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In Seattle, let the people 'chill'
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Crosscut highlights
The Mariners cut a $15.5 million man
Richie Sexson during recent months had seemed about as welcome at Safeco Field as Pat O'Day at a frat kegger. The next time (if there is one) he shows up at the Safe, it will be in a different uniform, if not street clothes. The Seattle Mariners finally gave up on the one-time slugger Thursday, July 10, before a series finale at Oakland. The incredible shrinking Big Richie had spent much of the past two seasons hitting in the low-.200 range, kicking up Elliott Bay waves with his persistent whiffing at the plate. M's personnel acknowledged after the deed was done that it had been just a matter of time before team officials felt comfortable eating the remainder of the $15.5 million the southern Washington resident was owed this season.
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The parade of foolishness
We're into August, which can be a dazzling month in the Northwest, with many things to enjoy and be thankful for: brilliant sunsets, fresh air, sparkling forests and water, music and arts festivals in places large and small, and, not least, an economy that is comparatively stronger than the rest of the country's. But concerns and irritations conspire to break the spell.
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.
The good, the bad, and the vexing
Here are start-of-week cheers and Bronx cheers. First, the good stuff: Dave Niehaus in the Baseball Hall of Fame and justice at Fort Lawton.
The trade-bait show
The perverse (some would say "reverse") logic among non-pennant-contenders, as the Seattle Mariners have been since about early April, may have never been better demonstrated than on Sunday, July 27. Three of the M's oft-mentioned trade-bait guys had stellar games. Those who are unfamiliar with the work of Lewis Carroll would then probably say: "Great! Let's keep 'em!" Instead, as I write this the day of the game, they're as good as gone, probably to New York.
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.
Root, root, root for the away teams
One of the remaining attractions as the Seattle Mariners run the season into the ground is the chance to see genuine Northwest heroes perform well. Unfortunately, they play for other teams.
Sausage Links, cougar-hunting edition
Praise the Lord and release the hounds — because our good state Legislature has enacted a law which makes it legal once again to use dogs to hunt cougars. Now, I didn't even know cougar hunting was legal in Washington — minus Cougars wearing crimson — but apparently, it is. While the bill was actually passed by the Legislature in February, the Department of Fish and Wildlife will hold a public meeting on Friday to discuss whether the pilot program should continue for another three years.
Meanwhile, Micheal Reitz of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has compiled a list of some other curious laws enacted by the Washington Legislature this year. My personal favorite: Violators may face up to $1,000 or up to a year in jail for selling raw or unprocessed huckleberries without a permit.
Our Yakima correspondent tries out the Ljutic Mono Gun — and checks out the trap shooting tournament scene. Part 2
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." ...
A-Rod as the new Katie Holmes
Seattleites like to believe there's something more important than money. Which is why when Alex Rodriguez left the Seattle Mariners for the Texas Rangers and a $252 million contract, people were pissed. A-Rod had said he wouldn't sign just for money, but in the end, that's what he did: departed for a dead-end team that paid him more than he was worth — and more than they could afford. You may remember what Seattle fans did when he returned to Safeco Field in 2001 to compete against his old mates: The fans spewed venom, booed, and dumped baskets of play-money from the upper decks. It was a rare show of resentment from live-and-let-live Seattle. Our egos were bruised and illusions shattered because A-Rod could be bought.
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!
Finally, some good Seattle sports news
When I edited Seattle Weekly, I issued a ban on soccer coverage. Why edit a newspaper when you can't, very occasionally, act like a tin-pot dictator and shape it to your perverse desires? I left the paper two years ago but hoped the new editor would realize my no-soccer edict was a lifetime ban. Apparently not. There's a new dictator in town, and the moratorium has been lifted. The editor himself has written a column about soccer in Seattle. The good news: He's not buying the hype that it's the next big thing.
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.
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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.
Seattle's money madness
Travels with Charley and GPS
The visual iconography of 'Yes we can'
Tallis in Seattle
Former Seattle Symphony violinist Ralph Heino is dead at 91
It's been a month. What's Bill Gates up to, anyway?
For the first time in history, a woman holds the Coast Guard's port captain post
What a cop will do for free Starbucks
A Miami man is charged with threatening to kill Barack Obama
Sausage Links, slow news day edition
The visual iconography of 'Yes we can'
Art Thiel observes 'the world's largest party ... in the world's most uptight nation'
Slade Gorton and Wally Walker aren't behind the Sonics suit, says Howard Schultz's attorney
The name for Wenatchee's new events center: Town Toyota Arena
Sidewalk crack addict
The Fearmongers, Definers, Swiftboaters, and Borkers square off
Losing your favorite Starbucks? The five stages of grief
Princeton Review confirms Evergreen's status as a tree-hugger's school
Tom Douglas cooks up a real estate design
(Not) in the garden: bees
Art Thiel observes 'the world's largest party ... in the world's most uptight nation'
Sausage Links, 'you'll shoot your Eyman out' edition
Allegiant Air: Corporate smarts or corporate sharks?
Sheriff: 'Matter of time' before someone was killed due to lax forest safety laws
The Navy Blue Angels return to an Air Force town — landlocked Spokane
Go eastward, young Americans
How good a deal is Costco, really?
Must be a recession: Whole Foods now stresses bargains
In Seattle, let the people 'chill'
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