding) reading comprehension rating system for young reader’s books is a horrible idea. I agree:

Another problem is that the programs assign different numbers to the same book. “The Magician’s Nephew” from the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis, for example, is a 790 Lexile level, a 5.6 Reading Counts level and a 5.4 Accelerated Reader level. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the next book in the series, is listed as 940 Lexile, 6.1 Reading Counts and 5.7 AR. The guidelines could prohibit a child who enjoyed the first novel from reading its sequel because of the conflicting reading levels.

One of the best parts of reading and English for kids is that, unlike math, it’s hard to standardize. These stupid, stupid number-grading systems would have totally turned me off from reading in school when I was a kid.

Why Bill Clinton sucks in O8:

[F]ormer President Bill Clinton is the star of a new television ad — for John McCain.

Watch: New McCain ad features Bill Clinton

The Arizona senator’s campaign is highlighting Clinton’s remarks in an interview with ABC News last week during which he appeared to lay some of the blame of the current economic crisis on congressional Democrats.

“I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Clinton said in the ABC News interview that is highlighted in the new McCain ad.

Unlike Michelle Malkin, I’m not worked up about the “abort Palin” stencil art Jen linked below. I am, however, endlessly annoyed about this ad, which is currently running on dozens of lefty blogs (I grabbed this one from Horse’s Ass):

Seriously—of all the zillions of things wrong with this woman, from her absolute ignorance of foreign policy to her insane religious beliefs, the best Vote for Dems could come up with was “yuk, yuk, don’t vote for her cuz she has a bush”? Implying (via the brilliant Bush/bush double entendre) that Palin isn’t qualified because she has ladyparts constitutes an implicit a dig at all female candidates. And as much as I loathe Palin and everything she stands for, I feel it’s my job to point crap like this out—because a sexist dig is a sexist dig, whatever you think of the intended target.

As you know by now, I bring a batch of advance reader copies to Slog Happy, with the caveat that the person who reads (or tries to read) the book has to review it for all of us here on Slog.

Today’s reviewer would prefer to remain anonymous, so I will refer to her as “Erin.” “Erin” is reviewing The 19th Wife, by David Ebershoff, a book that I reviewed in Constant Reader a few months back. Anything you don’t like about this review no doubt is due to the editing process and not at all “Erin”’s fault and you should blame the editor. I am the editor.

I’m wracking my brain, attempting to recall the last time I picked up a book that was nearly 600 pages long. Not only did I pick this book up, but I finished it within a week of cracking its cover.

When I saw The 19th Wife at Slog Happy, I lunged for it. I’d heard the hype surrounding this book, and, growing up in a predominantly Mormon community as a high schooler (although I myself am not Mormon), I was familiar enough with the religion to be intrigued by a novel of its earliest days. This book weaves together two stories—of Ann Eliza Young, the supposed 19th wife of the (in)famous Brigham Young, and of Jordan Scott, a young gay man who was excommunicated from a modern-day polygamist community. Also thrown into the mix are several other documents, including a fictional Wikipedia entry, a letter written from Brigham Young while he was incarcerated, letters from Eliza Young’s son Lorenzo, and inquiries from a college student at BYU writing her thesis on Ann Eliza’s life.

I’m usually put off by an author’s attempt to weave two separate stories into one work, and the beginning of this book was no exception. My primary problems with this style of writing is that I feel myself drawn towards one story more than the other and the number of characters grows to be so large that I find myself mixing them up or forgetting who certain characters are. At the start of this book I was more intrigued by the story of Jordan Scott than I was by the Latter Day Saints’ beginnings. However, as I read further, I felt myself becoming more involved with both storylines and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next in each one. Ebershoff has a great ability to distinguish his writing style between the stories in a way that they both don’t appear to be written by the same person, which is a difficult skill to master. Also, the number of characters does not grow to such an overwhelming level that it’s difficult to keep the stories straight. I never had a problem remembering what happened previously as the author jumped from story to story.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in reading a fascinating, thought-provoking story that will be remembered for a long time to come.

Many thanks to “Erin.”

Reaction to my advice for “Wanna Want More,” the woman whose boyfriend wants it four times a week while she only wants it once a week, continues to pour in. I advised WWM to fuck the shit out of her boyfriend once a week and “keep him milked” two or three times a week—basically, take ten minutes three times a week to help him rub one out, thereby keeping his balls drained and him content, and who knows? Maybe her libido will kick into gear now and then during these low-stakes, get-him-off sessions. You can read the whole thing here. Four reader responses after the jump…

Continue reading "Savage Love Letter of the Day" »

This future building will generate its own power and, like something invisible, cast no shadows.

Le Project Triangle is one of those buildings that make us think that we may actually drive flying cars one day. To be completed by 2014 in the Porte de Versailles area in Paris, its most impressive feature is that, according to the architects, it won’t cast shadows on adjacent buildings. The trick is the orientation and its shape: While it looks like a massive pyramid from one side, the other side shows that it really is an ultra-thin triangle resembling a shark’s fin.

Expressed in this fin of a building is the lasting longing for the thinness of a thing’s nothingness.

Film

‘Mister Foe’

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

Michelle Malkin and her followers are worked up about this Warholesque Greenwood-area stencil, Gurldoggie points out:

From Cincinnati’s WKRC-TV:

A Middletown woman was arrested after chasing children, urinating on a porch, and blocking traffic—all while wearing a cow suit.

Full story here, thank you, Slog Tipper Bradley Steinbacher.

Maybe, in these desperate times, you have something you need to get off your chest. Maybe you just need a place to hide out and mutter to yourself for the next four years in the case that McCain is elected president.

Well, here’s the device for you: a portable confessional unit made and once operated by the artist trio PDL, now selling on eBay for $100.

