Yesterday I had a little fun goofing on the idea that the people running for mayor was boring. I don’t think it’s boring. I love civics. Yay for civics. Maybe it’s because it’s a year out and I’m more freaking out about how much Christmas shopping I have ahead of me instead of politics. This time though it’s a well known quantity running, so I’ll be on my best behavior when writing about Peter Steinbrueck’s bid for mayor.

Former city council member Peter Steinbrueck is (though not yet officially) running for mayor.

Justin Simmons, the head of the Metropolitan Democratic Club, wrote a letter to Steinbrueck supporters today announcing that he will head up the Steinbrueck for Mayor campaign.

Zzzzzzzz. No! I’m awake. I’m staying awake through this. I think I have a Peter Steinbrueck shirt somewhere. I think about him for like half a second every time I go shopping at Pike Place and I pass a picture of his father, or a park named after his father. Basically, yay for the fact that his father saved Pike Place in the 1960’s. There’s a lovely Richard Hugo poem about it that I can’t find online.

But I’m not writing about Victor. Peter. He was generally considered a good lefty when he was on the council but hasn’t been in elected office in 5 years (it’ll be 6 by the time the election comes around). Now he has insiders and people who hate transit supporting him.

“We have already signed on an impressive number of leaders in these communities in and around Seattle, including Nick Licata, Tim Harris, Dorry Elias-Garcia, David Bloom, Kay Bullitt, John Fox, Yusuf Cabdi, Brita Butler-Wall, Paul Benz, Vivan Lee, Sarajane Siegfriedt, and many others.”

Jesus, it’s a Ted Van Dyk away from a list of people who were vaguely movers and shakers in 1975. Really should be relevant to peopzzzzzzzzzzzz. I didn’t fall asleep! It should be relevant to people who stopped paying attenzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I’m awake! It will be a relevant run to people who stopped paying attention to Seattle before grunge (that’s not totally fair, and I even like a couple of them). Zzzzzzzzzzz

It looks like it’s inundate your member of Congress with notes not to cut Social Security day. So I don’t want to hear that Washington didn’t do our part.

Here are the numbers for members of the House. Just call yours, the rest are just a waste of time:

DelBene 202-225-6311
Larsen 202-225-2605
Herrera Beutler 202-225-3536
Hastings 202-225-5816
McMorris Rodgers 202-225-2006
Dicks 202-225-5916
McDermott 202-225-3106
Reichert 202-225-7761
Smith 202-225-8901

And the Senators:

Cantwell (202) 224-3441
Murray (202) 224-2621

Be polite but let them know that you’re opposed to cuts in Social Security or to raising the age. If you’re on Social Security, or are nearing that age, let them know. If you’re young but resent having your generation played against retirees, let them know.

A week before Christmas seems like a not great time to announce you’re running for mayor. But fine whatever. Another ostensible liberal who zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. No I’m awake. Another candidate for mayor:

A former president of the Greenwood Community Council, who’s carved out a niche as an advocate for neighborhood organizing and education reform, Martin tells The Stranger that she’ll file paperwork this week to run for mayor. A Seattle resident since 1979, Martin runs her own design firm after getting a BA in landscape architecture at the State University of New York.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Oh what? No I’m awake. I’m awake. zzzzzzz

“I think I have a pretty nice menu of supporters… I take time to analyze issues and understand both side of the argument,” says Martin, eschewing the policy briefings she says her competitors rely on. “I think that people know that. I have a conscience. And I also have a spine.”

Oh great. Awesome eschewing of cliche. Neat. I’m zzzzzzzzzzz.

We’re still mostly talking about the school shooting from last Friday.

– How do we find ourselves asking kindergarteners to be more courageous in the face of a gunman than politicians are in the face of the gun lobby?

– Joe Posnanski’s piece was about the best at capturing the horrible mood.

– That’s why, to me, the idea of having a conversation about gun control makes so much sense. Discussion can often lead to enlightenment.

– What do we do going forward?

– Generic cartoon

And in case we’re talking about anything else:

– While the drones are certainly worst for the people they’re used on, the people who use them also face real problems.

– The legislators who concocted this scheme need these bullies in order to make it work. Never forget that this is what the anti-choice movement gives us: Legislators who are counting on the lurking threat of harassment and even violence to make their legal schemes work.

