Archives for May 2009

In theory, I’m not opposed to the installation of red light cameras. We have some pretty dangerous intersections down in my South Seattle neighborhood, and anecdotally, I’m pretty sure drivers started erring on the side of caution when a red light camera was installed at Rainier and Orca.  But I was pretty damn surprised to find a notice of infraction in my mail, as I tend to be a cautious driver.

The top photo shows my car in the foreground, edging into a cross walk at yellow light.  The second photo shows a red light with the tail of my car just barely in the right hand edge of the frame, after having made a right turn.  Interestingly, while the top photo clearly shows a yellow light, the text at the top indicates that the light has already been red for 0.1 seconds, suggesting some sort of timing problem with equipment.

The infraction notice states:

“The photographs and video recording taken together show that … the vehicle operator was facing a steady circular red signal when the operator failed to stop the vehicle at clearly marked stop line or other stopping point described in the ordinance.”

I haven’t been able to view the video on the web site yet, as it doesn’t seem to work on my Mac, so I’m not sure at what point the light turned from yellow to red, though legally, I’m not sure if it matters.  It’s hard to believe that an officer would ever have pulled me over for taking a right on a stale yellow… but then I’m a guy whose only two previous traffic tickets in thirty years of driving were for going 61 in a 55 on the New Jersey Turnpike, and for going 38 in a 30 at 5am on an empty Rainier Ave., on the way to the airport to fly home for my father’s funeral… so shit like this tends to stick to me.

In any case, I’d love the advice of folks more expert at these issues. Is this really hard evidence of a violation?  And if not, should I request a mitigation hearing or a hearing to contest the infraction? (The infraction notice does a crappy job of explaining the difference.)

UPDATE:
I finally got to see the video and it clearly shows the light yellow at the time I enter the intersection, but turning red while my car is still in it making a right turn.  So from what I understand, I guess technically, that’s a violation, if only by a split second.

Again, I’m not opposed to Red Light Cameras, as I believe they’ve proven to be effective traffic safety tools, but I hope city officials understand how frustrating they can be.  Drivers make judgment calls all the time, whether to stop or continue at a yellow light based on speed, road conditions, other vehicles, etc—for example, continuing through a stale yellow on an icy street can be safer than applying the breaks.

Likewise, officers make subjective calls all the time as to whether to pull a vehicle over, or issue a warning instead of a ticket.  Viewing the video, I was not driving unsafely.  There were no pedestrians near the crosswalk, I was driving at a safe speed (ironically, had I sped up, I would have avoided the ticket), and I didn’t interfere with the cars that had the left arrow. As I wrote previously, I doubt an officer at the scene would have pulled me over.

And that’s part of the frustration about the cameras… there’s nothing subjective about them.  Being a half-second too slow just cost me $124.00, and didn’t make the streets any safer.  So while I disagree with those who characterize red light cameras as cynical revenue tools, from personal experience, I certainly can empathize with the sentiment.

Sound Transit yesterday released its preferred alignment for East Link light rail. (Click the image to enlarge.)

The plan includes the possibility of a Bellevue tunnel, but leaves it up to the folks in Bellevue to find the extra money. And as Ben at Seattle Transit Blog notes:

There is no money for section E. Money Bellevue might find for section C will not make section E affordable – that’s the city’s choice to fund their own tunnel, and has no bearing on Sound Transit’s budget. Also note that section D ends smack in the middle of Microsoft campus, at Overlake Transit Center.

Meanwhile, only 64 days to go before the first segment of Link Light Rail opens between Tukwila station and downtown Seattle.

That’s ironic… a daily newspaper telling Craigslist how to run its business:

This page has said in the past that Craigslist does the community a disservice by continuing to traffic in content no reputable media company would touch. Craigslist must be held accountable.

Huh.  So does the Seattle Times do the community a disservice by repeatedly moralizing about Craigslist, without offering the disclaimer that its current financial struggles are largely due to Craigslist stealing away its lucrative classified ad business?

Fascinating and somewhat long article from New York Times economics reporter Edmund L. Andrews about how he and his wife managed to run up tons of mortgage and credit card debt.

While one has to applaud Andrews’ courage in writing the article, certain bits have an almost surreal quality.

