– The anti choice movement can really made your skin crawl (h/t).

– Go see how the Republican plan to screw Medicare hurts your Congressional District. There may be a follow up post, but probably not (h/t).

– I loved learning about how they collect bugs in the soil & leaf litter.

– They’re already beating us.

– If Anthony Weiner sent a picture of his penis to random women, then there should be a price to pay, but oh my have the right wingers lost their fucking minds (has an unsafe for work picture, but not one as bad as what was on the front page here).

– Last weekend was great for a bike ride.

Between Memorial Day weekend and my general laziness, we went a long time sans an open thread from the end of last week (From Friday morning to the DL Thread put up early on Tuesday). By the end of that time conversation generally dried up in the previous open thread, and people started writing off topic in other threads.

Those off topic comments got deleted, and it naturally caused some anger. It’s one thing to say “post that in an open thread” when there’s an open thread from today or yesterday. It’s another thing to say, “post that in an open thread, um from a week ago.” Darryl and I discussed it at Drinking Liberally, and I’m not sure we came up with an answer, but we had some thoughts. I’d like to explain what I usually do and what I did the rest of this week, and then I’ll discuss some possible things going forward.

Normally, I try to do 2 or 3 open threads a week, spaced out, but it’s more when I have enough things that I find interesting to link to than a specific amount of time. I try to have at least one local link and one thing that doesn’t involve politics (sports, science, music, etc.) in every open thread. I’ve been making an effort to link to some Eastern WA content with not that much success, and to link to women and people of color with more success, but neither of those has been a hard and fast rule. Also, if someone else does an open thread, I’ll wait until the next day to do one, even if mine is ready.

This week, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I changed that up a bit. I posted open threads all three of those days (and tried to post all in the morning, but didn’t have the time on Thursday). I don’t think the quality of the links was as good in general, and there was a pretty major fuck up in one of those links on Thursday (from me scanning the headlines instead of reading the post). I think that looking for stuff for more open threads took away time for writing other posts.

So, going forward, I don’t really want to manually do an open thread with links every day. But here’s some thoughts that Darryl and I discussed:

• Just keep doing what we’re doing. We usually have them every few days, and so what if nothing comes up because of long weekend or one of us is on vacation, well that’s not the end of the world.
• Creating an open thread user that the rest of us can edit. Everyone add links as we find them. There’s some possibility that we can step on each other’s toes, and it might be annoying to do it from the back end. We’d have some problems deciding when it’s ready to go.
• There’s no inherent need to have links. I think they add a place to start the discussion and in general I like most of the blogs I link to. I think there’s some responsibility for higher traffic blogs to link to other blogs, especially in my case where my place at a high traffic blog isn’t really from my own hard work, but from being given the spot. But I imagine people will find something to talk about even without a link.
• We could do some sort of hybrid where, for example, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we just have an open thread and on Tuesday and Thursday we have an open thread with links.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something since I discussed with Darryl on Tuesday, but those are my thoughts. I’d like to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

This may come as a surprise to those of you who are new to politics or the Northwest: for a while, The Seattle Times was by far the local newspaper that did online content the best. Sure, it was mostly that they had a guy (Postman) who was willing to do a regularly updated, well written blog. It wasn’t like they had a brilliant strategy, they just sort of lucked into it, as evidenced by the fact that (a) it was just one guy and not the whole newsroom (b) they let him go and (c) since he left they haven’t come close to recreating it.

Still, when The Stranger and The P-I’s online content was just their articles, there was a lot of breaking news on the Times’ website mostly from Postman. The Seattle Times could have built on their lead. Instead, I go to what should be (and sadly, maybe is) their premier blog, Ed Cetera and it’s awful. It hasn’t been updated since May 28, so almost a week. Their supposedly weekly feature (that, yes, I was only on their blog looking for something to make fun of) was last written in April.

And look, it’s a rather different skill set, writing for a newspaper and writing online. While I think the general quality of the columns leaves something lacking, I fully admit that what they do isn’t in my wheelhouse. And nobody is asking them to do what we bloggers do, really. They still write for a family newspaper, so they don’t need to say “fuck” as much as me, and can deploy snark less frequently. Still, I don’t know how newspapers are going to survive if they neglect online content as much as The Seattle Times has.

And ultimately, I want The Seattle Times to survive. There’s no other outlet for investigative journalism of the same magnitude in the region. There’s nowhere else that can spark the same conversation across the region like the front page of The Seattle Times (not even TV, and certainly not blogs). But for that to survive in an increasingly online world, I think they have to adapt, and they haven’t yet.

