Top of the News
'Landslide Chris': In another tight race, Gov. Gregoire touts her Barack Obama connection
2008 Election »A Montana cattle rancher gives Democratic conventioneers the red meat they crave
Religion / Faith »The daring of non-believers: An 'Imagine No Religion' billboard provokes thought
Workplace / Labor »Boeing Machinists say the company's sweetened offer 'falls well below expectations'
Most Popular
Crosscut's 2008 election predictions, UPDATED
Death by a thousand (paper) cuts
Lake Union Park: a first assessment
The funny thing about Seattle ...
Most Commented
The future of 'nowhere'
(27 comments)
The mayor's block party weekend
(20 comments)
Crosscut's 2008 election predictions, UPDATED
(13 comments)
Death by a thousand (paper) cuts
(8 comments)
The post-partisan electorate
(8 comments)
Lake Union Park: a first assessment
(8 comments)
Extreme Seattle
(7 comments)
Election reflections
(6 comments)
The funny thing about Seattle ...
(6 comments)
A cure for congestion that's simple and cheap (and doomed)
(5 comments)
Crosscut highlights
And they even have their own Underground. When the Seattle SuperSonics move to the Sooner State, they'll miss some things but not others. After a visit, our correspondent compares and contrasts.
It's the greatest story ever told. Well, OK, it's not. But it's one you'll be reading a lot about in coming days. It begins like this: In the reign of Gregory the XL, there was no joy in the Land of Sasquatch ...
Crosscut most recent
The Olympics, Seattle-style
Maybe what we need around here, to unstick our sluggish planning and get some major projects built, is a Summer Olympics. Or, better, a Phantom Olympics that delivers the benefits but without the Olympics. Calm down, and let me try a mostly-in-jest thought-experiment.
Has the last Seattleite with local pride turned out the lights? A recent trip to Safeco Field makes me wonder.
Sausage Links, Uncle Ted's excellent indictment edition
Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly sounds off on the latest bad apple ousted from the Department of Justice, as well as Ted "series of tubes" Stevens' federal indictment in a corruption scandal. Seattle Times chief political reporter David Postman takes a look at what Uncle Ted's indictment means for his chances at re-election, while U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., joins the parade of GOP members promising to rid themselves of Stevens' campaign donations. ...
Keith Olbermann they're not
The tradition among game announcers for the Seattle Mariners and other teams is that the voices from the booth will flack any sponsor products or services called for by the script. Game-callers are particularly loyal, of course, to team-supporting sponsors. Evidently, this message loyalty now extends to political pitches.
At least they're calling it something stupid
It's starting to — pardon the expression — resonate that our departed Seattle SuperSonics hence will be known in OkieHoma City as the Thunder. Perhaps it's worth noting that both nicknames are sound-oriented and that, indeed, thunder is a mere sonic noise while SuperSonics is, well, supersonic.
Crapping on Seattle
In our rapid descent from in-place to laughing-stock, Seattle is now the target for ridicule over its expensive, dangerous, now-up-for-fire-sale public toilets. Slate.com is the latest to yuk it up with bathroom jokes. At least the raspberries over the Sonics have been pushed off the front pages.
Sausage Links, mayor-about-town edition
Oh, Greg. You are trying to break our hearts! Just when we vilify you for airballing the Sonics all the way to OKC for a cool $45 million — you show you're a real Mayor-about-town houses and plastic bag taxes.
For better or worse, everybody's talking about Mayor Nickels' proposals today. Erica C. Barnett at The Stranger says she spotted a "Plastic Monster" at last night's public-comment meeting about the proposed plastic bag tax, while Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat warns if we don't choose paper the plastic bag police will get us. Meanwhile, the folks at Sound Politics rail against Nickels for the new town house plan, which they argue will regulate affordable housing "out of existence." ...
The Sonics' hidden fan base
Like every one else over the age of 40 who lived in Seattle during 1979, I can remember that glorious spring when the Sonics dominated the NBA. Similar to the Mariners in 1995, the Sonics run to the championship created a sense of greater community in Seattle. The night they won, I was sitting in the Moore Theatre watching some foreign film as part of the fledgling Seattle International Film Festival. The film suddenly stopped, and someone walked on stage to announce: "We Won!" The film ended a few minutes later and everyone walked out onto Second Avenue hearing car horns, people yelling, total pandemonium. And remember the parade? It may have been the last time downtown Seattle had energy!