Between humongous loan balances and high rates, we had hung ourselves with the rope they gave us. In the previous December alone, we charged $2,845 on the Chase card for Christmas gifts, food, gasoline, clothing and other expenses. The charges included almost $350 for groceries, $700 in clothes from J. Crew, $179 at GapKids and $700 for airplane tickets for two of Patty’s children to visit their father in Los Angeles. Our balance climbed from $14,118 to $17,135, and in January 2006 we maxed out at our $19,000 credit limit. And there were other expenses on other cards: $1,200 in dental work for Patty’s son Ben; $1,600 to rent a beach house the previous year for us and all the children. Granted, the beach house was an embarrassing mistake. But given that Patty had landed a solid job, it seemed like an indulgence we could work off later.

Obviously this man has been coming to terms with stuff, so good for him.

Everyone knows stuff costs money, and lots of circumstances can cause difficulties. Andrews was divorced and paying alimony and child support, but people have difficulties due to illness and all sorts of other life events as well.

But good lord, if you spent $700 at J. Crew while drowning in debt, you had a problem. My kin ate squirrels, catfish and possum during the Great Depression, and while I’ve managed to avoid that particular experience, the wisdom my ancestors passed on about not wasting things and living within one’s means does come to mind. Somehow my kids have been clothed just fine at Fred Meyer and Target.

The key point to take away from the article is that the banksters became societal faith healers, temporarily solving problems with suspect mortgages and HELOCS. Whether it was lust for a woman or lust for material goods, the banksters could rub that out for you.

Tons of people needed to make their self-worth about material things that they couldn’t afford. It’s sad, but it’s true.

Don’t get me wrong, our family has stuff, we like our stuff, and many times I try to impress upon our kids how lucky we are to have stuff. But in the end it’s just stuff. Well, it’s stuff we paid for either with cash or with a credit card that is paid off monthly, excluding the mortgage and one car loan at a time.

If you’re buying tens of thousands of dollars of other stuff on credit, you have a problem. And the banksters will gladly give you a lap dance in hopes of making you feel better about yourself.

The speculative orgy wasn’t, in the end, about capitalism, economics or any other “rational” endeavor, it was about selling the supposed good life to anyone who would fall for it. Never mind that the granite counter tops are too expensive, or that the BMW adds too much to the monthly budget. The banksters were gyrating, the music was loud and tomorrow was for the suckers who play by the rules.

For some reason, many otherwise rational people needed to scratch an itch, and the time period coincided with the reign of George W. Bush. The excessive materialism and condescension towards us were part of the same social malignancy that yielded the invasion of Iraq, the Schiavo madness and the indifference to massive suffering after Hurricane Katrina.

A society doesn’t go mad in one little corner, it goes mad everywhere. The mindset that excuses torture can easily excuse a few little financial excesses, can’t it?

Interestingly, those who were conservative in their personal lives and finances probably didn’t get hit so bad. Funny how that works out.

(Props to Atrios for noticing the article.)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hq5ivYUFKA[/youtube]

Personally, I kinda dread the inconvenience of the Seattle’s proposed bag fee, and I’ll certainly mourn the loss of the paper grocery bags I now reuse to collect recycling and food waste… but fuck the astro-turfers at the American Chemistry Council.  I mean, fuck ’em.

You may be surprised to learn that I don’t necessarily disagree with today’s Seattle Times editorial urging voters to “stick with electing council members citywide.” But while there are strong arguments on both sides of the district elections issue, it’s too bad that the Times tends to focus on the weak ones.

The typical pitch for the change is to encourage more candidates who can raise sufficient campaign cash to run for office and let neighborhood voices be heard more clearly.

Election 2009 has more candidates running for council than any time in recent memory. At last count, 14 challengers were seeking two open seats or taking on incumbents. Many are solid candidates.

Define “solid candidate.” Nearly half of the challengers have declared for the same open seat, and most serious political observers would describe only a handful of the candidates as solid. And no disrespect to either Jesse Israel or David Ginsberg, but unless they can crank the fundraising up to eleven, I doubt incumbents Nick Licata and Richard Conlin will ever feel particularly threatened.

At best, this slate represents a triumph of quantity over quality, yet even with that caveat still qualifies as one of the strongest fields in years. For whatever reason, recruiting dynamic council candidates has proven more difficult than pulling teeth, and this cycle’s atypical surge in political lemmings does little to recommend the current citywide system.

