Archives for April 2010

Probably just a lone crazy, right?

Several federal officials say the man made dozens of calls to Pelosi’s homes in California and Washington, as well as to her husband’s business office, reciting her home address and saying if she wanted to see it again, she would not support the health care overhaul bill that was recently enacted.

Yeah, I’m sure the increasingly violent and eliminationist rhetoric washing through the Teabagger movement had absolutely nothing to do with this. Or this. Or this.

From The Spokesman-Review:

Federal authorities are investigating the discovery 10 days ago of an improvised explosive device found next to the Thomas S. Foley U.S. Courthouse in downtown Spokane but had not alerted the public until today based upon a direct inquiry by The Spokesman-Review.

The device was located in the late evening of Sunday, March 28, said Tom Rice, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington.

The Feds won’t say much more than that at this point, because the investigation is apparently ongoing. Not much point in speculating, but coming the day after the arrest of the would-be Murray assassin, I think we owe a “thank you” to the federal agents who devote their professional careers to defending the Constitution and our democracy.

MORE–In comments at the S-R, a reporter seems to confirm that the newspaper started asking about this “IED” because of an article in the current issue of Newsweek about the Hutaree militia.

Less well publicized has been a string of other incidents. In recent weeks an improvised explosive device was discovered outside the federal courthouse in Spokane, Wash.; a man wielding four knives was arrested at the Daley Center in Chicago; and members of a militant white-supremacist group called the White Wolves were arrested for allegedly assembling explosive devices in southern Connecticut. “We’re seeing a continued escalation in threats,” says Michael Prout, assistant director of the U.S. Marshals Service. The FBI is especially concerned about “lone offenders,” who are hard to catch because they do not join known groups but are nonetheless moved to commit violent acts by the incendiary messages on extremist Web sites. The bureau has quietly set up a program aimed at identifying such characters by keeping a watch on Internet chat rooms and purchases of weapons and explosive devices.

The Podcast opens with a discussion of the proposed Chihuly “museum,” titled Chihuly at the Needle. The panel discusses whether a for-profit gallery of glass art is a suitable use of an urban space that is currently dedicated to family-oriented activities. Goldy outlines his Really Kick Ass Playground alternative, and (perhaps more importantly) suggests a realistic funding mechanism. The panel considers alternative sites for a Chihuly “museum”.

[29:50] The conversation then turns to the political news of the day: the arrest of Charles Alan Wilson for making death threats against Sen. Patty Murray. Was Mr. Wilson a lone nutcase? Or was he inspired by some larger cultural phenomena…like, say, the violent wingnut teabagger movement and their surrogates in hate-talk media (with an assist from the Republican party)? The panel explores the logical outcome of that second possibility.

Goldy was joined by Peace Tree Farm’s N in Seattle, Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard, and me.

The show is 47:25, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_apr_6_2010.mp3]

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

Charles Alan Wilson, the crazed, concealed-weapon-toting righty charged with threatening the life of U.S. Senator Patty Murray, apparently attended a Tea Party rally outside a Murray event in Yakima, only days before his arrest:

On April 1, the previous Thursday, over 100 tea party protesters rallied outside a Murray appearance at the Greater Yakima Chamber of Commerce, according to a report in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

In the April 4 message, Wilson allegedly said:

“Oh, you were in Yakima last week. How come you didn’t give a big speech to the people outside waiting to see you? Yeah, we were outside waiting for you, hopefully you would come out and explain to us how come this health-care bill that you rallied on so highly is going to create the biggest drain in American history.”

One can only imagine the tragedy had Murray addressed the small crowd of angry Teabaggers. “I do pack, and I will not blink when I’m confronted. … It’s not a threat, it’s a guarantee,” Wilson later told an undercover FBI agent.