One of the cliches that the people who don’t want any gun control constantly repeat is that an armed society is a polite society. And while that’s always struck me as not something we need to achieve, we at least know what they mean. If you’re worried the stranger might be someone with a gun, you’re less likely to be rude to them.

But today puts the lie to the general premise. Whatever curt words and gestures were avoided by the possibility that guy might have a gun pale compared to today.

A society that can’t prevent someone from opening fire on an elementary school loses its right to be called polite.

A society where a Sikh temple or a Unitarian church have to deal with people murdering their congregants isn’t a polite society.

A society where people watching a movie have to run in horror because someone is shooting the place up isn’t a polite society.

Cafe Racer was a great place for society, until an act of horror levels beyond impolite shattered that for the people there that day.

No, there are a lot of things arms do to a society. Making it polite isn’t one of them.

– In response to video of a controversial SPD arrest at 23rd and Union was released late last month, the Seattle King County NAACP and the No New Jim Crow Coalition group are holding a rally Saturday against police brutality.

– Seattle has teamed up with Gigabit Squared, a startup that wants to invest $200 million in building gigabit broadband networks in six college towns around the country, to build a gigabit network.

– Lee will probably have more, but it looks like at least initially, the Obama administration won’t go after Washington and Colorado marijuana users.

– In the past year, fuelers, cabin cleaners, and passenger service workers have spoken up publicly and directly to their contractors and airlines about the lack of proper safety equipment and dangerous working conditions at our airport.

– The Global Washington conference looks like it was pretty amazing.

– West Seattle Food Bank.

– I don’t think building a death star is practical.

I wasn’t able to get off work early so I’m just heading down there now. In the mean time enjoy the NPI twitter feed. I’ll update this when I’m there. I’m sure all of the local big wigs have already had their say.

… You can watch it here if you’re inclined.

… OK. I’ve got here, so far every speaker has been opposed. Tribal people and environmentalists. There are two rooms, so I don’t know what’s going on in the other room. I think more or less the same. When I came here, there was someone who took numbers, and there were over two thousand people up the escalator they had directed us to, one of two.

… We had one person supporting the project, but it’s definitely quite heavily opposed. I forgot to mention it in the last update, but The Backbone people were out in force outside with a giant salmon.

… A lot of the people who speak in opposition live near the tracks. I don’t know if that’s a concerted effort, by the people organizing the opposition or if it’s just that those people are the ones most likely to testify.

… You can tell when people are ringers when they can’t pronounce things like the “Hiram M. Chittenden Locks” or “Salish Sea.”

… The young people speaking know that this is their future.

… In the comments Roger wonders if this is all just window dressing. Maybe, but the thing is that you don’t know what will make the difference. The room is quite full, and it looks like the other one is too.

… We’ve had Christians and now a Druid speaking out against the trains.

… The last comment was made. It was quite anti-train.

I’m glad that this story about bus bulbs was written. I’m not sure that OMG drivers Are UPSET!!!!!!!! is the best was to write it. I don’t particularly like being stuck behind a bus when I’m driving, so fine. But maybe this paragraph:

Metro says bus bulbs save five to 10 seconds per stop, and more than 20 seconds in peak traffic. Seconds add up on a bus route, and affect the overall schedule. Next year, a few bulbs will be added on Greenwood Avenue North, but Metro doesn’t plan them on Aurora Avenue North, for the new E Line. Instead, buses will stop in the far right lane, as the Swift buses do on Highway 99 in Snohomish County.

Could be put before what I assume are personal stories about being stuck behind a bus told in the third person about “some motorists.” And I don’t want to be too critical, there is some good information.

– What the Seattle City Council members are doing with their surplus money from previous campaigns.

– There’s a lot going on at NPI.

– Everybody hates John Boehner.

– Right to Work isn’t a one way fight. It seems like if the GOP want to open that up, there are plenty of states where there are right to work laws that could be repealed.

– Wait. Nick Kristoff wants people who are on disability to join the military? I mean I’m sure there are some people who are on disability who would thrive there, but in general that seems problematic.

– Third Avenue is totally awesome and the Memorandum of Agreement looks like it will keep being awesome.

– If people just worked harder they wouldn’t need entitlements.

