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ALL MEMBERS »Last year, after 13 years of performing Renaissance choral music, Seattle's Tudor Choir announced it was going into semi-hibernation. That was sad news, for the choir is very good, led by a true scholar-musician of this glorious English choral music, Doug Fullington. It had become a mainstay of Seattle's early music scene, perhaps the most vital of the local musical groupings.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWI hate gratuitous political mission statements, like the kind Greg Nickels attaches to public works signs. With the election nigh, I attended a dinner of political junkies and in going through the ballot stumbled upon Seattle Charter Amendment No. 17. What does this momentous amendment do? It adds a "preamble" to the city charter. In effect, a corporate mission statement.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWRetiring from his post next January, Seattle City Council member Peter Steinbrueck has virtually closed the door on running for Mayor in 2009. Instead, he's going to be taking a job in the private sector, one that meets his four objectives for a new job, which he describes this way: "integrated design disciplines, mission-driven around urban sustainability, global, and leaving freedom to advocate near and far." Steinbrueck said to me over lunch a few weeks ago that he has "clear misgiving about another run for elective office. I'm moving on folks, at least for a while. One can pursue civic endeavors and fight the good fight (and I intend to continue to do so!) in different ways and try to still have a life."
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWA magazine with the annoying title of 02138 (that being the zip code for Cambridge, Mass, around Harvard) grew a little testy about how elite Harvard is, even though the magazine is aimed squarely at Harvard alumni. So they did an article making some comparisons, with a surprising winner in the elitism sweepstakes: Seattle's Fire Department.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWIt isn't very sporting to point out that Portland had the foresight to plan miles of rail corridors in less time than it took Seattle to reach consensus on that all-important question, "Should Pine Street be open to vehicular traffic?" So, instead let's point out that around Portland, 70 percent of the TriMet riders have access to cars and choose to take public transit instead. That last figure, dear gridlock victim, is key.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWThe Seattle Streetcar was unveiled with Greg Nickels at the controls. After some weeks of testing, the streetcar named streetcar, and not named SLUT, will begin carrying regular passengers.
READ MORE | 9 COMMENTSTime to stop the teeth-gnashing at City Hall. SLUT is here to stay. Without an ounce of forethought, Seattle has stumbled onto one of the hallmarks of a proper big city: a memorable mass-transit name. The Underground, Metro, Desire, BART, Sky Train, Broadway Local, The MTA. These are names that stick in your brain. Names that evoke citizens on the move in important cities. Names that mean something. Not a tortured acronym in the lot.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWPR Newswire, that busy source of tips and announcements that fills our e-mail boxes just as press releases used to fill those wire in-baskets, has some highly relevant-to-blogging content. Survey results passed on by the wire service show that Austin leads the nation in blogger-residents, with Portland (Oregon, not the colder one with the real port and affordable real estate in the Northeast) San Francisco and Seattle coming in next. Spokane makes an appearance well down the chart.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWIdaho Sen. Larry Craig may be the most despised politician in America. But in Seattle, the most reviled figure in politics must be Tim Eyman, the king of Washington initiatives. So there was much surprise in the editorial Sunday in The Seattle Times endorsing Eyman's latest measure, Initiative 960, which would make it more difficult for state government to raise taxes. "We think it would have a wake up effect on legislators," said the editorial. Curiously, the editorial made no mention of Eyman himself. It may be a case of loving the sin but not the sinner.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWMetro King County Executive Ron Sims is politico non grata in powerful circles after he defected from the supporters of Proposition 1, the $18 billion roads-and-transit measure on the ballot next week. Sims helped craft the proposals, voted for them all along, didn't even threaten a veto as the measure cleared the King County Council, and then jumped ship. That infuriated the backers and many other politicians.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOWCrosscut adds an associate publisher, more writers and new partners, and dives into the blogosphere. Here's our month seven progress report, along with some ways you can help us improve and get into the act yourself.
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He better, because in his commentaries for The Seattle Times he set a pretty high bar for his performance.
READ MORE | 1 COMMENTSMy neighborhood has been blanketed with anti-Prop. 1 literature. I received two door-knob hangers from the Sierra Club. One shows a worried-looking polar bear with the headline: "Make our politicians come up with a new plan that doesn't make global warming worse." They could have used the old National Lampoon cover strategy and pointed a gun to its head saying, "Vote against Prop. 1 or this bear dies!" But that might have proved a little less than subtle.
READ MORE | COMMENT NOW"HELLO, THIS IS DENNIS BOUNDS FROM KING 5 NEWS." Dennis and I worked together at KING-TV in the 1990s. He doesn't need to tell me who he is. Although he's a little loud in my ear, he's a nice man, straightforward; viewers unfortunately miss out on seeing his cowboy boots very often.
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