The official Tea Party folks claim Wilson was never a member, and of course disavow his threats after the fact, but that’s not really the point. Condemning the actions of those inspired by one’s hate-filled, violent rhetoric, while continuing the rhetoric unchanged, is meaningless. Charles Alan Wilson is the logical product of the radio and TV hate-talkers, the Teabagger fervor and their sponsors in the Republican establishment. Wilson may be a malignant tumor on the Teabagger movement, but he’s their tumor.

I’ll save the bible study for Sunday morning, but my advice to Rob McKenna, Dino Rossi and other ambitious Republicans hoping the embrace of the Teabaggers might boost their electoral fortunes is to choose their friends wisely.

Scott Morgan, one of my favorite bloggers, also works to produce valuable videos that explain your rights whenever being pulled over by police. Here’s a preview they’ve put out for their latest video – 10 Rules for Dealing with Police.

How Will The End Of Print Journalism Affect Old Loons Who Hoard Newspapers?

Join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 352 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Some folks might be alarmed by the arrest of a Selah, WA man for repeatedly threatening to kill U.S. Senator Patty Murray in response to her vote for health care reform, but really, nobody should be surprised when the most unhinged elements of our far right have been egged on for months by their fellow Teabaggers, by hate-talkers like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, and even by Republican elected officials.

Demonize your opponents too thoroughly, vocalize your call to arms too literally, and somebody is bound to act. When Sean Hannity lauds the “Tim McVeigh wannabes” to raucous applause, or an Asotin Teabagger gathering breaks into peals of laughter at the mention of hanging Sen. Murray, well what’s a patriot like Charles Alan Wilson to think? This is clearly acceptable rhetoric in Republican circles today, so why wouldn’t it be acceptable behavior?

“I do pack, and I will not blink when I’m confronted. … It’s not a threat, it’s a guarantee,” Wilson told an FBI agent posing as a representative of the health insurance industry-backed anti-reform group Patients United Now. Wilson himself may no longer be a threat, but there’s no reason to believe he’s the only angry, concealed-weapon-toting winger out there eager to make himself a martyr to the cause of liberty, and the next one might not be so courteous as to provide the FBI a traceable record of threatening phone calls in advance.

U.S. Senators and Representatives do not generally travel with security, so it wouldn’t be too hard for even a modestly determined armed assassin to get to Sen. Murray, especially during a campaign-stop-heavy election year… a morbid thought that occurred to me just last week as I stood a mere ten feet away from two Senators, two Representatives and a Governor who had no idea whether that lump in my jacket was a video camera or a gun. (For the record, it was the former.) So while Wilson’s threat should come as no surprise considering his party’s hopped up level of partisan rancor, neither should an actual attempt.

In this context I wonder at what point allegedly mainstream politicians like Dino Rossi and Rob McKenna will stop fighting amongst themselves for the Tea Party mantle, and start condemning the hateful, violent rhetoric that fuels its base? A little more than a week ago McKenna basked in the glory of a Teabagger rally that vilified Democrats as “gangsters,” “socialists,” “fascists” and worse. McKenna’s mere presence was a tacit approval of the hateful signs being waved in front of him, and while his own words may have been carefully chosen he said nothing to condemn those that were not.

You know… the kinda words that inspire the likes of Charles Alan Wilson to murder a U.S. Senator.

I started this post intending to challenge Rossi and McKenna to condemn the violent and dangerous rhetoric of the Tea Party — an angry rabble that clearly fantasizes themselves armed revolutionaries by the very name they adopt — but the more I consider this incident and what it portends, the more I’m willing to let them off with just this warning: there will be violence, and if it comes at the hands or the goading of the far-right-wing base you court, you will be morally culpable for the political cover you have provided.

And that, I hope, is a calculated political risk even Dino Rossi and Rob McKenna wouldn’t be willing to take.

Sorry to step on Goldy’s post, but this kind of crap is getting old. A Selah man named Charles Alan Wilson has been charged with making death threats against Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., according to the P-I:

The criminal complain says Wilson called Murray’s office multiple times between March 22 and April 4 and left threatening messages. He said Murray “had a target on her back” and that he would help others in trying to kill Murray, a Washington Democrat.