The council is neither stagnant nor a place of minimum turnover. In 2007, Bruce Harrell and Tim Burgess joined after running citywide. Both are solid additions.

I forgot Bruce Harrell was even on the council, and while there’s no doubt that Tim Burgess ranks as one of the most competant challengers to run in recent memory, he defeated the polar opposite in the form of David Della. The 2007 cycle did not produce an inspiring field, and likewise does little to recommend citywide elections.

The city needs experts in broader, complicated areas, such as electricity and land use. Members elected by district are programmed to fight for a neighborhood, not a more encompassing citywide interest.

And we’re electing those electricity and land use experts now?  Successful politicians tend to be generalists, which is why they hire experts to advise them and run specific departments. Besides, why exactly would an expert be less likely to come from a neighborhood district?  Our neighborhoods don’t have electricity or land?

“The bedrock of good government is cooperation, not Balkanization,” said George Allen, senior vice president for government relations at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

Uh-oh… the business establishment is arguing to maintain the status quo. Now you’re really beginning to lose me.

I voted against district elections the last time it was on the ballot, but after reading this Times editorial I may be leaning the other way. This proposal is less drastic than the last, electing five council members by district, while retaining four at-large seats, so it theoretically balances the best and worst features of both systems. And I’m not so sure that adding a few narrowly focused neighborhood voices would be a bad thing for a council whose culture of polite cooperation has left it incapable of serving as a necessary check and balance on our politically adept mayor and his ruthless henchmen.

Or maybe not. The most dubious claim I’ve heard from district proponents is that it would help take the influence of money out of the election equation. Yeah… right. In fact, just the opposite might be true.  Smaller, lower profile, district elections would provide a juicy target for political consultants and wealthy special interests, creating demographically condensed races in which a large donation or an even larger independent expenditure could have a lot more impact than in a citywide contest.

But regardless of all the arguments pro and con, my instinct tells me that the debate may be moot. The previous measure just barely failed after little if any campaign on its behalf, and in our current, Obama-inspired, reformist political climate, I’m guessing that this new district/at-large hybrid proposal will be damn hard to beat without a well-financed campaign against it… and damn better rhetoric than we saw today in the Seattle Times.

Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both Washington state Democrats, make Firedoglake’s list of “Democrats for Loan Sharking” for voting against credit card rate caps.

In the old days charging absurdly high interest rates was called “usury” and it was a crime. Not so much any more. Wouldn’t want to spook the stock market or the bankster lobbyists. The vultures no longer need thugs and guns, they wear Armani suits and stalk elected officials.

Meanwhile, if you find yourself unable to pay off a credit card charging 21% or more interest, well, that’s just too damn bad for you. What are you going to do about it, ordinary American? Vote for someone else? Who would that be? The game is rigged, at least on the economic front.

Our chief product in this country is debt.

Newly confirmed drug czar Gil Kerlikowske sounds ready to start fixing the decades-long disaster known as the drug war:

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

I think Kerlikowske, the Obama Administration, and the traditional media are going to be surprised at how uncontroversial it is to take this stance. And not just here in Seattle, but across the country. People are sick and tired of this war and all the violence it causes. More and more Americans understand the relationship between the drug war and the unraveling of Mexico and recognize that what we’re dealing with is equivalent to what we dealt with during alcohol prohibition. You can tell how unpopular the drug war is becoming when news outlets have to resort to Stephen Baldwin to provide counterpoints against the reformers.

Seattle Port Commission candidate Rob Holland joins the podcast, prompting Goldy to ask, “What the hell is the Port of Seattle?” Rob offers an overview of the Port and shares his vision for the Port’s future.

The panel then takes on the outrageous, inflammatory, tasteless, over-the-top routine of Wanda Sykes at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. Doesn’t this just prove that Republicans flat-out lack a sense of humor?

What is this world coming to when a lawyer makes charges of libel and defamation against a lowly blogger and demands the removal of an old post? Get the inside story, in which Goldy graciously declines to both remove the post and “out” the offending attorney.

Goldy was joined by Seattle Port Commission candidate Rob Holland, Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard, and Horsesass contributor (and brand new dad) Lee.

