And this is it.
The cover of today's Seattle Times—in a piece officially titled "Parking violations bring in big bucks for the city of Seattle"—says that the reason the city issues parking tickets is to make people stop driving:
"It's all part of Seattle's larger plan to discourage driving," they say.
It's not to generate revenue? It's not to pay the bills for the city? Whaaaaaaaat?
This is so inconceivably ludicrous—even for the Seattle Times, which has been propagating a cars-vs.-bikes debate and fighting for cars like they're an endangered species—that even folks who normally cozy up with the Seattle Times had to set the abacus straight. Jon Scholes, vice president of advocacy for the Downtown Seattle Association, sent the paper a letter that is now posted (with permission) on the mayor's blog:
I’ve got to come to the City’s defense in regards to your story this morning on parking fines. The characterization that the “goal” of the City’s parking enforcement program is to “discourage driving” is entirely inaccurate as is the implication that parking Downtown would be easier to find and more plentiful if the City didn’t enforce parking rules (or were less effective in enforcing the rules)....
Without parking rules in place and fines to enforce those rules, drivers would have fewer opportunities to park on the street Downtown, not more.
Scholes continues to dismember this argument over here.
Good for you, Omaha World Herald.
Sorry to drop this on you right before the weekend, but...
Drugged baby tiger found stuffed in bag at Thai airport
Drinks, drinks!
They don't use the term or address the aesthetics, but they sense the phenomenon:
We’re in the thick of what one sociologist calls “the changing timetable for adulthood.” Sociologists traditionally define the “transition to adulthood” as marked by five milestones: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so. A Canadian study reported that a typical 30-year-old in 2001 had completed the same number of milestones as a 25-year-old in the early ’70s.
The writer, Robin Marantz Henig, attacks the problem in terms of economics and institutions (jobs, degrees, families) which leads her to the conclusion that young adults are "emerging adults" who are delaying adulthood—which doesn't quite make the nut.
A quick look at the cultural dimensions show that the young adults Henig writes about are doing something more extreme: they're fetishizing childhood. Gourmet ice cream and cupcakes, corn dogs and elephant ears on barroom menus, dodge ball and kickball, the baseball caps and striped socks and poofy parkas in primary colors that are adult versions of their elementary-school wardrobes—this is not just retardation, it's return. Regressing.
I don't know whether the cultural fetishization of childhood is a symptom or a cause—or part of some positive feedback loop in between—of this refusal to pass the "milestones" of adulthood like starting families and paying your own bills. Whatever's going on, the Regressors now have their own in-patient psychiatric facility:
Yellowbrick is a private, physician-owned and -operated psychiatric healthcare organization whose mission is to provide a full-spectrum, specialized approach to the emotional, psychological and developmental challenges of emerging adults.The Residence offers a developmental platform for those emerging adults who cannot move forward living at home, on campus, or in an independent apartment. The program offers 24/7 skilled support and membership in the Yellowbrick community. The Residence provides a supportive adult presence which respects demonstrated effective autonomy, individualized programming for further development of life strategy skills, career and education services and productive activity in the Evanston community.
Which isn't to say that people who play kickball need psychiatric treatment. (Though it's tempting to throw that bomb.)
But there is—there has to be—a relationship between a culture that fetishizes the totems, foods, and activities of childhood and a crop of adults who can't or won't be adults.
And I realize this whole thing makes me sound like a prematurely old man who's gunning for Andy Rooney's job. Which is true. I'm a reverse-Regressor, getting old and cranky before my time. So sue me.
Mr. Cook to Bang speaks! Again!
Intrepid film intern Ernie ate a brownie and felt no ill effects. I have no further comment on this matter.
Yesterday, Engadget reported that LG is putting 19-inch flexible e-paper displays into production. They also ran a photo of what they believe to be the paper in action from last January:
And may I say: Holy shit. The idea of a bendable newspaper that changes as the news changes is an incredible idea that feels at once incredibly new and very old-school futuristic. But this e-paper is just a display—you'd need hardware to actually send the information wirelessly to the paper, and that hardware probably wouldn't be as flexible as the display itself—and Engadget assumes that this technology will mostly be used for signage and other display purposes. I have no doubt that one day (probably soon, at the rate we're going) these displays would be ready for newspapers to use.
But I don't have any confidence (especially since, as Eli pointed out in the Morning News, even USA Today is surrendering a great deal of ground from the daily paper newspaper game) that the newspaper will still be a compelling object by the time this technology catches up to the display. More likely, some future version of the Kindle will be a sheet you can roll up and stuff into your pocket. But by then the newspaper broadsheet will be mostly done with as a meaningful cultural symbol.
The answer, evidently, is that he's dressing and acting like a 17-year-old from Orange County and dissing Snooki on Jersey Shore!
Tomorrow, Saturday August 28, Northwest Film Forum is hosting its 5th Annual Bike-In at Cal Anderson Park. It's free!