– Norm Dicks is calling for a quicker end to the war in Afghanistan (h/t, although “lost” may be too strong a word (yes, I caught the reference to Walter Cronkite)).

– While, obviously, you want lower unemployment, 7.2% seems like a cherry pick as something a president needs to get reelected. But people smarter than me seem to think it’s meaningful.

– I’m not one much for signing online petitions, but yes, the Space Needle should fly the rainbow flag during pride week.

– Maybe David Brooks just wants to have Syria torture Canadians.

– I’ve never had a problem riding this section of the Burke-Gilman Trail, but I suppose Stefanie Frease hadn’t either until the crash that prompted the editorial.

– As I’ll explain tomorrow, I did an open thread Wednesday, Thursday, and now Friday, but there’s less other front page content. Any thoughts on if this is positive or negative?

Oh look, I’m still doing this nonsense.

Bad, old science fiction is the best. There was a time when I went to used bookstores frequently, and would always look for science fiction anthologies from like the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. The thing about them is that they tell you more about the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s than they do about whatever future the author invented. Women were secretaries, aliens were savages, etc. So, I’m not sure what the next chapter tells us about Guzzo. It starts with Quixby returning a phone call from General Alexander Bennett:

“Hello, George. Glad to hear from you so soon. Say, I need you to go to Madison, Wisconsin, to straighten things out at out Department of Science and Education. Since you left there last year, the laboratory experiments seem to have encountered a few bugs that need ironing out. I don’t have to detail the problem for you now. Can you leave right away?”

First, either they iron bugs in the future, or that’s a pretty serious mixed metaphor. Second “I don’t have to detail the problem for you now” is sure suspenseful. Third, what? Quixby agrees, so it’s not like we learned anything from the call.

Quixby, a pilot and flying device designer had apparently done brain experiments in Madison. And the whole place can’t function with him gone, even though an actual brain surgeon, Dr. Oliver Maxwell, was in charge. There are “brain cartridges” that give people knowledge, but nobody knows what to put on the cartridges. So don’t rely on doctors, medial ethicists, the patients themselves, or whatever: let “the Mr. Fixit of the American scientific community” figure that out.

Everyone agrees, we need to throw book learnin’ onto people. But some disagree on if we should also add artistic, musical and other such “creative elements.” Quixby, who I can’t stress enough the book doesn’t mention any medical training, decides let’s do the book learnin’ for now and we can come back to the other stuff. So, compromise? Nothing?

Then, we hear about the things that Quixby worked on in the years when he was in Madison. I think this is Doctor Maxwell speaking, but it’s not entirely clear from the text:

“First of all, Colonel, let me bring up another topic. I think you already know about our success in promoting sign language as the world’s second language. It has take quite a while, as you know well, but we now have agreements by every nation in the world to teach a single form of sign language in all their schools. We have also made considerable headway in getting English adopted as the universal first language, with the added policy of each nation continuing to pursue its own historic language.

“Another program you set in motion when you were here is coming along at a surprisingly fast rate. That’s the program to translate all the world’s books into many languages, to revolutionize the world’s libraries by committing all books to electronic form, and to reflect these changes in schools at all levels.”

There is no explanation why sign language is the universal second language. I’m guessing to help deaf people. But it’s science fiction, and pretty loose on the actual science, so why not just make up a cure for deafness? And thank goodness in 2220, we’ll finally have electronic books.

Then Quixby agrees to stay in Madison until he’s ordered somewhere else. End of chapter 3, and no real explanation of what order is restored.

– Official or not, The Great Renaming is a hell of a title (h/t to Robby on Facebook).

– Bumbershoot Lineup.

– Another Washington State newspaper gone.

– Chart of the day.

– David Pauley has turned out to be pretty good.

– Mitt Romney is running on his business experience. For some reason.

I don’t mean to pick on Joni Balter here. Most people writing about a possible Dennis Kucinich Congressional run in Washington use the same dumbass term.

Republicans would love to run against Kucinich in a suburban congressional district because he is a fringe liberal sporting a carpetbagger label.

Look, if I still lived up North, I’d probably prefer Rodger Goodman or Marko Liias. I supported Ruderman before Inslee got in the race in 1998 and would certainly be willing to look at someone else. There’s a rich field of candidates to draw from, so it’s not like we need Kucinich. Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to run from somewhere else.