Here’s how it works:

As an arty aside, here’s an essay that just came out this month on the wave of “service aesthetics”—artists performing straight-up services—sweeping contemporary art. I especially like the author’s distinction between the more group-y “relational aesthetics,” in which the artist tries to disappear into some constructed collective body, and, say Mark Bradford’s performance of a hair salon called Shop at the 2002 Art Basel Miami Beach. Bradford says:

I wasn’t trying to educate and enlighten with some critical discourse. It’s just that I was formerly a hairdresser, and it’s the same hands I use in my art practice as the hands I used as a hairdresser, so I wanted to bridge the contemporary art world and the service industry. It was about moving across cultural borders, class borders, work borders, aesthetic borders to offer something for free that people enjoyed. The piece was successful because the service we were providing was authentic and good.

The Washington State Democrats and attorney Knoll Lowney released information today showing that Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi participated directly in the Building Industry Association of Washington’s illegal fundraising efforts on behalf of Rossi’s campaign. In Washington State, it’s illegal for a group to raise funds for a candidate if it fails to register as a political committee. Earlier this month, state Attorney General Rob McKenna sued the BIAW, alleging that it had concealed “its solicitation and receipt of $584,527.53 in campaign contributions.”

The records released today show that Rossi himself made fundraising calls seeking money from at least one chapter of the BIAW for the BIAW’s pro-Rossi campaign war chest, which, to date, has spent more than $2 million on its anti-Gregoire campaign.

The BIAW’s contributions to Rossi’s campaign came from refunds to BIAW members’ worker compensation funds. Two weeks ago, the state Public Disclosure Commission unanimously ruled that a BIAW subsidiary had illegally concealed its role in bundling workers’ compensation refunds and donating them to the BIAW’s political committee, which is working to elect Rossi over Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire.

The documents are available here and here.

Bush, by the way, is a Republican. He may not get his calls returned these days, but he is a Republican. That would be the same party McCain belongs to, and McCain, of course took credit for passing the bill that did not pass, after non-suspending his campaign and non-leading on the bill’s progress. In fact, he not only screwed up his leadership photo op, he also managed to encourage the wingnuttiest of the House Republican wingnuts (it’s socialism! Socialism, I tell you… like the Post Office, highways and Medicare!!) How great is that?

Taxpayers should wake up the politicians and ask them to tell Wall Street: “We want the same deal Warren Buffett got.” The Omaha billionaire announced he is playing White Knight to Goldman Sachs by investing $5 billion in the endangered investment house. What a big-hearted guy. Buffett is an old-fashioned capitalist who invests in companies for the long term and I am a big admirer. But Warren Buffett did not get to be a billionaire by committing public-spirited acts of charity. He plays to win.

…so this occurance reported by Hot Tipper Jessica is nowhere near as bad as what happens annually to bike seats at this. But still:

When I was walking out of the Olympic Athletic Center towards Ballard Ave around 8:40 pm, I saw a homeless man standing strangely close to a locked-up bike. Once I walked closer, I noticed that he was drenching the middle section of the bike (including the seat) with his pee stream. Bummer. Maybe I should have left a note for the owner.

Dear Jessica: Thank you for noticing and sharing.
Everyone else: Should Jessica have left a note for the bike’s owner?

Well, now it all makes sense. What’s to blame for our financial crisis? Lax regulation of the banking industry? Batshitcrazy loans? Inept oversight? Of course not. It’s the gays! We did it!

No, wait—you did it! Straight people! By failing to be intolerant enough of the gays, America incurred God’s righteous and totally awesome wrath. “The financial crisis facing Wall Street is a symptom of America’s sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions,” says a prominentish Christian leader. “I am not saying I know whether this financial crisis is God’s judgment or not. It is not for me to know that definitively.”

So how do we get our economy back on track? Forget the bailout! Forget re-regulating the banking and financial industries! All we gotta do is ban abortion and “non-profit groups supporting it” (God hates the First Amendment!), ban gay marriage and domestic partnerships and civil unions for same-sex couples, and then God will allow the credit crunch to end.

Via PamsHouseBlend.

George Packer on the failed bailout, Bill Kristol, propaganda, and the McCain campaign.

We have four readings, mainly of a spiritual bent, tonight.

Up at Third Place Books, Dr. Janet Dallett explains “some of C.G. Jung’s basic ideas in candid and clear prose” in a book called Listening to the Rhino: Violence and Healing in a Scientific Age.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, Robert Kull, who lived alone in Patagonia for an entire year but now seemingly can’t shut up about it, reads from his new book Solitude.

At Town Hall, Nalini Nadkarni explores our intimate connection with trees in Between Earth & Sky. I don’t think she means ‘intimate’ in that way. Pervert.

And at University Temple Church, Kathleen Norris reads from Acedia and Me, a memoir about depression and faith. I have to say, I read Norris’ last book, The Cloister Walk, in which she lives with monks and studies the Bible as a work of literature. I’m as atheist as they come, but I really, really enjoyed that book. Norris is gifted at explaining faith in a way that even non-believers can understand and take something from. I have not read Acedia and Me, but I bet Norris would be interesting to talk to even if her newest book somehow sucks up a storm.

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

It’s that time again! Another tough ethical dilemma from the classic ’80s boardgame Scruples™:

“Your retarded brother is a year younger than you, but behaves like an overgrown child. The alternative is an institution. Do you have him live with you?”

Sigh. If only life came with a rule book for dealing with one’s retarded brother.

Seattle Police have shut down Third Avenue between Cherry and Columbia as they search the area for a bank robbery suspect.

Police describe the suspect as a white male in his 30s, about 5’7.

I’ll update if more info becomes available.

Thanks to Slog-tipper Brian for the pic.

