Top of the News
About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla
2008 Election » Alaska »A state 'awash in money' from an extraction economy: It's different being governor of Alaska
- New York Times
- Palin electrifies the GOP convention
- Oh, also, McCain was officially nominated
- Once a pal of journalists, McCain turns on them
Wasilla, Alaska, got $26.9 million in earmarks while Sarah Palin was mayor
- Washington Post
- Palin's vetting was comparatively minimal
- Welcome to the media major leagues!
- The hectic life of 'Gov. Mom'
- 'Mommy Wars, Special Campaign Edition'
Sarah Palin vs. the librarian: Facts are hard to come by
2008 Election »Mayor Palin had a rough record at Wasilla City Hall
Alaska »Under Mayor Palin, Wasilla went the strip-mall route
2008 Election »Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is pregnant and will marry the father
Most Popular
About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla
Is Sound Transit really one of 'the world's biggest boondoggles'?
An Alaska-sized gamble — and possibly a brilliant one
Sarah Palin: the liberal voter's worst nightmare
The high price of Sarah Palin's candidacy
Most Commented
About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla
(136 comments)
Sarah Palin: the liberal voter's worst nightmare
(34 comments)
Is Sound Transit really one of 'the world's biggest boondoggles'?
(27 comments)
The high price of Sarah Palin's candidacy
(19 comments)
The case for Sarah Palin
(18 comments)
A classic evisceration speech by the running mate
(11 comments)
Why Palin, why now
(9 comments)
An Alaska-sized gamble — and possibly a brilliant one
(8 comments)
No post-convention bounce for the Democrats
(7 comments)
The making of an effective arts board
(6 comments)
Crosscut highlights
Some would have you believe that making fuels from crops and other biomatter is responsible for food shortages. Probably not, but there are legitimate questions about the net gain — is there one? — of producing and using biofuel versus conventional petroleum.
The federal agencies are back for a fifth round in federal court, still cooking up very strained arguments for minimal efforts to save the fish. Two things might change the impasse: a new case for saving dams due to climate change, and the bestirring of Congress. Here's a survey of the high-stakes issues.
Crosscut most recent
A suburban sucker's bet
An interesting follow-up to my story last week on the future of suburbia is a profile of Merced, Calif., in the Aug. 24 issue of The New York Times. Skeptical that some burbs might become the new ghost towns? Check out the picture of the Riverstone housing development that accompanies this story, of an unfinished project baking in the sun and dirty air of a boomtown gone bust.
Seattle Mayor Nickels' Climate Action Plan brought him global glory as "America's green mayor." But is it civic transformation or eco-opportunism? Or how about both?
Gregoire's running mate
In some states, the Governor and Lt. Governor runs as a ticket, but not in Washington. Democrats Gov. Christine Gregoire and Sir Brad Owen run their own campaigns. But I got a piece of campaign literature in the mail this weekend that suggests Gregorie does indeed have a running mate.
Urban planners love to hate the suburbs, but what's going to become of them? Will Bellevue eventually become a post-carbon ghost town or a new urban hybrid? Some reflections on the urban/suburban debate.
LEED-ing the way to sustainability
It seems like every month, a new trend or concept emerges in Seattle's green scene. But what does Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design have to do with the building boom in Seattle, and how does it work? Consider this the everyman's guide to the LEED process.
Amazing Bigfoot discovery!
From what I can tell from news reports, yesterday's press conference by Bigfoot hunters claiming to have found a Sasquatch corpse in Georgia had some startling revelations. One is DNA results that answer the question: Just what is Bigfoot?
Seattle Public Schools flunks civics
What does it teach kids to slaughter a grove of mature trees in a city whose urban forest is already in crisis? A city which will need a new generation to help fix serious environmental problems like cleaning up Puget Sound and dealing with cancer-causing pollution?
Was we 'robbed' by nature?
I couldn't help but laugh at this bold headline on CNN.com: "Gravity, erosion rob Utah park of popular arch." Why so funny? There wouldn't even be an Arches National Park if it wasn't for gravity and erosion. In fact, many of the West's most popular parks are monuments to gravity and erosion (think the Grand Canyon for one).
People for Puget Sound responds
Kathy Fletcher, the executive director of People for Puget Sound, has responded to Daniel Jack Chasan's Crosscut article about setting priorities — performing triage, essentially — as we plan to reduce the impact from the several million people who live around the inland sea. Here's what she wrote:
Land rush on top of the world
The search for the Northwest Passage spurred the European exploration of the Pacific Northwest. With global warming, Arctic land claims are heating up as the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Russia, Iceland and Norway vie for sea lanes, the seabed and once ice-bound islands. Finally, there's a great visual to sort out these competing claims.
Cleaning up the Sound for real requires political will, not feel-good projects that play well in the media but have little ecological impact. It means focusing on rural, not urban, areas. But that's not where most taxpayers live. It will also take a monumental infusion of cash, which could come from a variety of sources, including a mitigation 'bank' for private polluters.
As vaccine research retrenches, scientists seek to provide a stopgap with new approaches to HIV prevention that were first explored with help from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Why shopping 'green' won't save the planet
Seattle's obsession with largely symbolic green measures (banning bottled water at City Hall and taxing plastic bags) and the current trend of marketing everything from hybrids to condos as "green" might actually do more harm than good.
