Rights / Ethics

Electing a black president has caused a rise in hate crimes, but no one is less popular than Godless blowhards.

Seattle's misguided gun ban

Posted Mon, Nov 17, 6 a.m.

Mayor Greg Nickels plans to defy state law with a gun ban that is worse than an empty gesture: It puts law-abiding citizens at greater risk.

Questioning the promise of change

Posted Fri, Nov 7, midnight

By Bryan Myrick

In the wake of the historic 2008 election, a conservative blogger asks: To what degree is President-elect Obama's victory a mandate for the changes he will attempt to make?

Evangelism meets Seattle: the view from Mars Hill

Posted Thu, Oct 30, midnight

By Jonathan Hiskes

Both the burgeoning church and an (unrelated) graduate school provide a perspective on how postmodern Christian movement churches are striking up conversations — and sparks — with mainstream culture.

Anger over the right to die

Posted Fri, Oct 24, midnight

If God wants to join the political debate over assisted suicide, he should expect a bloody nose.

How accurate is Battle in Seattle?

Posted Wed, Oct 1, 3 a.m.

By Jim Compton

A journalist and former Seattle City Council member who led the council's investigation into the WTO riots faults the film for claiming too much for the protesters. More disturbing was the picture of dreamy nonchalance in planning that the investigation revealed about City Hall and Seattle Police.

Taking 'Death with Dignity' lessons from Oregon

Posted Thu, Sep 18, 3 a.m.

By Floyd McKay

Washington state voters must soon make up their minds about I-1000, a measure supporting physician-assisted suicide, which appears on the ballot this November. Former Oregon Gov. Barbara Roberts championed a similar law in her home state and supports I-1000. Here's a look at the results of Oregon's law, passed in 1997, and the issues surrounding it.

Now, every governor is a 'commander'

Posted Mon, Sep 8, 10 p.m.

Are we supposed to salute Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin? A look at how Arizona Sen. John McCain is militarizing the quest for the presidency.

Northern fights

Posted Fri, Aug 22, 4 a.m.

By Bob Tkacz

Next in the Alaska scandals roundup: An errant senator's son and Troopergate. Part 2 of 2

The real games are in Alaska

Posted Thu, Aug 21, 4 a.m.

By Bob Tkacz

How to keep up with all the scandals rocking Alaska's government? A veteran Juneau politics reporter offers this primer. Part 1 of 2

Bellevue's 'Little Eichmann'

Posted Tue, Aug 12, 5 a.m.

Finding the banality of Nazi evil close to home.

The geekiest arsonist

Posted Wed, Jul 16, 3 p.m.

By Kim McDonald

Software engineer Jennifer Kolar is to be sentenced this week in federal court for her role in Earth Liberation Front arsons, including one at the University of Washington. Her time in prison will be reduced because she turned state's witness, but that doesn't mitigate the fact she is now regarded as a snitch by peers and could be labeled a terrorist by the government.

Fortunate freedom

Posted Thu, Jul 3, 11 p.m.

By Ted Van Dyk

Our citizenship must be exercised conscientiously and every day, especially at the local levels of government, where we can have the greatest effect.

You, anonymous

Posted Sat, Jun 28, midnight

By Charles Bermant

There's no practical way to enforce accountability on the Web, but a little peer pressure could help. Let's start signing our real names to the comments we post. It would elevate the discourse.

Lost in the blind alley of busing

Posted Mon, Jun 2, 2 p.m.

By Ted Van Dyk

The impetus for desegregation came from commendable civil rights-era reform attempts, but school busing to achieve ethnically diverse classrooms has largely failed. Understanding desegregation's history may shed light on what we can do right in the future.

ELF members gained nothing by the UW arson, and so much was lost

Posted Fri, May 30, 6 p.m.

By Valerie Easton

A former staff member of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture wonders why, seven years later, the crime makes no more sense than it did the morning Merrill Hall went up in flames.

The real battle in Seattle was one of futility

Posted Wed, May 21, 5 a.m.

By Daniel Jack Chasan

A fictional film account of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests opens the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival this week. Battle in Seattle might be spectacular for the action and drama it portrays, but the historical legacy of the actual events is something short of momentous. In the end, the anti-globalization movement went nowhere.

Annals of Northwest secession

Posted Tue, May 6, midnight

A primer of regional separatist movements, real and imagined.

Power to the people! It's in the constitution

Posted Thu, Apr 17, 5 a.m.