Update: FBI spokeswoman Robbie Burroughs says the robber “left behind a backpack and a note that said something about a bomb.”

Officers have cleared the building above the bank.

SPD says no one was injured in the robbery.

UPDATE 2: 3rd Ave has been reopened.

I just got in the mail the catalog for “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” the huge survey exhibition that’s opening Saturday at Vancouver Art Gallery. This is the biggest historical show looking at feminist art from 1965 to ‘80 ever, and it opened last year at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, then traveled to D.C. and New York before coming to Vancouver. I’m going to head up for the press preview this week.

If you’re curious, here’s a video collage introduction to the show, slightly cheesy but incorporating some good interviews and images from the MOCA install:

Some of the non-academic stuff happening in conjunction with the show sounds great: A talk in the exhibition on November 18 “on AIDS and the power of grandmothers”; a mother-daughter dance workshop on October 25 or November 29; and, on October 26, a sex educator explaining to kids ages 5 and up why there are so many naked ladies on the wall. (There also, of course, is an entire conference October 4-5 featuring feminist heavy-hitters Griselda Pollock, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Suzy Lake, Faith Wilding, ORLAN, Harmony Hammond, Mary Kelly, Lorraine O’Grady, Mary Beth Edelson, and others.)

From the BBC:

The political philosopher John Gray, who recently retired as a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in the London paper The Observer: “Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.

“The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over… The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated.”

“In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.

“How symbolic that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.”

Across the playground of the world, presidents and parliaments are watching us—the king of the school—teetering. And whether you are a king’s ally or enemy, watching a king fall is thrilling.

Gallup reports that Bush never fails to let us down.

None of these guys or parties is floating above 50 percent while the economy circles the drain, but Obama rates the highest.

In terms of winning over the political center where most swing voters reside, however, the jury still seems to be out. Obama and McCain receive nearly identical ratings from political independents for their handling of the Wall Street crisis, and they’re not positive. Only about a third of independents approve of the way each candidate has responded.

The second poll is probably out the window in light of everything that happened yesterday. But which candidate or party will suffer more? McCain tried to lead Republicans on the bailout bill, but it was ultimately his party that killed it. So he hardly comes off as a great leader. But I’m afraid Obama’s messages of “change” and “hope” could lose potency after yesterday’s unbridled collapse. Seems like fear could play in stodgy old McCain’s favor.

This is Ben Massing. He’s straight. So don’t look, gay men, or he’ll sue.

^{Edwin Longsden Long’s Love’s Labour Lost (1885), oil on canvas, 67 1/2 by 92 inches (courtesy of the Dahesh Museum of Art)}

At the Frye. (Museum site here.)

Want to zoom in on that tiny spotted goat looking up at this bored pubescent, or, you know, the monkey playing with kittens near the doorway at the back of the room? Click here.

We’re in a very serious crisis here, Sen. McCain. This is no time for half measures. So don’t suspend your campaign again, Sen. McCain. Expel it.

Ouch:

Via Sullivan.

Pit bulls—they’re so good with children!

Pit Bulls can be safe with kids despite what all the articles of pit bull attacks suggest.

Using common sense, watching your dogs behaviour, and keeping an eye on all interactions between kids and your pit bull will go a long way to preventing any possible accidents or problems.

And finally, Pit Bulls love kids and the two make a perfect combination. High energy wired up kid + high energy wired up Pit Bull = loads of fun and laughter for all involved. :o)

Just make sure your high-energy, wired-up kid doesn’t bump your high-energy, wired-up pit bull, okay?

A 5-year-old girl attacked by a pit bull in a family friend’s backyard in Simi Valley has died, authorities said Monday….

Katya’s mother Katia Todesco said she and her daughter were visiting a friend who was taking care of the pit bull Tuesday. The little girl and the friend’s 13-year-old daughter were playing in the backyard when the 5-year-old bumped into the dog, then was mauled. Her mother heard screams and came outside to find the dog latched on to her daughter.

“It was a horrible attack,” Todesco said Monday. “With my own hands I was pulling the dog’s jaw.”

UPDATE: Sounds like pit bulls are popular dogs in Ventura County…

It was only the second time a dog has killed a Ventura County resident in Jenks’ 36-year career with the county, she said. The only other time Jenks could recall was in the mid-1990s, when a family’s pit bull bit and killed an infant in the living room of an east county home, she said.

On the night Katya was attacked, a different pit bull killed another dog on Lysander Avenue in Simi Valley, and yet another pit bull bit a woman on her legs on Ballard Street, Jenks said. Both dogs were taken to the animal shelter, and the owner of one immediately agreed to have it destroyed. Simi Valley police did not report any of the attacks to the media.

Another Shot: Senate to tweak bailout bill to appease Republicans, plans to vote tomorrow.

Open Up: Dow opens to 200-point jump. S & P, NASDAQ both gain.

Insurance Up: Obama and McCain call to increase deposit insurance to $250,000.

Bob Young: Slaps Rossi campaign for deceptive ad.

City Budget: Nickels proposes budget that would: cut administrative jobs, add police, provide homeless services, spend $9.2 million on anti-violence measures for youth, and raise parking meter fees 50-cents an hour.

Water: One killed and nine injured in boat collision on Lake Tapps.

Fire: Justice department appoints special prosecutor, orders criminal investigation of Alberto Gonzales for firing US attorneys. Report accuses White House of blockading previous investigations.

Earth: Pirates holding ship of the cost of Somalia want money and a happy planet. “We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.”

Aired: NAACP raises grievances of more racial profiling.

An African-American senior at Garfield High School says Seattle police singled him out as he and a group of white friends were walking on Capitol Hill one night, telling him he’d never amount to anything and wasn’t welcome in that neighborhood.