Four years after Paul Allen won the X Prize with SpaceShipOne, Virgin Galactic has unveiled WhiteKnightTwo, bringing space tourism closer to reality. But in terms of achievement and fundamental technologies, we're merely watching a glitzy remake of the 1960s with private funding.
Is Big Nanny running your town?
The libertarian magazine Reason has published a list of the biggest nanny cities in the country. The results for the big cities on the Pacific Coast are interesting. Portland is caught in a kind of "nanny sandwich" between Seattle and San Francisco. Apparently, the most ecotopian town in the Pacific Northwest has escaped the worst excess of politically correct fussiness.
Holy chiroptera! Meet the local bats
Like the neighbors I rarely see until July, bats are making their appearances during the drawn-out summer evenings here in the Northwest. Flitting in the dusk, these nocturnal and flying mammals that use ultrasonic calls outside of our hearing range inhabit a world quite separate from mine. But Bats Northwest, an education and conservation group of bat aficionados, is here to bridge that gap through summertime bat walks at Green Lake, and there's one this Monday, July 28, at 8 p.m.
Sausage Links, row, row, row your boat edition
Gov. Chris Gregoire spent yesterday on Puget Sound, touting her environmental record while bashing her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi. Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly rode along (you can even see him to the left of Gregoire in the Everett Herald's photo of the boat tour), but remained unconvinced of her ability to connect with voters. Here's Sound Politics' take on the story. ...
Seattle and the elixir of growth
In some moods, I think that Seattle's business renaissance has peaked. Starbucks is contracting, Microsoft is stumbling, Boeing is losing bids, Safeco is sold, and Washington Mutual is sinking. Has our formula of rapid growth spreading across the globe run into the wall?
But then I look at the front page of today's "Marketplace" section of The Wall Street Journal, where three of the four stories are about Seattle-based companies. There's the story of Microsoft's scramble in the executive suite, with the sudden departure of Kevin Johnson, formerly in charge of the Yahoo merger campaign; Costco reporting an earnings squeeze as the prices for merchandise are rising faster than they can pass along costs to its value-seeking customers; and Amazon doubling its second-quarter profits as customers shift from shopping by car to shopping by online.
The stories of 52-year-old Bainbridge Island author David Guterson have much to owe Washington state, which serves as a powerful setting for everything he writes.
The new Northern Spotted Owl recovery plan could be worse, but the Bush administration hasn't given up on cutting a billion board feet a year in Northwest forests.
RSS FEED
Other media
Heart attack on McCain
I saw this coming. Last night after John McCain's GOP convention speech, the hall was blasted with the sounds of Seattle band Heart's rocker "Barracuda," which became the convention's theme music for Sarah "Barracuda" Palin (Barracuda was a high-school nickname). I figured an objection would be raised.
'Me' for president
Palin wouldn't be the first Northwest secessionist on a national ticket
Seattle Symphony's Benaroya Hall celebrates its tenth birthday
Leader of African-American lecture forum is departing
The music you like tells a lot about your personality
The Washington Mutual board ousts CEO Kerry Killinger
Washington and Idaho score very high as business-friendly states
A columnist tries swearing off Google for 24 hours
There's sudden movement in updating Seattle neighborhood plans
I've been tracking the City of Seattle's proposal to update the neighborhood plans since March in the series There Go the Neighborhoods. You wouldn't think I'd be caught unawares before the only currently scheduled public hearing before City Council's Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods Committee's special meeting. Guess what? It's scheduled for Monday, Sept. 8, 5:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers at City Hall. The agenda lists only one item: public comment.
Factoring in Alaska's first family
'Wishful budgeting' and other distortions of the convention speeches
Washington and Idaho score very high as business-friendly states
In the governor's race, Gov. Chris Gregoire understandably often cites the state's recent rating by Forbes magazine, which names Washington as the third best state for business. The magazine's annual ranking put Virginia first and Utah second; Idaho retains its high rank, this year as 7th. Oregon finished 16th, Colorado is 6th, Minnesota is 11th, Montana is 24th, California is 40th, and Alaska is 48th.
A columnist tries swearing off Google for 24 hours
My word of mouth on Kindle
Mount Baker
Proposed: Rename Seattle's Freeway Park for Jim Ellis, civic leader
Whassup with Wasilla
In touch with the average American
The funny thing about Seattle ...
'Drill their brains out!'
The supposedly promising Seahawks are Buffaloed
Weird call by refs helps Huskies to lose to BYU, 28-27
Brandon Morrow, in debut, comes close to pitching a no-hitter for Mariners
Salmonella sickens nine; health officials eye alfalfa sprouts
A new wine region emerges in Colorado
Slow Food Nation: now a political movement
Our Convention Center has growing pains
Seattle's Convention Center is taking a close look at expanding, perhaps at a different location. It might complicate the coming legislative session if it puts its hand in the state trough of money for tourism-related taxes. Also crowding around the trough are the Huskies, King County arts, Seattle Center, KeyArena, low-income housing, Puget Sound cleanup, and more. And the Convention Center might topple some other interesting transportation dominoes.
Mount Baker
A new wine region emerges in Colorado
Contact Crosscut
Tools