Winners and losers: Gingrich stock going down; an unlikely lift for McGinn
Posted Mon, Jan 30, 2 a.m.
Space, is it the next frontier, or political dead end? Plus, the staying power of potholes.
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Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most clicks.
- A little oil and a ton of trouble
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- State's newest ferries are proving pricey
- The plan to preserve Seattle's beloved book sanctuaries
- Weekend Tech Scan: Time to look at Windows phones
- Port opens door for China to get U.S. coal
- Komen cuts to Planned Parenthood hit Northwest
- How painkillers and alcohol nearly killed a friendship and a college career
- Will the last farmer to leave Puget Sound please wish us luck?
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Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most reader comments.
- Opponents of the Roosevelt Rezone, show your weapons
(19 comments) - Federal Way legislator wants annual state audits of Sound Transit
(13 comments) - Developers to Legislature: Save us from runoff rules
(13 comments) - Winners and losers: Gingrich stock going down; an unlikely lift for McGinn
(12 comments) - Can we say goodbye to Washington state's own shameful McCarthyism?
(11 comments) - A little oil and a ton of trouble
(10 comments) - Will the last farmer to leave Puget Sound please wish us luck?
(9 comments) - State's newest ferries are proving pricey
(8 comments) - The fracking truth: Natural gas devastates communities
(8 comments) - Port opens door for China to get U.S. coal
(7 comments)
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Crosscut blog posts of the past 10 days with the most clicks.
- Midday Scan: Commitment time for gay lovers? Bellevue raiding Seattle schools? Higher ed for Olympia's dullards
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- A local comic brew debuts online. Just don't call it 'Seattleandia'.
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- Midday Scan: UW losing faculty; Cantwell's cash; Republicans for pot
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- Crosscut Tout: The sound of Northwest music lands at Sea-Tac
- Midday Scan: No secrets for McKenna, Inslee on marriage vote; guilt by association in Oregon
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Mossback
Crosscut most recent
Heritage Turkey Watch
Posted Fri, Jan 27, 2 a.m.
The Kalakala still floats, for now, plus Seattle's plywood "space shuttle," demolition fight in Spokane, and other preservation news.
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Politics: Winners and losers of the week
Posted Mon, Jan 23, 2 a.m.
Some unexpected outcomes in a stormy week in Seattle and South Carolina.
READ MORE 7 COMMENTS
Are we the Barbarians we've been waiting for?
Posted Fri, Jan 20, 2 a.m.
The decline and fall of Seattle, the state, the empire.
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Sh*t Kent Said
Posted Thu, Jan 12, 2 a.m.
Nuggets of wisdom from Seattle's mossback Yoda
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Heritage Turkeys of the year
Posted Mon, Jan 9, 2 a.m.
Who did most to raze, wreck, uproot, neglect, and generally trash our historic treasures in 2011? The envelopes, please...
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Best of 2011: Jonathan Raban's lonely journeys
Posted Sat, Dec 31, 2 a.m.
The eccentric West through the eyes of Seattle's British expat author is a landscape of strange customs, forlorn towns, and back roads. His mantra: "To be alone is to be safe."
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That was the year that brought questions: 2011
Posted Wed, Dec 28, 2 a.m.
In Seattle, a populist mayor suffered through unpopularity, the school system looped back through a new round of crisis, the police ran into more troubles apparently caused by a few officers, and the state's congressional delegation grew in power just as the entire system turned dysfunctional. Any answers out there?
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Seattle, where happiness has official backing
Posted Mon, Dec 26, 2 a.m.
Seattle government has committed itself to being a helper in the city pursuit of happiness. Perhaps that can focus some of our discussions about the city's future.
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Best of 2011: Allen takes a close look at himself and others
Posted Sun, Dec 25, 2 a.m.
"Idea Man" is more nuanced than its publicity would have you think, revealing an intense but eclectic thinker who attacks his passions, admits his failures, and hopes to change the future.
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Washington history: Boring no more
Posted Wed, Dec 21, 2 a.m.
Seattle historian Lorraine McConaghy has written a new book that is not only a treasure trove of state history, but a tribute to the gold that can be mined in our archives.
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Buh-bye Bobo
Posted Mon, Dec 19, 2 a.m.
Seattle's beloved (stuffed) gorilla will leave his museum home for "plastic surgery" before relocating to South Lake Union, but his place in the new MOHAI remains up in the air.
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Naming Pioneer Square's alleys
Posted Mon, Dec 12, 2 a.m.
Cities are moving to reclaim and clean-up urban alleyways, and Pioneer Square is ground zero for Seattle's effort. One thing needed: names.
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The waterfront: keep kitsch alive
Posted Wed, Nov 30, 2 a.m.
Here's hoping the waterfront makeover resists attempts to sanitize. Another concern: not turning it into a second Seattle Center.
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The fight for Seattle's Federal Reserve bank
Posted Mon, Nov 28, 2 a.m.
Preservationists have won a round in their battle to save Seattle's old Federal Reserve building, despite the Fed's own efforts to sabotage the effort with a lame landmarks application.
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Kent Kammerer: Seattle loses its neighborhood 'Yoda'
Posted Mon, Nov 14, 3 p.m.