A probation counselor with King County Superior Court tearfully recalls how a black teen she’d just accompanied on a back-to-school shopping trip was stopped by police for jaywalking and accused of stealing the clothes they had just bought.

Stampede: 147 killed in India on pilgrimage to temple.

EU: Sends 300 observers to begin patrols in Georgia.

Housing: Prices in July down 16 percent from previous year.

Drinking: Ladies nights remain legal in New York, judge rules. Man called free drinks and waiving cover charges for women discrimination against men. He had recently sued Columbia University over its women’s studies program.

This Ought to Work: After lying to the press and avoiding reporters, the discordant duo accuses media of shoddy journalism.

OK, dig these numbers with your morning caffeine, via ThinkProgress:

DOW January 19, 2001: 10,587.59
DOW September 29, 2008: 10,365.45

NASDAQ Jan 19, 2001 = 2770.38
NASDAQ September 29, 2008 = 1983.73

CPI, January 19, 2001: 175
CPI, September 29, 2008: 219

Dollar exchange with Euro, January 19, 2001: 1.068
Dollar exchange with Euro, September 29, 2008: .695

How can anyone take these Republican fuckers seriously for even a minute? Since the party of Big Business, led by the first MBA President, took over, everything has gone to shit. And the national debt is up 71.9% too.

Of course, the Onion saw it coming.

What Palin’s beauty did to the president of Pakistan:

A Pakistani cleric has issued a fatwa against Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari for flirting with US Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

A weekend kick-off event for Proposition 2, the Pro Parks Levy, ended with threats of violence, children crying and a call to police after, witnesses say, a mentally unstable woman crashed the Prop. 2 party.

Proposition 2 supporters spent the day on bikes and in buses traveling to a number of parks around Seattle, ending the event at Hing Hay Park in the International District. At Hing Hay, parks advocates watched a dragon dance performance and handed out boxes of rice candy to children in the park.

About a half-hour after the group of 40 or 50 park proponents arrived at Hing Hay, Prop. 2 supporter David Hiller—who was at Saturday’s event—says a woman in her late 30s or early 40s began threatening members of the group. “She said we owed her beer for interrupting her space,” Hiller says. “We did everything we could to ignore her work around her work with her.”

Hiller says the woman became agitated, and began attacking people in the park, pulling one woman’s glasses off and making clawing gestures. Then, Hiller says, “She literally [stole] candy out of the hands of children and [began] throwing the boxes at them.”

The police were called but by the time they showed up the woman had left the park.

Hiller does not believe the woman was at the event to oppose Proposition 2.

Well, gee. It’s too bad that two of the three little girls adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Bowman of Maryland are dead, but at least they had male and female role models.

Renee Bowman, 43, has been arrested on allegations that she abused her 7-year-old daughter, who was found walking barefoot on a neighborhood street Friday night.

The neighbor recounted today that the disheveled girl told him: “My mother just beats me. She just beats me to death.” … Bowman admitted to beating the girl with a “hard-heeled shoe” and later told Calvert County authorities, who had executed a search warrant at her home and found the freezer with human remains, that they were “of her two other adopted daughters,” according to a news release from the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office.

Police told the Associated Press they cannot be sure the remains are of the two girls, ages 9 and 11, until autopsies are performed.

The seven year-old girl was found wandering the streets in a pink nightgown when a neighbor, Phillip Garrett, saw her wandering the streets barefoot in a nightgown. The details of their encounter are heartbreaking:

Garrett, 21, was smoking a cigarette with his neighbor on his front lawn. He called out to her. “I said, ‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’ ” According to Garrett, the girl answered, “My mother just beats me. She just beats me to death.”

…

Garrett, who is a fashion designer and lives with his parents, said he embraced the girl… He carried her into his neighbor’s home and called 911. The girl told Garrett that she had not eaten in days, and he ordered a pizza. She requested pepperoni and ham, he said.

As they waited for about an hour, he said the girl told him she had stayed outside the whole night and had tried to knock on people’s doors but no one answered…. Of her two sisters, Garrett said, “She said her siblings had been beaten to death and one day, they just didn’t come back.”

Wait a minute—Garrett is a fashion designer and lives at home with his parents? Holy crap, sounds like he might be a homosexual. Think of the danger that little girl was in—alone with a homosexual like that? Mercy.

I wonder how this is going to look to undecided voters. (Sorry about the Discover Card ad beforehand, but there’s no way around it.) To me, it looks like McCain shows up to help Governor Palin with that mean old Katie Couric.

This just arrived…

Hey Stranger Staff,

I’m submitting a film and want to be there when the winners are announced. Will that happen at the last showing on Saturday? Just wondering since tickets go on sale soon, especially since it’s shortly after the submissions are due on the 6th. Is it possible that the time of the last screening will change due to added showings? I don’t want to buy tickets to the last screening… and then have one added after it, which would make THAT one the last screening where the winners are announce. And are you offering comp tickets to people who actually had the balls to submit a film? Or is that wishful thinking?

B.

Everyone who submits a film made specifically for HUMP!—regardless of whether their film makes it into the festival—gets a pair of tickets to a screening of their choice. Winners are selected by audience ballot and will be announced in the paper and online at www.thestranger.com on the Wednesday after the festival—that’s October 29th—so you don’t have to worry about missing the announcement.

NYT:

Palin Says She Is Looking Forward to Debate

On Mars.

(Thank you to reddit and iTWire.)

The Onion has a political blog now. Guest bloggers include Don DeLillo:

From across America, they come to Minneapolis, to Denver, in herds, teaming hordes filled with sounds, smells. In great tidal flows of seething humanity they ease around the I-beam sculptures and move into the sports arenas. They are loaded down with noisemakers and paper and special hats.