Health-care reform was the reason for his anger.

Trying to get people access to freaking health care is not a reason to go around issuing threats of deadly violence. Responsible people know that. Responsible people will decry this and will speak out against violence and threats of violence in our political system. And it better not be any half-assed, “nudge nudge, wink wink, we want you to keep doing it” bullshit.

UPDATE 1:30 PM PDT–From Talking Points Memo:

In the conversation with the FBI agent, Wilson allegedly bragged about regularly carrying a .38 — which the FBI says it later confirmed, along with the fact that Wilson has a valid concealed weapons permit.

Wilson allegedly told the agent that Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) “need to be strung up, and I mean put [in] the gallows.” He called the two senators “Pike Street whores” and referred to Murray as “sneaker shoes Murray.”

Yuck. Just yuck.

After this individual is granted all his Constitutional and legal rights, including a trial by a jury of his peers if he wants it, should he be convicted I hope he gets the maximum sentence, which appears to be 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine. We’ll see who he thinks is the “whore” at that point.

Say what you want about the Fun Forest — call it seedy, call it run-down, call it a “tired” relic as former Mayor Greg Nickels once derided it — but there’s no disputing that this five acre amusement park at the foot of the Space Needle was a nearly unique urban amenity, and one of downtown Seattle’s rare, family-friendly attractions for almost half a century. And that is why I insist that any plan to replace the Fun Forest must both honor that tradition, and recognize the very real loss its closure represents to the young families who have frequented it for generations.

Backers of a paid-admission Chihuly “museum” conveniently present empty asphalt as the status quo, but the public land they seek to enclose — nearly two-fifths of the Fun Forest site — has been dedicated to amusing children since 1962, and thus their proposal represents a dramatic shift in land use that would upset the balance of the attractions at the Seattle Center, while forever changing its perceived character. I mean, honestly, can one get any more antithetical to an amusement park than a museum of glass, or as my daughter and I have taken to calling it, the “Look, Don’t Touch Museum.”

Chihuly backers argue that there are plenty of other family-friendly attractions at the Center — the Children’s Museum, the Children’s Theater, the Science Center and the various events and festivals that take place there throughout the year — but this myopic accounting fails to see the fun forest for the trees. My daughter and I and our friends didn’t frequent the Center for any one attraction, but for the entire ecosystem of available activities, flitting from one to another as befitted the season and the attention span of our children at whatever particular age.

No, we never went to the Seattle Center for the Fun Forest, but we almost never left without blowing a few bucks on a ride or three. Likewise, we never went just to splash in the International Fountain, or just to run through the same tired, old exhibits at the Children’s Museum, or just to wade through the crowds at the Bite of Seattle. We went for the entire experience, of which the Fun Forest was almost always an important part. And I can assure you that without the Fun Forest, or some comparable, fun, family-friendly attraction, we would have visited the Seattle Center (and spent our money there) less often.

And that’s a bit of math the Chihuly backers ignore when they tally up the revenue their gallery/cafe/gift shop would supposedly generate for the Center and the city. The Fun Forest was an attraction that could be visited again and again and again, while the typical Seattle family might pay the hefty admission fees to drag their kids through a glass museum maybe once if that. Afterwards it becomes just another building to walk by on the way to something more interesting and fun… as useful to the typical Center visitor as the empty asphalt the “museum’s” boosters insist is the only alternative.

What almost nobody in this debate is willing to acknowledge is that we are losing something in the closing of the Fun Forest, and while I’m not so quixotic as to fight for retaining the site as is, I’ll fight until the end to save the spirit of what the Fun Forest represents, and to convince the powers that be that we need more public space dedicated toward amusing children, not less. From a child’s perspective, the closure of the Fun Forest, as seedy, run-down, tired and déclassé as it might be, leaves a huge gaping hole in our urban landscape… a void that the proposed glass “museum” simply cannot fill.