And in fact the original carpetbaggers were pretty fucking awesome. After the Civil War, of course, many people from the North went South to seek out the new political climate of freedom and racial integration imposed by the Federal government. The people who went into elected office were smeared as carpetbaggers by their opponents. People like Adelbert Ames, a hero at Bull Run and Gettysburg who was appointed to the governorship of Mississippi during reconstruction before winning election to the US Senate and the governor’s office outright. While I probably wouldn’t agree with all of his policies, where it mattered the most, he was right: “he took several steps to advance the rights of freed slaves, appointing the first black office-holders in state history.”

But in the history of the Reconstruction South, the Carpetbaggers lost. After Ames won election as governor, political violence overtook the state. Appeals to the Federal government fell on deaf ears, and eventually he resigned under threat of impeachment and possible violence. And political violence won out throughout the South. The worst case was Colfax.

On April 13, 1873, violence erupted in Colfax, Louisiana. The White League, a paramilitary group intent on securing white rule in Louisiana, clashed with Louisiana’s almost all-black state militia. The resulting death toll was staggering. Only three members of the White League died. But some 100 black men were killed in the encounter. Of those, nearly half were murdered in cold blood after they had already surrendered. The incident once again showed President Ulysses S. Grant how hard it would be to guarantee the rights and the safety of blacks in the South.

…

Louisiana whites formed their own “shadow” government and their own army, the White League. The White League, similar to the Ku Klux Klan, intimidated and attacked Republicans and blacks all over the state. While the worst violence occurred in Colfax, other incidents were sparked in Coushatta, when the White League murdered six Republicans, and in New Orleans, when 30 were killed and 100 more wounded.

In response to these incidents and others throughout the South, President Grant ordered federal troops to restore order. But most of the relief was temporary. After Colfax, the federal government convicted only three whites for the murders. In the end, they were freed when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that they had been convicted unconstitutionally.

The plaque commemorating the incident, put up by the state of Louisiana, still says “On this site occurred the Colfax Riot in which three white men and 150 negroes were slain. This event on April 13, 1873 marked the end of carpetbag misrule in the South.”

So that’s in a nutshell my problem with using carpetbagger as an attack. While obviously Balter and other political commentators aren’t trying to evoke the political violence and racial hatred that ended reconstruction, it’s there in the word. It means something more than just an outsider.

– As a feminist man, I’m still sometimes amazed at things that pass me by. I was caught off guard that there would be harassment on trains bad enough to make someone switch cars.

– While there is always more to do, Obama has certainly earned HRC’s endorsement.

– Seattle has been driving less even before McGinn.

– Fox News sounds like a terrible place to work.

– RIP Gil Scott-Heron.

This piece on Jim Tressel is pretty amazing. I’m not a big college football person: If I wanted to watch a violent corrupt game whose best years are in the rear view, I’d follow boxing because at least they pay their athletes something. But when a game is on on Saturday, I don’t care about any of that.

And now, we’ll hear about how everybody does it. And we’ll hear how it’s just what you have to do to keep competitive. But like those sorts of excuses in politics, I don’t buy it. If we hold corrupt people accountable, and we take away some of the incentives for corruption, this doesn’t have to happen.

Also like in politics, people substitute other people’s piety for judgement. Oh, he’s a Christian, he can’t be stalking men’s rooms for sex. Oh he’s a Christian, he can’t be a corrupt coach. But the truth is that the most and the least religious people are perfectly capable of disgusting things. If I had to bet, I’d say he probably believes the Christian stuff he preaches. I obviously don’t know, but people have a way of compartmentalizing.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this rambling piece. It was just supposed to be a one sentence link in an open thread, but I’m still writing. I guess to sort of make it local, we’ve all seen the decline of the Huskies since Rick Neuheisel’s recruiting violations, and I can’t imagine that Ohio State won’t suffer as well. Doesn’t really seem worth it, but I don’t suppose they thought they’d get caught.

– Maybe this explains why it’s so painful to read the Seattle Times’ editorials.

– Google Correlate is clearly not Google Causation.

– The money for that Queen Anne bike bridge could have gone to, um, bike infrastructure somewhere else.

– This looks like a really terrible movie.

– So I’ll be at Folklife instead.

If I told you at the start of the legislative session that there was a large hole in the budget and that there were 2 or maybe 3 possibilities to fix it, you’d probably think the moderate thing to do would be pick some of each of the ways available. Moderates might, to use less vague terms, want some tax increases and some spending cuts while they looked at ways to deficit spend through the downturn. Moderate the pain of tax increases with spending cuts and moderate the pain of spending cuts with tax increases. Yet somehow in our state, the people who want all cuts get to claim moderate status. Take the Trib editorial board, for example:

The spending plan, unveiled jointly by Democrat and Republican budget writers, was a feat of compromise. Working across the aisle, lawmakers were able to stave off the cruelest of options for filling the state’s $5 billion shortfall.