…and one of John McCain’s Vietnam torturers:

I can’t believe Friday’s big Presidential Debates might be postponed because John McCain doesn’t want to do them! Actually I can believe it. John McCain, who I used to know back in the day, is what you might call a pussy—at least when it comes to being incessantly tortured by the Vietcong, ie, me!

Also of note is this Point/Counterpoint:

It’s very rude of you to keep pointing out the myriad reasons I am unfit to be the governor of Alaska, much less vice president of the United States of America, when you know my Down syndrome–afflicted son is trying to get some much-needed rest. If you wanted to question my qualifications as a leader, you should have thought of that sooner, like, say, before I gave birth to a retarded child who would probably starve to death if I weren’t so selflessly and courageously dedicated to him.

Guess what was the only stock in the S&P 500 to gain today…

The S&P 500 retreated 106.59 points to 1,106.42, as only one company gained, Campbell Soup Co.

No shit.

via Wonkette, via Gruber

Awkward schmakward, Paul. Celebrity cameos make everything better.

Stephen Colbert is guest-starring in an issue of Spider-Man.

It’s always awkward when real people show up in a comic book. Case in point: the Hulk went on a rampage a few years ago because he was jealous of Freddie Prinze, Jr.

The Dow’s biggest single-day point drop—losing 778 points.

One of my favorite images from one of my favorite websites, Admiring Gong Li.

The true meaning of the word “consider”? To look at stars.

Yes, that’s Samuel George “Sammy” Davis, Jr.:

Yes, he is five; yes, he is holding a pork chop; yes, he has just been elected the president of these United States; yes, he just promised he’d be nice to those who play dice; yes, he just declared pork chops are free; and, yes, he just banned all locks from chicken coops. To get to where we are today, you can’t say that America has not come a very long, long way. Yes, sir; yes, sir.

First off, the band’s name is “Sonseed,” which is just so wrong. Second, there’s—well, just watch.

My favorite lyric: “Once I tried to run, I tried to run and hide. But Jesus came and found me and he touched me down inside. He is a like a Mounty, he always gets his man. And he’ll zap you any way he can!”

Thanks to Slog tipper Annie.

I’m 21, good looking, sexually active and single woman. I have never had a boyfriend but I have many guy friends who tell me that I’m great. A friend called me an emotional virgin the other day and I’m really starting to be troubled by that. Is it that men don’t want to date me or is my lack of putting up with bullshit getting me into trouble? What can I be doing to make myself appear/be more emotionally available? I fear that maybe it’s just as simple as the vibes I’m putting off.

JN

Hm. You don’t give me much to work with here, JN. For instance, it would help to have an example or two of the kind of bullshit you’ve found yourself incapable of putting up with. Some bullshit is intolerable, of course, and everyone has deal breakers. But there’s no such thing as a bullshit-free relationship. A long-term relationship is, at its core, two people struggling to put up with each other’s bullshit—day-in, day-out, year after year—in exchange for things intangible (love) and tangible (sex).

It comes down to this in the end, JN: If you can’t put up with someone else’s bullshit, JN, why on earth would they put up with yours?

Someone has burned down the home of the British publisher of Jewel of Medina, a controversial novel written from the point of view of Muhammad’s wife. Random House refused to publish the book because Muslim groups threatened them with violence.

In a recent interview, the British publisher said “To claim that Muslims will answer my book with violence is pure nonsense.” Whoops, maybe?

And pretty hilarious reading too: Northwest Progressive uses the Seattle Times’ 1996 pro-light rail position to debunk the Seattle Times 2008 anti-light rail position.

A tanking economy, a national election, war with Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran/Pakistan/Russia/whoever—all important issues, without a doubt, but let’s keep our priorities in order, shall we?

Tickets to HUMP!—Seattle’s biggest, best, and only amateur porn festival—go on sale October 8. HUMP! goes down October 24-25 at On the Boards. Watch this space for information about show times and ordering tickets.

About Henry Paulson’s tax loophole (from a 2006 story in Forbes):

The Goldman Sachs boss will see his annual paycheck shrink from last year’s $38 million to a paltry $183,500 once he takes over the job of Treasury secretary.

But don’t shed too many tears for Paulson. He has amassed quite a fortune—a roughly $700 million equity stake in Wall Street’s premier investment banking house. And soon, he will have the chance to diversify a good chunk of those holdings without paying a dime to the Internal Revenue Service.

By accepting the Treasury post, Paulson is poised to take advantage of a tax loophole that allows government officials to defer capital gains taxes on assets they have to sell to avoid a conflict of interest, as long as the proceeds are reinvested in government securities or a broad array of mutual funds approved by the government within 60 days.

And about Goldman Sachs (from a story today in the New York Times):

The beginning of the end is felt even in the halls of the white-shoe firm Goldman Sachs, which, among its Wall Street peers, epitomized and defined a high-risk, high-return culture.

Goldman is the firm that other Wall Street firms love to hate. It houses some of the world’s biggest private equity and hedge funds. Its investment bankers are the smartest. Its traders, the best. They make the most money on Wall Street, earning the firm the nickname Goldmine Sachs. (Its 30,522 employees earned an average of $600,000 last year — an average that considers secretaries as well as traders.)

And about the stock market (from a story today in the Economist):

At one point the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen than 700 points, its biggest intraday drop ever.

And about the future (from a story today in US News & World Report):

After Bailout, Economy Will Still Be Lousy

So I need a Books Intern again. It’s an unpaid position, although you do get free books. Two past books interns have wound up as Party Crashers for The Stranger—go figure—and five former interns do work for me. I started as a books intern. Are you excited yet?

It’s ten to fifteen hours a week, and the primary duty involves compiling the readings calendar, along with other things like requesting books from publishers and etc. Organizational skills are a plus, but I’d be a hypocrite if I said they were a must. There is no coffee-fetching or other demeaning tasks involved. Interns will write reviews for The Stranger.