So when I tout my proposal for a Really Kick-Ass Playground and the targeted Really Kick-Ass Playground Levy to fund it, this is the spirit in which it is offered. Not a spirit that rejects cultural and art — for as many of the examples I have cited prove, a playground can be just as much a showcase for art as any museum — but a spirit that embraces the notion of play.

We have an opportunity to remake the Fun Forest into the most unique, innovative and fun urban “playground” in the nation… a vision that should not be limited to the usual images evoked by the word I loosely place in quotes. Or, we could decide we want a Seattle Center that’s notably less fun and less family friendly than it has been since its inception, and just get out of the Wright family’s way.

Put to the ballot, even at the cost of a eight or nine bucks a year, I’m pretty damn sure I know which way Seattle would vote.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, I live in the most diverse zip code in the nation.

Not the city, not the state, but the nation. And it’s right here in Seattle of all places. Who knew?

Actually, the folks down here in the Rainier Valley knew, and despite the sudden spate of news articles on it, it’s something we’ve proudly proclaimed for years. This distinction is based on old census data, not the new census that’s currently being conducted, and dollars to donuts our zip code has only grown more diverse over the intervening years… as has our nation.

So hop on the light rail and come visit our neck of the woods once in awhile, and have a glimpse at America’s future.

Curious to meet Democratic congressional challenger Suzan DelBene? Well, she’ll be at the Newport Hills chapter of Drinking Liberally tonight at the Mustard Seed, 7:00 PM, 5608 119th Ave. SE.

As for the incumbent Dave Reichert, I don’t believe he’s invincible, and I don’t believe we’re on the verge of a big red wave. An anti-incumbent wave, maybe. But not overtly anti-Democratic, at least not around these parts. And I honestly don’t believe Reichert’s no vote on HCR will help him in November.

Last week I constructively proposed three alternate locations that might be better suited to a Chihuly museum than a couple acres of public land designated as open space, and in the comment thread HA readers offered several additional suggestions. But according to The Stranger’s Cienna Madrid, such reasonable conversation is apparently a nonstarter:

[Space Needle CEO Ron] Sevart insists that the Space Needle has not, and will not, consider another location for the project (although the Wright family could certainly afford it).

That’s because far from the “gift” to the city many Chihuly backers claim it to be, this project is first a foremost a for-profit venture, and there is undeniable synergy between the existing Space Needle businesses and what they are describing as “Chihuly at The Needle.”

As I’ve mentioned before, in addition to the overpriced/undercheffed restaurant at the top, the Wrights operate a bustling catering business out of the Skyline banquet facility, and the proposed Chihuly “museum” would instantly become one of the hottest catering halls in the city. But I’m sure the prospect of offering a “discounted” joint admission fee to both the Space Needle and the Chihuly museum would be lucrative as well. Rather than paying $17 for the Needle and $15 for Chihuly, $25 might get you in to see them both… and the Wrights up their average ticket by nearly 50% over what they’re getting now.

Sweet.

Meanwhile, Cienna and I aren’t the only “journalists” weighing in against the project, with Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat bucking his own editorial board, and calling out the proposed Chihuly “museum” for what it really is:

See the problem here, Seattle Center? Your Chihuly gallery is the anti-fireworks. It’s exclusive. The campaign for it is canned.

If we’re going to have a museum, can we at least broaden it beyond the overexposed Chihuly? And with a money-raising effort, make it free to enter, a la the Olympic Sculpture Park?

Or how about, instead, putting in a giant playground? Or even just trees and grass?

A giant playground! Or maybe even a giant, kick-ass one! What a great idea! Now that’s a proposal I could get behind.

Why? Because Seattle is a city desperately in need of more family-friendly amenities, something, apart from Danny, the Seattle Times doesn’t seem to recognize, but which, apparently, the New York Times does:

The Kids and Families Congress is to take place at the Seattle Center, the site of the Space Needle and the 1962 World’s Fair. The center itself has become a topic of debate, over the future of five acres of asphalt at the foot of the needle that for decades has been home to the Fun Forest, an aging amusement park.