The late activist and writer loved talking to people, wherever he found them, and he served as ringmaster for a crucial level of civic debate in Seattle.
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Madison Park: If fences make good neighbors, what happens when you take one down?
Posted Mon, Nov 14, 2 a.m.
The affluent Seattle neighborhood is embroiled in a controversy over whether to remove a chain-link barrier on the lake shore in a public park.
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The Thirst of the People
Posted Wed, Nov 9, 3 p.m.
Liquor might be quicker, but dismantling the legacy of Prohibition has taken 80 years in Washington, accomplished mostly by initiative.
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Washington state needs Jobs, Steve Jobs
Posted Wed, Nov 2, 2 a.m.
The upcoming election is a reminder that corporate checkbooks and conventional thinking are not going to get us out of worsening messes.
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Mad Men were all the leadership in 1960s Seattle
Posted Fri, Oct 28, 2 a.m.
The city got things done back then, including a World's Fair.
READ MORE 11 COMMENTS
Knute "Skip" Berger is Mossback. In addition to writing and blogging for Crosscut, he is editor-at-large of Seattle magazine and a regular guest of Weekday with Steve Scher on NPR affiliate KUOW-FM (94.9). He is the author of Pugetopolis: A Mossback takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps and the Myth of Seattle Nice. In 2011, he was named Writer-in-Residence at the Space Needle and is currently writing the Needle's official 50th anniversary history. A Seattle native, Berger has long been a writer and editor for local magazines and newspapers. Most recently, he was editor-in-chief of Village Voice Media's Seattle Weekly from 2002 to 2006, where he wrote the award-winning Mossback column. Berger has also worked for the Hope Heart Institute and the Washington State Centennial Commission. He lives in Seattle.
Mossback Blog posts
Remembering Kent Kammerer
Posted Wed, Jan 4, 2 a.m.
A Jan. 6 memorial at MOHAI for writer, teacher, and neighborhood activist.
MORENo Expo for Ecotopia
Posted Sat, Nov 5, 11:48 p.m. 2011
As Seattle prepares to celebrate 50 years as the little expo city that could, the chance for a future fair in the USA is a long way off.
MOREThe elephant in the gloom
Posted Thu, Oct 20, 9 p.m. 2011
A major break-through on prehistoric hunting in North America is confirmed by a study of Sequim's Manis mastodon bone and spear point.
MOREClearing up a Mastodon mystery?
Posted Tue, Oct 18, 4 p.m. 2011
An impending report on Sequim's Manis Mastodon site may break 14,000-year-old news.
MOREAmazon CEO Bezos' $10 million gift to Seattle Museum
Posted Wed, Aug 17, 11:54 a.m. 2011
MOHAI is getting largest donation in its history.
MOREA writer's park
Posted Tue, Jul 26, 10 p.m. 2011
How the Bagley Wright memorial service inspires support for the idea of a shrine to Seattle writers.
MOREPushing the McGinn agenda, in 1962
Posted Thu, Jun 2, 6 a.m. 2011
A better Seattle? A plea for more bike paths, nightlife, and outdoor eating.
MORESounding the alarm for Tacoma's City Hall and our own Alcatraz
Posted Tue, May 24, 2 a.m. 2011
The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation releases its 2011 annual "Most Endangered" list.
MORENew agreement on Magnuson Park's Building 11
Posted Thu, May 19, 11:45 a.m. 2011
Seattle City Council will look at amended lease agreement on controversial private redevelopment at Magnuson Park.
MOREOsama in the 'burbs
Posted Thu, May 5, 2 a.m. 2011
It makes sense. What better place for privacy?
MOREDuwumps
An early name for Seattle was Duwumps, which reminds us of a time before civic pretension, "world-class" ambitions, and over-priced coffee. In that spirit, this news is collected as an antidote to Seattle hype. If you see stories that aid the cause of Lesser Seattle — or more positively, Greater Duwumps — send them to Mossback.
Classical music: frozen in its format A short history of how classical music concerts went from pretty raucous to way too reverential. Alex Ross writes: "this clockwork routine–reassuringly dependable or drearily predictable, depending on whom you ask–is of recent origin, and before 1900 concerts assumed a quite different form."
NEW YORKER |
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Sundance, the USA's most influential film festival, opens Thursday As usual, Sundance is an unstable compound of independent films and celebrity swag. Here's a list of this year's picks.
LOS ANGELES TIMES |
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Seattle's median home price: $500,000 "A worker would have to earn $57 an hour – about $119,000 a year – to afford that Seattle home, according to the Seattle chapter of the Urban Land Institute."
SEATTLE TIMES |
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The Manhattanizing of Seattle "The uproar years back was that part of Pike Place Market was being handed over to New York investors. Now it's the whole town."
SEATTLE WEEKLY |
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Mossbackism: It runs in the family Joni's husband Tim Egan weighs in: "We are said to be rootless in the Pacific Northwest, transient, not tied to place, with no accent or defining characteristics. To a degree, yes. But that doesn't mean we can't follow the advice of the poet Gary Snyder. He said: Find your place. Dig in. Defend it."
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER |
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