Being a reader is a necessity, although favorite genres and topics are entirely unimportant. This is a good job for a bookseller or a student looking to have a few clips they can leverage into a lucrative career as a book critic.

Send a query letter and writing samples to: pconstant@thestranger.com.

(Image comes from the website for the movie The Intern, which I have never seen. This is not an endorsement.)

It was a hell of a weekend for Seattle, as far as live music goes. For four nights, Decibel Fest took over Seattle’s parks and clubs, for two days Monotonix took over the streets, and on Saturday Akimbo celebrated 10-years of being one of the loudest bands in the city.

Hop over to Line Out to read all about everything that happened and see more exclusive photos like this one:

Monday, 29 September 2008

Last weekend in South Dakota, I participated in a pheasant hunt called the Joe Foss Invitational. The Outdoor Channel filmed the event and plans to air the show in February. Pray that the Lord will be glorified!

Please pray for me as I will be preaching to pastors and their wives over the next couple of days in Helena, Montana. Pray that I will be an encouragement to them to continue to stand for righteousness.

Pastor Hutch

And Republicans blame Nancy Pelosi’s speech. Seriously.

“I do believe that we could have gotten there today had it not been for this partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said, adding that Pelosi “poisoned” the GOP conference.

Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) held up a copy of Pelosi’s floor speech at a press conference and said she had “failed to listen and to lead” on the issue.

The Speaker had blasted the Bush administration in her speech and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asserted that some GOP lawmakers, who had reluctantly agreed to support the bill, might have changed their minds following Pelosi’s remarks.

Hmm… here’s how the votes broke down:

140 Democrats voted for the bill. They were joined by 65 Republicans. However, 95 Democrats voted against the measure, along with 133 Republicans.

Meanwhile, you can just refresh this page every few minutes to watch the stock market. The Dow was at 10,590 when I took the screen grab above but has dropped about 100 points in the last 10 minutes. Yikes.

UPDATE: It’s Barack Obama’s fault, too, says McCain’s campaign.

McCain senior adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in a statement on Monday that while the Republican presidential candidate had tried to lead on the issue by suspending his campaign and returning to Washington last week, Obama had not been involved with the negotiations and other Democrats had put partisanship ahead of finding a solution….

“This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country,” Holtz-Eakin said.

Interesting that this bill, a compromise between both parties yesterday, failed due to unexpected opposition from Republicans. And it was such surprise that Republicans could turn around moments afterward with unified talking points and a press conference.

UPDATE 2: Barney Frank characterizes the Republican response as, “Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country.” (Video link from Mike in Renton.)

Hey, remember that paparazzo that Britney Spears dated, back when she was having that very public head-shaving meltdown? Well, get ready for the Britney Spears sex tape.

An unconfirmed source claims the two-hour X-rated footage features Britney naked wearing just a pink wig and was allegedly shot in Mexico.

Adnan added: “I am not interested in selling out any other details about Britney.”

This turns my stomach in a preying-on-the-mentally-ill-for-tremendous-financial-benefit kind of way.

Not stock prices. The Palin expectations. After four more days of this, will we have reached a point where Palin can declare any failure to fall flat on her face a victory?

The Internet was specifically invented to bring high school football players who want to sodomize people with broomsticks together with people who want to be sodomized with broomsticks by high school football players. There’s really no need, in this day and age, for high school football teams to broomstick-sodomize the unwilling when a limitless number of eager and willing volunteers can be located with a simple online personal ad.

It’s been five years and six months (plus a couple days) since the Iraq War started. (Second-best line from Friday’s debate? “John, you like to pretend the war started in 2007… It started in 2003.”) Anyway, these are from 2003—the May 15, May 22, and May 29 issues of The Stranger.

The House of Representatives shit-canned the bailout deal—the one Bush said they had to pass “or else”—and the Dow tumbles toward 10,000.

Good times.

Jeffrey Goldberg writes that he’s watched Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric three times and his “astonishment does not diminish.” He goes on:

Her nonsensical answer about Russia has deservedly been highlighted, but let me focus on another question, this one concerning the export of democracy. Couric asked, “What happens if the goal of democracy doesn’t produce the desired outcome? In Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections and Hamas won.”

Palin flipped on the blender that is her mind, chopping and mixing all her rehearsed answers to other questions, and said a bunch of nonsense, the beginning (and thrust) of it being: “Yeah, well especially in that region, though, we have to protect those who do seek democracy…”

Goldberg again:

The issue here is not that Palin didn’t know the answer. There are many possible answers to this question, some of which are right and some of which are wrong. The issue here is that she didn’t know the question. Because she was apparently ignorant of the subject, she endorsed Hamas’ victory, and, in essence, called for the U.S. to “protect” Islamists who seek to use democratic elections to lever themselves into power.

Then he goes on to give one hypothetical answer in keeping with the Republican platform just to prove that, you know, it’s possible to give a coherent answer (“Yes, Katie, it’s true that if you push for democracy, sometimes you get an outcome that you don’t want…”) and concludes:

See? Not that hard. Unless you don’t:

a) Know what happened in Gaza;
b) Know where Gaza is;
c) Know who rules Gaza today;
d) Care.

Two weeks ago, when Washington Mutual was slipping, I called Seattle Art Museum and asked to talk to the director, Mimi Gates, about the museum’s longstanding and much-publicized relationship with the bank. After all, they share a building.

Gates didn’t even think it important enough to get on the phone. A museum spokesperson said simply that everything was fine, that there were safeguards built into the relationship for just such a scenario, and that if WaMu was bailed out, the new tenant would simply assume the role that WaMu played in paying rent to the museum.