The show is 45:25, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_may_12_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Not sure how I missed this, it’s probably because the ridiculous nature of Republican antics has reached such heights (or depths) that “self-parody” doesn’t even do it justice.

It seems the Republican National Committee is on the verge of passing a resolution “rebranding” the Democratic Party as (ahem) the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

And yippee, there’s a Washington State connection, in the form of Republican National committee member Jeff Kent. From The Democratic Strategist:

Here’s how the sponsor of the resolution, Jeff Kent from Washington State, explained its rationale a few weeks ago:

There is nothing more important for our party than bringing the truth to bear on the Democrats’ march to socialism. Just like Ronald Reagan identifying the U.S.S.R. as the evil empire was the beginning of the end to Soviet domination, we believe the American people will reject socialism when they hear the truth about how the Democrats are bankrupting our country and destroying our freedom and liberties.

I don’t know what’s more offensive: the idea of identifying the Democratic Party, which the American people elected to run Congress and the executive branch just six months ago, with the Soviet Union, or the idea that Ronald Reagan brought about the collapse of the Soviet bloc through a magic spell. All in all, the highly adolescent nature of Kent’s thinking is illustrated not only by this comic-book historical revisionism, but by his insistence on retaining in his version of the “Evil Empire” the little-boy-taunt of dropping the last syllable from the adjective “Democratic.”

What’s awesome, as Atrios points out, is that it’s not even worth getting mad about, and it would be even funnier if the media bites, because the more the GOP implodes like this, the more political space there may be someday for actual progressive reforms to take hold.

Every time you think “surely the Republicans will come to their senses at least a little bit,” it seems they just gin up a whole new level of crazy.

Thanks, Jeff, or should I say “Mr. Poobah?”

My guess is Jim Vesely retired as editorial page editor at The Seattle Times because he couldn’t take the socialism.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state’s troubled newspaper industry.

The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state’s main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.

I’m sure there was nothing else that could have been done with the money.

It’s going to be entertaining as hell now to watch newspaper editorial boards in this state pump out their usual anti-union, anti-consumer pap now that they’re big-time freeloaders. The cognitive dissonance may put brains in jeopardy all over the state.

Also, kids, your tuition is going up 28%, but it’s okay, you can still get a job throwing dead trees. Our spot as a regressive-taxation, low-services state is very secure. You didn’t need a first rate education for that anyhow.

My crystal ball is digging out the sleeping bags in hopes of some Spring recreation, assuming any parks are still open, but in the past voters have sometimes become quite annoyed when the rich and powerful get special treatment from politicians. Voters tend to overlook it when the economy is humming along, not so much when they’re getting screwed by everyone from their employers to the credit card companies to the state government.

Oh well, we all knew one party rule can’t last forever. It’s a shame we couldn’t accomplish much on the economic front. But that’s what happens when power for its own sake becomes the overriding consideration, the power brokers win. Go figure.

But at least nobody “overreached,” because to do that you have to reach in the first place.

Now scoot your desk over and make room.

Seattle Times editorial page editor Jim Vesely is retiring Friday.

HA regulars might have started to suspect by now that, while I’m an avid reader, I’m not always a 100 percent fan of his editorial page’s opinions or rhetorical tactics. But I’ve never met the man, so I can’t really argue with Times’ publisher Frank Blethen when he describes Vesely as “one of the … most decent people I have had the privilege to work with.”  Enjoy the fly-fishing Jim.

But while I don’t have much to say about Vesely himself, I am intrigued by the closing line in the lengthy editorial heaping praise on the man and his career:

The Times has not yet named a successor for Vesely.

Hey Frank… I think it’s well past time for another mid-life crisis, and I’m exactly the person to lead your editorial page through it. Get in touch.  You know how to reach me.

UPDATE:
Over at Publicola, Sandeep’s got a good summation of the Times’ editorial leanings under Vesely, and where the page might move under his successor.

Former Navy Seal, professional wrestler, and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has some opinions about Bush, Cheney, Powell, and waterboarding:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoqmH49VBC0[/youtube]

Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier for dinner.

Drinking Liberally is now an officially designated place of sanctuary in the Republican’s War on Empathy™.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXCK-jQxLo[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 332 chapters of Drinking Liberally sprinkled across the globe.