As the Sonics leave town, it may help the arts
In all the reporting about the Sonics decision, we tend to overlook the intense clamoring over a taxing source, the so-called "stadium taxes," that bedevils the politics. A lot of groups want to lay claim to those taxes, which are supposed to go away after the Kingdome, Safeco Field, and Qwest Field are paid off, but are really catnip to politicians for their pet causes. The taxes have two attractions: they are not really an "increase" if you just extend their life, and they fall mostly on visitors, who don't vote locally.
One of the main supplicants is the arts. Thereby hangs an interesting story.
Screwed by the Okies — again!
Who's to blame for losing the Sonics to Oklahoma City? That's the question being kicked around town. But I wonder why it is that "world class" Seattle keeps getting its collective ass kicked by the Okies.
The Sonics sitcom
The Sonics-City of Seattle settlement announced yesterday is what might have been expected had the parties not settled and U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman made a likely ruling that this landlord-tenant dispute should be settled monetarily. (See my Monday article).
Both sides eliminated risk, though, by settling before her ruling. The Sonics, of course, cleared out promptly for Oklahoma City. The press-conference description of the settlement by Mayor Greg Nickels, with City Council members serving as props, was a comic classic.
The Sonics decision that wasn't
The last-minute settlement over the Seattle SuperSonics is sadly typical of politics around here. Why settle something when you can drag it on for years to come? Maybe we should call the new team, in the unlikely event it ever arrives here, the Seattle Viaducts.
Settling in a firm way a heated public debate like this one is risky for politicians, which is why they look for face-saving irresolution. Once something is settled, the losing side goes into permanent opposition, rather than holding out hope and courting favor with all the parties. The plan is to hold out a win-win solution, sometime in the hazy beyond.
Predictions at mid-year regarding sweet deals for developers, a Sonics boon, the precarious viaduct, a Boeing handout, Sound Transit, Pat Davis, and cleaning up Puget Sound.
The Sonics trial pulls aside a political curtain
The trial of the Sonics had a few revelations this week, though no clear indication of which way it will come out. Perhaps the most interesting aspect was the way heavy political lifting is done these days. It takes on the form of backstage public-private partnerships, with lawfirms doing a lot of the work and strategizing, so that elected officials have some distance and deniability if it doesn't work. This is not shocking news, but we did get some rare specifics.
RSS FEED
Other media
Nickels peeks under the Cascade Curtain and gets pissed off
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connelly, blogging from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, had a nugget from Seattle's strongman mayor, Greg Nickels.
The mayor's block party weekend
A suburban sucker's bet
The making of an effective arts board
Amazon mobilizes fans to sell its Kindle
The Olympics, Seattle-style
The dance of labor relations: For both Boeing and the Machinists, it's about the cost of peace
Starbucks: CEO Howard Schultz won't be getting a raise this year
The secret of Microsoft's 'Say Goodbye to Laser' mouse is solved ... supposedly
A bipartisan mayor who's fond of prayer
At last, McCain scrutiny
Nickels peeks under the Cascade Curtain and gets pissed off
The Olympics, Seattle-style
Maybe what we need around here, to unstick our sluggish planning and get some major projects built, is a Summer Olympics. Or, better, a Phantom Olympics that delivers the benefits but without the Olympics. Calm down, and let me try a mostly-in-jest thought-experiment.
Ty Willingham doesn't want to meet the press
The boys of summer on the bus: Life on the road with minor-league ballplayers
The funny thing about Seattle ...
'Drill their brains out!'
The real superpower threat: Luxembourg
Mountain meadow
Showdown vote in Alaska over fisheries and mining
It's a beautiful deception
New restrictions to bottom-trawling off Alaska, Northwest coasts
Carless and carefree: Seattle to Bellingham
Obama as the 'Pepsi candidate'
No longer in the garden: pesky starlings
In Buddhism, intention counts for a lot. We make mistakes, clean up after ourselves as best we can, and then look at our original intention. Were we trying to be helpful? To get even? Gain attention? The lessons of one mistake can be endless. When I try to walk through a pubic park just about anywhere in the Northwest, I wonder about that Englishman who thought importing starlings to the United States would give us a more Shakespearian atmosphere. Noble intention. Huge mistake. He probably needs — not that I want to exaggerate too much here — hundreds of lifetimes to straighten out the starling mess he started.
Soaking up B.C.'s Sunshine Coast
Portland gym generates energy from exercise bikes
Contact Crosscut
Tools