Fast-forward to last Thursday, when WaMu was seized and its S&L side sold to JPMorgan Chase.

What’s going to happen next we don’t really know yet. Will JPMorgan Chase operate WaMu’s business from the WaMu Center tower or will the place be subject to a tenant who can negotiate to pay far less in a weak real-estate market? So far, nobody’s talking, but something will have to shake out soon.

From the classic ’80s boardgame Scruples™ (which I found while cleaning out my apartment this weekend) here’s your tough ethical dilemma of the day. Prepare to furrow those brows!

“Your teenage daughter is dating a young man of another race. Do you try to break them up?”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Pros? Cons? Get Scruplin’™, people!

Yes, I know, I know, unlike Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, Rudy Hermann Guede (the African brother at the center of Meredith murder), is in handcuffs:

But what first caught my eye is Sean John.

Is this an endorsement? Is this how Rudy is paying for his lawyers? What other Sean John gear can we expect to see in the near future?

Reading

Carrie Brownstein

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

That didn’t take long…

Click on the image for a larger version of the sign.

Slog tip and photo sent from Justin Lief, and much thanks to the hilarious pranksters.

It wasn’t bad loans, deregulation, poor management, or the credit crisis. It was WaMu’s commitment to a diverse workforce. So here’s hoping all the folks that pulled their money out of WaMu in the weeks leading up to the collapse put their money in safe racist, sexist, homophobic banks.

Via Queerty.

How on earth did I miss this story: “Zookeeper who reared Knut found dead.”

It’s the saddest story.

THE zookeeper who hand-reared Knut the polar bear at Berlin Zoo has been found dead at his home.

Thomas Doerflein, 44, was found dead on Monday. Authorities have yet to rule on the cause of death, but a police spokesman said there was no reason to suspect suicide or foul play.

Berlin Zoo confirmed Mr Doerflein was still employed but would not comment on reports that t he had been suffering from a serious illness.

Even here, in the realm of Knut’s fame, happiness cannot be found.

WSJ:

At the urging of the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, Gov. Palin will leave late Monday for his Arizona ranch to prepare for the high-stakes debate…

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and senior adviser Steve Schmidt are planning to coach the candidate ahead of the debate, according to senior advisers. They traveled Sunday to meet the Republican vice-presidential nominee in Philadelphia. After her appearance with Sen. McCain at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, these top officials plan to fly with her on Monday to Sen. McCain’s ranch in Sedona, Ariz., which they hope she will find a comforting place to prep, these people said…

In recent days, Gov. Palin flubbed quasi-mock debates in New York City and Philadelphia, some operatives said. Finger-pointing began, and then intensified after her faltering interview with CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric.

And how is the other side preparing? CNN:

As Joe Biden settles into debate prep mode this week ahead of Thursday night’s debate in St. Louis, campaign aides are actively playing up Sarah Palin’s debating skills. Biden’s spokesman called Palin “a leviathan of forensics,” a classic example of the campaign tactic of raising the expectations of their opponent and lowering their own.

…Rafael Nadal’s ass.

An open mic and two readings tonight.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, Kathleen Flinn reads from The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. It’s a memoir about how she went to fancy culinary school and fell in love. Kind of like that “hit” movie No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.

And at Town Hall, and in our Stranger Suggests, Sean Wilsey and Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein will read from State by State, which is a terrific new anthology. There are fifty different essays by fifty different writers about each of the states. It’s my favorite book of the fall so far. I reviewed the book a couple weeks ago:

Some of the writers are locals: Dave Eggers writes a heartfelt manifesto about why Illinois is the best state ever, in part because it “ranks first in contradictions, in self-delusions, in strange dichotomies.” Others, like Ellery Washington, who writes an eerie tribute to New Mexico’s atomic industry, are transplants. Others, like David Rakoff, who writes a hilarious anthropology of the institutional racism of Utah’s Mormons, are just visiting. A few essays, like Alison Bechdel’s Vermont piece, try to be at least vaguely comprehensive about their state’s history and geography, but most, like John Hodgman’s disinterested paean to Massachusetts’s primary dilemma (“How you leave home when you just can’t bear to leave home”), only try to capture a certain ethereal feeling of what it means to be in that state.

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

Forget how you felt after watching Sarah Palin’s sarcastic, juvenile, petty, slashing speech to the delegates at the RNC—a speech that dripped with contempt for Barack Obama, community organizers, libruls, the media, anyone from a town of more than 10,000 people, etc. It wasn’t a speech that endeared Palin to many Americans; indeed, Palin’s favorable ratings began to fall after she delivered her “shrill, baby, shrill” address to the RNC. But in the wake of Palin’s disastrous interviews on ABC and CBS we’re no longer supposed to feel angry at Palin or terrified of Palin. We’re supposed to feel sorry for Palin.

Judith Warner in the NYT:

This may explain why, on Tuesday afternoon when I went to The Times Web site and saw the photo of Sarah Palin with Henry Kissinger, a funny thing happened. A wave of self-recognition and sympathy washed over me.

That’s right—self-recognition and sympathy. Rising up from a source deep in my subconscious. I saw a woman fully aware that she was out of her league, scared out of her wits, hanging on for dear life….

I’ve come to think, post-Kissinger, post-Katie-Couric, that Palin’s nomination isn’t just an insult to the women (and men) of America. It’s an act of cruelty toward her as well.

Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic:

I’ve been thinking a lot about this nomination and rewatching the videos of Palin’s interview. Honestly, it’s all made me tremendously sad. There are lot of us lefties who are guffawing right now and are happy to see Palin seemingly stumbling drunkenly from occasional interview to occasional interview. I may have been one of them. But I’m out of that group now.

