The Crosscut Blog

For the second time in slightly more than a week, local TV and radio stations devoted a fair portion of their early afternoon schedules to live, commercial-free coverage of a local event. Unlike Boeing’s announcement on October 28 that the company had selected South Carolina for the second 787 line, the memorial for Seattle Police Officer Tim Brenton was scheduled in advance (which gave broadcasters time to prepare).

The highly ritualistic event was also rich with moving visuals — from the procession of law enforcement vehicles beforehand to the memorial itself at KeyArena. Lines of vehicles with flashing lights, thousands ...

On the fourth day of extremely close results in the Seattle mayoral race, Mike McGinn widened his lead over opponent Joe Mallahan. In an updated count released Friday afternoon, McGinn had 49.99 percent of the vote, to Mallahan's 49.19 percent. That amounts to a lead of just 1,209 votes out of 156,345 cast, yet is a significant gain over the 515-vote lead McGinn held Thursday.

After Thursday's results were released Mallahan’s spokeswoman was convinced there would be a ballot recount, saying, “I don't see how this doesn't go to a recount ...

It was fitting that Whidbey Island's New Media 2012 conference was scheduled the same day in September as the annual Langley Soup Box Derby. You see, the Langley Soup Box Derby is from another millennium. It was created in 1972 by supporters of the Soup Coop, a hippie hangout and eatery at the corner of First and Anthes in downtown Langley. The derby was a (hopefully) wreckless race of homemade gravity-powered vehicles that took place on First Street hill, followed by an awards ceremony featuring wild and wacky trophies presented to both winners and losers.

Although the Soup Coop ...

New York City is littered with places like Ground Zero where the aspirations for grand architecture have left dead zones. Meanwhile, thanks to an enlightened director of Design and Construction, David Burney, a British architect, all kinds of great little buildings (firehouses, libraries, community centers) have sneaked into the Big Apple. Read the story in New York.

It seems like a good idea for Seattle, now that the age of grand public buildings and starchictecture is over. Mayor Newbie might start by insisting on good design for modest public buildings, not lowest-bidder stuff, and building up the authority of city ...

Ralph Waldo Emerson asked, “How much of human life is lost in waiting?” Think of the mayoral candidates.

Now that there is nothing more to be done, no more ballots to be taxied to Sea-Tac, no more signs to staple-gun on the walls, no more calls to feisty undecideds to be made by fleets of unsung volunteers, we who have signed on to volunteer for one of the mayoral campaigns (I am a McGinn guy) can begin to wax on about the results.

Except that Wednesday's results, which dropped at 4:30 p.m. on the King County Elections website, mean precisely...nothing. Consisting mostly of ballots received last week (and how can it be that those ...

Joining a long line of local media celebrities who have sought elected office (and unlike former KIRO anchor Susan Hutchison), former KING host John Curley appears headed to victory in his bid for a seat on the Sammamish City Council.

“For the record, only 22 percent of the vote has been counted,” Curley said this morning, so he’s not yet declaring victory over Tom Vance, his opponent in the nonpartisan race for Position 3. Though as of Election Night returns, Curley led Vance by about 10 percentage points. Curley also raised about three times as much money as Vance ...

Is is something in the water?

R-71, the gay partner benefits referendum, looks to be passing statewide (51 percent yes, 49 percent no), driven by the "yes" vote in 10 of Washington's 39 counties, all of them bordering the Salish Sea. In fact, only two counties on Puget Sound did not approve it: Pierce and Mason.

Compare that with the state spending and anti-tax initiative, I-1033. The Tim Eyman measure was defeated all around Puget Sound, again with the exception of Pierce and Mason counties. Yet, as of now, it's also going down to defeat (55 percent no ...

Here's a quick summary, based on the votes counted by Tuesday night. In Seattle, the mayor's race is very tight, with Mike McGinn ahead of Joe Mallahan, 50-49. Some of the big margins were: Sally Bagshaw, 69-31 over City Council opponent David Bloom; Mike O'Brien 58-42 over Robert Rosencrantz (surprisingly wide margin); and Nick Licata 58-42 over challenger Jesse Israel (also surprisingly big margin). Richard Conlin, with token opposition, easily got reelected. Pete Holmes is surprisingly way ahead of incumbent City Attorney Tom Carr, 62-38. And the low-income housing levy is easily passing, with 63 percent in ...

Some kids have two mommies, but Cascadia has two Vancouvers, which causes confusion. Vancouver, BC is known world-wide, and Vancouver, WA is mostly known as a growing suburb of Portland, Ore. Some residents of Vancouver, WA are interested in re-branding their city, distinguishing it from their better-known neighbor to the north.

The Vancouver Columbian has a story on the issue of "re-branding" Vancouver as "Fort Vancouver," the earlier name for the settlement and the famous trading post so important to the history of the Northwest. Depending on the outcome of today's election, the Vancouver city council might have enough ...

In October of 1991, I was living on the Iron Range of Minnesota with my first husband and our two sons.

It was a tough place, a harbor town filled with silent taconite mines and for-sale signs. Unemployment was 12 percent. My husband worked as a printer during the day; he went to school at night. Our boys, Andrew and Max, were 3 and 18 months. We’d been planning Halloween for weeks: attending library events, making pumpkin cookies, stockpiling candy with every grocery store run.

Andrew was going to be a rabbit and Max a clown. These weren’t ...

Once while I was phone-banking, a woman I’d called interrupted my briefing on a political issue involving human services with a question. “Do you know what ‘Thy kingdom come’ means?” she asked. “Um, I think so,” I replied. “Well,” she said, “that’s why I don’t bother voting. I only have time for church stuff. When the Rapture comes, I don’t want to be left behind — you know, slaughtered.”

In the Last Days she didn’t want to elect anybody. She wanted, you know, to be Elect. She wanted to be among the few swept up to ...

Doug Todd at the Vancouver Sun has a fascinating column that gets at a little explored aspect of Northwest values: how an environmentalist could also be a "neo-Nazi."

Occasionally down in Washington, right-wingers (like the minions of the Building Industry Association of Washington) accuse greens of being eco-Nazis, typical of Glenn Beckesque over-statement (after all, Hitler loved nature!). But it is also true that some "neo-Nazi" and nativist elements are greens.

Meet, for example, the late Jeff Hughes, described as a "respected" volunteer for the Georgia Strait Alliance, a green group dedicated to protecting the waters of the Salish Sea ...