The Bike-In is a celebration of green transportation, our urban community and summer nights! Grab your bike, grab your friends—we'll see you for our annual event in Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill!Meet at 5 pm to hang out and enjoy tunes by DJ NLJB
Music by Concours d'Elegance and Sap'N at 7 pm
Short films followed by Pee-Wee's Big Adventure at dusk (around 9 pm)
Short film program includes The Ducks & Us Songbook movie and a program of claymation from our teen animation camp
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure! A movie about a man who loves his bike and lives in the coolest house ever! Outside! In the park! Bring your bike!
After the jump, there is a photo of Pee-Wee and Speck, for those of you who are interested...
If you're listening to the scary rhetoric from income tax opponents, you probably do think that Initiative 1098 is going to take money out of your pocket—and, odds are, you're wrong.
But to put minds at ease, here's a handy calculator that tells you how you'll fare if 1098, which creates an income tax for individuals earning over $200,000 a year and also cuts taxes for business and property owners, is passed.
Suspicious that the calculator might be telling you evil lies? Wondering who's behind the thing? It's put out by the Economic Opportunity Institute, an "independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy center advancing new ideas to build an economy that works—for everyone."
Bleeding Cool says that a Maryland Democrat is mailing out a bunch of scary fliers saying that she will protect education. Because God forbid the children should be forced to read funnybooks, right?
Look: I am not suggesting that Superman comics (especially the awful Superman comics DC is putting out these days) should be part of the curriculum. But I am saying that comics are a great way to get kids interested in reading. Some kids manage to overcome reading disabilities using comics as a stepping stone. Comics can make a great ESL teaching tool. And trying to use them as a fear tactic is just kind of lame in general. Poorly played, Maryland Democrats.
State and national beer and wine interest groups are throwing their weight behind the campaign seeking to stop the privatization of state liquor sales. Two initiatives are slated for the November ballot, I-1100 and I-1105, that would kick the state out of the liquor business and allow stores that currently sell beer and wine—like grocery and convenience stores—to also carry liquor. Obviously, that would mean liquor would be competing with beer and wine on store shelves.
In the last week, the National Beer Wholesalers Association and the Washington Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association have contributed $1 million each to Protect Our Communities, the group opposing both initiatives, according to recent reports from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission.
"These initiatives have huge implications for craft brewing, microbreweries, and wineries," says Sandeep Kaushik, a spokesman for Protect Our Communities. "They're threatened by these initiatives. The craft brewers oppose I-1100, especially. They see themselves pushed off the shelves."
Small-scale Washington wineries in the state echo this concern. They say that if I-1100 passes, selection will be choked out in favor of volume, which is why they’re opposing the initiative. “It repeals all current wine distribution laws that significantly impact small wineries,” explains Annie McGraph, spokeswoman for the Washington Wine Institute (WWI). “We’ve got some pretty great laws on the books for wineries that open up access for small guys to get into the marketplace—a retailer can’t require a winery to pay for shelf space or advertising or menu printing, for example. This initiative repeals all these key protections.” (On the bright side, you’d be able to buy a bathtub full of E.&J.; Gallo at Costco for a song.)
McGraph adds that the WWI doesn’t have a position on I-1105 because it wold leave all those protections in place. “For us, this isn’t about privatizing liquor, it’s about losing businesses.” I-1100 would also repeal a state ban on bulk discounts of liquor, wine, and beer, a discount that puts small businesses at an industry disadvantage. The Washington Brewer’s Guild calls I-1100 “the greatest threat the Washington craft brewing industry has experienced in a decade.”
Protect our Communities has also received healthy support from labor and union groups, who oppose the loss of nearly 900 state liquor store jobs if either initiative passes.
I think they're a completely made up thing. Drink manufacturers need to stop "putting" them in everything.
("Putting" is in quotes because you can't put an imaginary thing into a real thing. And, as I said, electrolytes are imaginary.)
Seeing this on the street...
James Brown is hitting on Jen! He is inviting her to Alaska. And he just said, "the royal penis is clean!"Even the king knows that no one likes the dick cheese.
You might think it is as many TVs as possible. You would be wrong.
Also, apparently, wings are (or at least should be) required by law.
Let it never be said that researching a bar column is not educational. Feel the knowledge over here, in which we visit Capitol Hill's new Auto Battery.
Blockbuster reportedly plans to file something called a "pre-planned bankruptcy" and will continue to pay the studios and other most other major creditors. This development shouldn't surprise anyone. For years, Blockbuster has closed stores, laid off thousands, and generally been tumbling towards extinction. Driving to a video store to rent a movie is rapidly becoming as unnecessary as hiring a travel agent, developing film, or listening to music on compact discs.
While Gizmodo is sad about Blockbuster's rumored impending bankruptcy, I'm still sadder about all the mom-and-pop video stores that closed up during Blockbuster's rise. (And the way they sanitized the video rental scene to the point where the back room of X-rated titles, once a standard in small-town video stores, became virtually extinct. Suck it, family values: Here comes the internet!)
Posted to The Stranger's Flickr pool by Invisible Hour.