The Palin pick was the most crassest, most bigoted decision that I’ve seen in national electoral politics, in my—admittedly short—lifetime. There can be no doubt that they picked Palin strictly as a stick to drum up the victimhood—small town, hunters, big families and most importantly, women. Had Barack Obama picked Hillary Clinton, there simply is no way they would have picked Sarah Palin. To the McCain camp, Palin isn’t important as a politician, or even as a person. Her moose-hunting, her sprawling fam, her hockey momdom, her impending grandmother status are a symbol of some vague, possibly endangered American thing, one last chance to yell from the rafters “We wuz robbed.” Lineup all your instances of national politicians using white victimhood to get into offices—Willie Horton, White Hands, Sista Souljah, Reagan in Philadelphia etc.—they were all awful no doubt. But I have never seen a politician subject an alleged ally to something like this.

You’re supposed to feel sorry for Palin now—please make a note of it.

She’s got the whole world in her head:

Palin is now America’s number one joke.

More better…

If you thought Sarah Palin’s cringe-making interview with Katie Couric was bad, well, apparently it gets worse:

The worst may be yet to come for Palin; sources say CBS has two more responses on tape that will likely prove embarrassing.

They’ll be airing Wednesday and Thursday. Predictions on what Palin’s done to top her last performance?

Indiana:

A jury is hearing evidence against an Indianapolis youth minister accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in his congregation.

Tyree Coleman faces five counts of deviate conduct, sexual misconduct, sexual battery and child solicitation. He’s accused of assaulting the boy during an overnight program at Temple of Refuge Church.

From the BBC: “Preliminary tests have found the chemical melamine in Cadbury’s Chinese-made chocolates, the company says.”

From Wikipedia: “Melamine is combined with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. The end products include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, housewares and flame retardants. Melamine is one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.”

Also: Don’t eat the White Rabbit.

From Seattle Times:

House Payment: Compromise bailout bill heads to Congress. House slated to vote today.

All sides had to surrender something. The administration had to accept limits on executive pay and tougher oversight; Democrats had to sacrifice a push to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages; and Republicans fell short in their effort to require that the federal government insure, rather than buy, the bad debt. … The deal would also restrict gold-plated farewells for executives of companies that sell devalued assets to the Treasury Department.

Bank Buyout: Citigroup buys Wachovia Corporation, as orchestrated by government, for $2.2 billion. Citigroup will absorb $42 billion in losses; FDIC to swallow the rest.

Stock Plummet: Dow Jones drops 300 points in first half hour of trading.

Burning Book: Novel about the wives of Muhammad may have sparked arson of publisher’s house.

Failed State: McCain campaign conceding in Washington State.

Gay Bar: Washington State Bar Association unanimously votes to support same-sex marriage.

Speed Boat: Seventeen-year-old motor-boat driver plows into sailboat on Lake Washington, killing woman onboard.

Chemical Bothers: Potentially cancerous toxin found in South Park neighborhood. Residents advised to avoid dirt.

Gallup Poll: Obama takes eight-point lead. Third time his campaign held such a wide advantage. Meanwhile, 58 percent of Americans disapproved of McCain’s handling of Wall Street, and they thought he lost Friday’s debate.

Off of Africa: Somali pirates hold crew of massive Ukranian vessel loaded with tanks and weapons hostage in a “hot part of the ship.” One dead.

Not Kidding: Nebraska may repeal safe-haven law for abandoned minors. Sixteen kids—approximately half state’s population—abandoned since July.

Red Hawk Down: Medical helicopter crashes in D.C. suburb. Four on board killed, car-crash victim survives.

White Klan Up: Anti-immigrant, racist party gains ground, winning almost one-third of the vote, in Austria’s election.

The Surge in General: Thirty-two killed in Baghdad bombings on Sunday. Militants agitated for month of Ramadan.

Your Weekend Sucked: And it’s all our fault.

This—the Bristol and Levi wedding registry—has to be a joke.

But then, this whole Palinightmare has to be a joke. Right? RIGHT?!?

(Regardless, I celebrate the “operation camo full bedskirt.”)

They wouldn’t dare, would they?

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

This is from a British paper—as is the rumor that Biden is about to drop out the race—which means, says Josh Marshall, that it should be taken with a grain of salt or two or three hundred thousand. Still, wouldn’t put it past the McCain camp. And again I ask:

Anyone else concerned that Levi’s appearance tonight at the RNC will put this reluctant dad in the position of feeling that he must go through with marrying Bristol? Anyone else staggered by the emotional manipulativeness of this stunt? Anyone else believe that it would be in the best interests of Levi, Bristol, and their unborn child if made a free choice to marry Bristol—will he be able to have second thoughts?—and didn’t feel that he had to go through with it to save face after he received a hero’s welcome at the RNC from the assembled GOP hypocrites? (Your pregnant unwed teenagers suck! Our pregnant unwed teenagers rock!)

Far be it from me to question anyone else’s parenting, but… where are Levi’s parents?

Art Talk

Alec Soth

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

There’s an open mic and two readings going on today.

The readings couldn’t be more different. Alexander McCall Smith, who wrote the Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, reads in Bellevue. I have tried to read his books—he puts out maybe three or four a year—and I just can’t. They feel like outlines for real books to be written at a later date by a competent writer.

And at Elliott Bay Book Company, Arthur Nersesian reads. He wrote a very good novel called The Fuck-Up, about a man in his twenties who is a fuck-up. He has just embarked on a five-part series of novels about a fictional New York that has been significantly changed by an urban designer. The first book was The Swing Voter of Staten Island, and the newest one in the series is The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx. I haven’t read this particular series, but it looks fascinating and Nersesian writes about New York in a really interesting way. He’ll be joined onstage by Curt Colbert, who is editing the forthcoming Seattle Noir anthology. You should attend the latter and not the former.

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