I hate that the Catholic Church in Western Washington is emphasizing that it won’t participate in marriage equality. I hate that they aren’t for it and I hate that they feel the need to reemphasize it.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has laid down Roman Catholic church law on same-sex marriages now allowed under Washington civil law: The church will have nothing to do with such “marriages” — apostrophes courtesy of the Archbishop.

I’m glad the law gives them that right. I wouldn’t want the state dictating to churches how to perform their sacraments. But that doesn’t put the churches that aren’t marrying gay folks on the right side of history.

I’m so sick of this shit.

An unidentified gunman, acting alone, fired up to 60 shots before killing himself. The original reports of two dead were confirmed as the only fatalities. One 15-year-old Portland girl was taken by ambulance to OHSU Hospital, where she was in serious condition Tuesday night.

Officials declined to identify the victims.

The gunman died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Lt. James Rhodes, a Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said at a news conference. The gunman, reportedly 22, has been tentatively identified, but police did not release his name.

I don’t know what the answer is to these things, or if there is one.

Digby points to a horrible thing Ann Coulter said to show that the GOP’s problem with their hatred of the other.

The Republicans have a problem all right, but it isn’t racial demographics. It’s Ann Coulter and all the people who think like her. And I don’t know what they’re going to do about that.

Right. But it isn’t just the cultural elite of the Republican party. It’s the fact that the Coulters, and the Limbaughs and on and on have an audience of people who want to hear the sort of things they’re saying. If they were just shouting into the wind, they wouldn’t have careers.

The Republicans can’t keep their base unless they regularly spout ugly crap.

Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon have decided to caucus with the Republicans even though they’re still claiming to be Democrats. I don’t know what it means to be a Democrat when you caucus with the Republicans and vote for their shitty budgets.

It isn’t a surprise, still with Tom, it’s a little bit of a sting. One of the best pieces on this blog was written in defense of him . And while he was never embraced fully by the party (because a lot of his policies were still shit) he was never primaried in that Democratic leaning district. Obviously, that’s probably going to happen now.

In the piece linked to in the first paragraph, Goldy wonders if there’s any way to salvage a Democratic majority. I guess the only way I can see would be to get one of them a job outside the legislature so they’ll have to resign. There would be a tie until their replacement was picked, and since they ran as Democrats, the Democrats would pick that replacement.

Of course something like that would be rewarding them for being assholes. Still, it’s less awful than the budgets and the hateful legislation we’re likely to see out of the state senate if the GOP is in charge. Inslee has a lot of positions to fill, and maybe there are some lobbying groups that they’ve been good on their issues, but would like to see a Democratic majority.

– Congrats to all of the couples who got married yesterday.

– Bikes galore on the Fremont Bridge.

– War on Catholics.

– Perhaps Michael Dunn would have told those kids to turn down their music, no matter what. But perhaps knowing that he had the ultimate power in his hands to annihilate all of them, gave him a little edge. Very few people, no matter how “responsible,” would be immune to such a feeling.

– I was just goofing on this Christmas card from the Obamas, and apparently it’s part of the war on Christmas.

– Modesty is bullshit

– You’ve clearly done something right as a team when you force the other team to apologize to their fans.

Joel Connelly has the details on the public comment period for the coal train hearing next Thursday.

Previous “scoping sessions” in Whatcom, Skagit and Spokane Counties — held by the Washington Dept. of Ecology, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Whatcom County — have drawn overflow crowds.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, and other Northwest Washington mayors, have warned about the disruption of having a succession of mile-long coal trains, bound for Cherry Point, move along the waterfronts of their cities each day. McGinn worries that after waiting for one long train to go by, waterfront traffic lineups won’t be able to clear in time for the next train.

“Transportation impacts evolve into economic impacts,” McGinn said this week.

I’m opposed to the coal trains, but if they run them, I hope the city and the state have a plan to mitigate the traffic and coal dust. So come on out and make your voice heard.

The Dec. 13 meeting in Seattle will be held at the Washington State Convention Center, Ballroom 6f. The ballroom has a capacity of 3,500 people. Doors will open at 3:30 for people to find seats, and to put down their names for the upcoming drawings.

I hate to make promises about these things, especially because I haven’t done the proper inquiries about media, but I think I’m going to live blog it.