Remember back in May when everybody was really concerned about privacy and Facebook? (Ha, ha, I guess that didn't last very long.) And then, remember when people were talking about a Facebook with privacy called Diaspora?
Well, Diaspora launches on September 15th. As they say on their blog:
We are spending a good chunk of time concentrating on building clear, contextual sharing. That means an intuitive way for users to decide, and not notice deciding, what content goes to their coworkers and what goes to their drinking buddies. We know that’s a hard UI problem and we take it seriously.
[...]
We aren’t going to stop working after we release. Ilya and Raphael are taking leave from NYU, and we will continue to develop and maintain Diaspora as a long term project. We have shifted our development timeline accordingly, and the first release will be the beginning of something great, not a finished summer project.
I wish them luck, but I suspect that the moment may have passed.
Sen. Patty Murray was in the Pike/Pine neighborhood this morning, an appearance in the most liberal area of Washington state’s most liberal city—a place she needs some enthusiastic support to overcome her Republican opponent Dino Rossi this November. Also, she was within a two-block radius of our offices so Kelly O and I decided to put down our breakfast margaritas and stumble over.
On its face, this was a familiar performance we’ve seen in a few Seattle neighborhoods: Murray walked around talking to small business owners. Their stories were calculated, of course, to tell of the perils of being shut out from business loans that they need to survive—a problem that will be solved before November by legislation Murray supports!
“The banks that seemed to have funds weren’t interested,” Elliott Bay Book Company owner Peter Aaron told the senator, “and the banks that were interested didn’t have the funds.” This sort of real-talk, business-backing listening time parlays nicely into legislation to create the Small Business Lending Fund, which would set aside $30 billion to help community banks that help these small businesses, while providing Murray time on camera with adored urban leaders.
However the subtext here is arguably a bit deeper than chatting with Linda Derschang at Oddfellows Café or discussing the paramount importance of the (heavenly and unmatched) cherry chunk ice cream with Molly Moon. Dispassion among the left is high while Republican blood is boiling.
How’s Murray going to motivate the liberals?
I asked Murray about her plans to motivate her base, how she reconciles her claim to support gay rights even though she voted to ban gay marriage, and whether she’s the tallest member of the U.S. Senate:
For the record, Murray supported Referendum 71, but she also supported the Defense of Marriage Act at the time, because, she says, "it was a state's rights issue." Since then, "People know who I am and who I care about." (Screaming subtext: You know who Rossi is and who he doesn't care about.) Then her handlers briskly pulled her away.
Greg Wood, who runs the Roseway Theater in Portland, is taking over operations. My counterpart at the Portland Mercury, Erik Henriksen, called the Roseway "the best movie theater I've ever been in," and said of Wood:
He took an old theater, gorgeously renovated it, stuck in the best digital picture and sound I've experienced, and kept it all independent. It gets first-run movies on opening dates, but he sells concessions at non-rapey prices, hires charming teenagers to work there, and generally runs a hell of an outfit.
I spoke with Wood about his plans for the Cinerama—will it be as gorgeously kick-ass as the Roseway? Will it be a hell of an outfit?
I’ll be leading a strong charge to put the Cinerama back in the forefront of Seattle’s brains again. It’s a multi-million dollar renovation, with emphasis on high-end new technology, while at the same time keeping our film roots in place. A lot of it is just getting interaction with Seattle, getting in touch with the community, and figuring out what people want to see. A wide range from bread and butter first-run 3-D movies all the way to grittier stuff like, for example, a Godzilla film festival. We’ll be doing a lot of partnering with SIFF and community organizations, and trying to bring ownership back to Seattle a little bit.
And what of the alleged non-rapey prices? What of the teenage charm?
[Laughs.] We plan on having a really wonderful support group, and I will say price-wise, box office prices kind of have to stay comparable to other theaters in the area. But we’ll offer extreme value for concessions areas.
Did you hear that, people? EXTREME.
"The big emphasis," Wood says, "is getting feedback from Seattle." Do you have feelings, Seattle? Cineramatic opinions? If so, e-mail Greg and let him know what you want to see.
Yesterday I was walking down Pine Street behind a woman who was hand-in-hand with an adorable child. The woman was on her cell phone and obviously in a hurry. The child was young—two? three?—and was hop-running to keep up with the woman in that adorable, clunky way children do when they haven't yet figured out how knees work.
Now, there is a chance the child was pointing at the cigarette butt lying next to the money, or some other cool trash nearby. But probably she was pointing at the money. The money that I took. From her, a child.
So, am I a monster?
"Once they get to know me, they know I'm okay." —Boomer
Need to know if you should DTMFA? Maybe you need advice on what to do about that fetish you and your partner just can't see eye to eye on? Get all the advice you would ever need about love, sex, and relationships today!
We'll be accepting questions from noon-1:30 pm, then we'll have to turn them off so he'll have a chance to catch up before wrapping it up at 2 pm. The sooner you ask, the better your chances are that he'll get to your question, so ask Dan Savage your question now!