The Fun Forest is set to close for good at summer’s end and the site’s private owners have proposed replacing it with a private museum featuring the work of Dale Chihuly, the Northwest glass artist. Critics say that sends a wrong signal about Seattle’s priorities. A private glass museum, some argue, would not necessarily be regarded as family friendly.

“It’s not just symbolic,” said Sally Bagshaw, who is chairwoman of the City Council parks committee. “It’s very much at the heart of what I’m talking about: how do we keep families here? We want to make Seattle a place where people come because it is the best place in the world for your kids.”

And ask any kid what they’d rather visit, a really kick-ass playground or a museum of glass, and I’m guessing most would choose the former.

Saturday night around 9:30 P.M., the hot water faucet in my kitchen sink suddenly blew out. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, as it had become increasingly harder to turn it off in recent days, but I had anticipated a slow drip rather than a complete and sudden failure.

To complicate matters even further, none of the plumbing fixtures in my 98-year-old house have separate shutoffs. There’s a worn out valve leading to the hot water heater, but that barely slows the flow down to a light stream, and even the main water shut off still produces a stead trickle when closed as tightly as possible.

So there I am on a holiday weekend with no running water, and bleak prospects for a speedy repair.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, I headed down to McLendon Hardware in Renton, where I had bought my 1950’s style, wall-mounted Dishmaster Imperial Four about eight years ago. (Why do I have a 1950’s style, wall-mounted Dismaster Imperial Four? Because my kitchen was last updated in the 1950’s, and that was the only fixture that would adequately cover up the holes in the tile behind the corroded, old Dishmaster I replaced.) If anybody would have a replacement stem in stock it would be them, although I wasn’t too optimistic.

Sure enough, the supply of Dishmaster parts was minimal, as was the available documentation. They were going to have to special order the part on Monday, but they didn’t know from whom, or how much it would cost. It might take days. It might take weeks. Meanwhile, I had no running water but for a steady, omnipresent leak.

So after half an hour of trying to find me what I needed, and a few minutes of discussing the pros and cons of cutting into my ancient, rusting steel pipes and installing a shut off valve (“Once you start cutting into those old pipes, you may not stop until they’re all gone…”) Steve in plumbing made an executive decision. With no manager available to give him the okay, he took the display model off the wall, pulled the precious hot water stem, and placed it in my hand. Then he wrote up a special order for two stems, hot and cold (we figured it was only a matter of time), and billed me twenty bucks apiece, not knowing what it would ultimately cost. When the parts come in and I pick up the other stem, they’ll adjust my credit card up or down accordingly.

Back at home, the problem was fixed in minutes.

By comparison, and this story is just as anecdotal, a couple months ago I stopped in a Lowes I pass maybe three or four days a week, looking for a washer, and after not finding it amongst the handful on display, I tracked down a clerk who helpfully explained that “what we have on the shelf is what we have.”

I post this story not just out of appreciation for McLendon’s excellent and personal customer service, but because I think it makes a statement about what we’ve lost in America in our relentless drive toward productivity and lower prices. McLendon’s, its sprawling stores and over 400 employees, is a far cry from the cramped, musty hardware stores that used to dot nearly every neighborhood business district. I remember a hardware store near where I grew up with a sign in the window that proclaimed “We Fix Everything,” and in that pre-digital era, they probably could. Nowadays “what we have on the shelf is what we have” is the motto that leads us to replace an entire fixture for the want of a 50 cent washer.

Indeed, Steve at McLendon’s could have suggested I spend a couple hundred bucks on a whole new Dishmaster, and I might have. I was desperate. But the local family who owns McLendon’s, despite mimicking the size and layout of the national warehouse-style chains with which they now compete, has managed to retain a bit of that old-style hardware store character, and has clearly instilled that ethos in its employees.

As customers, that’s an ethos we need to support with our wallets if we want it to survive. And that’s why, while a drive near a Lowes almost every day, I head down to Renton for nearly all my garden and hardware needs.