By Hugh Spitzer

A legal dispute about tinkering with Initiative 601's spending limits takes us back to the founding principles of the nation and the Washington constitution. Did you know Tim Eyman is a radical Whig?

Other media

Needing to make budget cuts, board turns to ethicist for advice The expert in Virginia tells the board to keep its promises to existing programs, not start new ones.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Obama and Warren: Two guys who need each other E.J. Dionne prays that inviting the evangelist to the inauguration is a risk worth taking

REAL CLEAR POLITICS

Rev. Warren on? Party off. Obama's problem isn't preachers, says Richard Cohen. It's moral leadership.

WASHINGTON POST

Ken Starr will defend California's gay marriage ban The lawyer famous for his pursuit of Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky affair, has been named lead counsel in defending Prop. 8, overturning California's gay marriage law.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Gay leaders angry at Obama's choice of Rick Warren at Inauguration They say having Warren deliver the invocation is an insult to the fight over the gay marriage ban in California.

POLITICO

Blog posts

Filling the polling void

Posted Wed, Dec 3, 3 p.m. 2008

by Mike Henderson

The story of the Federal Way kid who returned $10,000 he found in a bathroom makes its way into the national mania for polls. Are you ethical? (Yes or no.)

Closing the open season on trees

Posted Tue, Dec 2, 8:54 p.m. 2008

by Knute Berger

Seattle considers new, and over-due, limits of tree-cutting on private property.

Panda-monium

Posted Mon, Nov 24, 11 a.m. 2008

by Knute Berger

A life lesson: Don't try to hug Big Brother, even if he looks cuddly.

Sausage Links, HOV lane endorsement edition

Posted Mon, Oct 6, 1 p.m. 2008

The Seattle Times is recommending voters reject Initiative 985, the Tim Eyman-sponsored measure that would create a statewide "traffic congestion relief" fund, eliminate localized revenues for devices such as red-light cameras, and open HOV lanes during non-peak hours. The paper's editorial board writes, "I-985 is a poorly-packaged jumble of different agendas that will – please, listen carefully – worsen traffic in certain areas. It makes no sense to design a functioning, complicated traffic system by initiative." ...

Sausage Links, the big debate edition

Posted Thu, Oct 2, 1 p.m. 2008

So. Tonight's the big vice-presidential debate between Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Democratic Sen. Joe Biden. Which Palin will show up? Will we see the pitbull with lipstick or the incoherent Couric interviewee? It's anybody's guess. But with expectations already at rock-bottom, it's fair to assume she'll look better than many liberals think. What about Biden? As former Gore advisor Michael Feldman wrote in the Washington Post this morning, Biden's mission is not to screw it up. ...

Sausage Links, Buildergate edition

Posted Wed, Oct 1, 2:21 p.m. 2008

Liberal bloggers are delirious with joy about Buildergate, the series of allegations announced yesterday accusing Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi of directly and illegally soliciting funds from the Master Builder's Association in May 2007 to fund the Building Industry Association of Washington's "war chest." Both David Goldstein at Horse's Ass and Aaron Ostrom at FUSE call the memo a "smoking gun" and a game-changer for the hotly contested gubernatorial race.

Sausage Links, cheap shot edition

Posted Tue, Sep 30, 2:10 p.m. 2008

The folks at Horse's Ass report that while state Attorney General Rob McKenna has already filed suit against the Building Industry Association of Washington for multiple campaign finance violations, new evidence suggests that Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi may have "actively solicited funds" on behalf of the BIAW. If it's true it would be a deadly blow to Rossi's campaign. While the big papers haven't yet caught on, I guarantee you'll be reading about "buildergate" tomorrow. ...

Sausage Links, skeptical journalists' edition

Posted Wed, Sep 24, 1:16 p.m. 2008

"Journalists, start your skepticism." That was the tagline from a letter to Romenesko yesterday from David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on tax policy. It's worth a read. Johnston cautions reporters not to "assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact," nor to accept "what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors." ...

'Death with dignity' vs. 'physician-assisted suicide'

Posted Wed, Sep 24, 10:07 a.m. 2008

by Floyd McKay

Words often have powerful meaning, and the debate over terminology used in a ballot measure and in news reports could well determine the fate of Washington's Initiative 1000, known by its supporters as "death with dignity" and by critics and some in the media as "physician-assisted suicide" or simply "assisted suicide."

Sausage Links, abandon ship edition

Posted Tue, Sep 23, 1:54 p.m. 2008