“Reduce, but not eliminate” was their guiding mantra. Legislators saved the Basic Health Plan, but continued the freeze on enrollment. They preserved access to state health insurance for immigrant children, but tightened eligibility.

Pain but not death. When so much pain could have been avoided, that’s still moderation. Sure not letting people into Basic Health will be disaster, but otherwise, we’d have to consider cutting tax breaks for out of state banks. You guys, we can’t do that and be moderate, can we?

It carves 22 percent out of the higher education budget, but gives universities the authority to set their own tuition. It cuts funds for teacher pay, but only commensurate with the hit state workers are taking and without freezing longevity pay.

It makes it tougher to educate the next generation. It decides that the best way to attract new teachers is to cut their pay. In a time when American manufacturing is on the decline and a college education is more important than ever, it makes one harder to obtain. But at least there’s still a tax break for bull semen.

The budget is equal-opportunity agony, with the priority where it should be – basic human necessities – and the responsibility for its tough choices shared by both parties.

Except for the tough choice to close multiple loopholes. That was only one side. And even though it would have eased the pain, it would be partisan. Therefore not moderate. Therefore bad.

Anyway, then they go on to say that making the workers’ comp system more corporate friendly is also a victory for moderates. Because blindly giving more power to employers is moderate. I don’t think every moderate decision is necessarily the right one (I don’t think I’m going to convince anyone that a 70% high earner’s income tax is moderate, for example). But I wish the ed boards across the state at least had the courage to call the extremism they’re pushing what it is.

One of the most dispiriting aspects of the shitty budget is the fact that a majority of House legislators voted to soften the blow. The most ludicrous, outdated tax exemptions remain on the books, not because we lack the majority the constitution requires to repeal them, but because of the extra requirement imposed by the voters. I hope Darryl is right that this time the legal maneuvering will work. But if anything, past courts’ rulings have been pretty consistent that they don’t want to hear any challenge to these initiatives, so nobody has standing.

So if this challenge fails, I’d like to offer a potential solution that pits Tim Eyman’s populism against itself. In the past the same legislature that claims to respect the will of the people in these instances have been quick to cut the class size initiatives. So my solution is a more broad based initiative that says the legislature needs 2/3 to cut education (or social services, or higher ed whatever polls best, or whoever is willing to spot the money).

Ideally, this would provide a class of people with standing, but as with the tax side, I’m not sure the court will think anyone has standing. Still, even if this bad, probably unconstitutional law stays on the books, it’s better than the status quo.

Right now, there is no incentive for the no tax people to compromise since cuts need 50% and tax increases need 66%. But, if budget cuts have the same hurdles to pass, then we might see a more balanced approach emerge.

And, yes, I’m aware that everybody has their own idea for an initiative, but nobody has the money. I’d prefer a court win to initiative trickery. But we can come back to the same place every few years, or we can find another way around it.

– What ABL Said.

– 100 mbps on the low end.

– The family planning bill I’ve been mentioning passed the state house.

– The Tea Party doesn’t seem as popular this year.

– After this May, are the Mariners legit? This is the most excited I’ve been for a sub .500 team in as long as I can remember.

Ryan Blethen has a column defending the fact that the ed board talks about the mayor of the city in its masthead and the speaker of the state house. As a frequent critic of the ed board, let me say: that isn’t the problem. The problem is that you’re wrong about them.

Even casual readers of The Seattle Times’ Opinion section have probably noticed two names: Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and state House Speaker Frank Chopp.

Yes. They are high profile elected officials. I expect the ed board of the largest daily paper in the state to mention them.

They are difficult to miss because we have been writing a lot about them. As the editorial page editor I believe it is important to be persistent on issues we feel strongly about or that demand a spotlight.

Does anyone say not to cover the legislature or city government?

We have been all over Chopp, a Seattle Democrat, for sitting on a bill to revamp workers’ compensation. Chopp’s resistance to the reform proposal became a serious threat to completing the state’s budget.

The bill is unnecessary to move a budget forward, so it’s anyone insisting that it be part of budget negotiations is holding up the budget. Also, we don’t need to revamp, workers’ comp. And if we did we should probably not do it in a corporate friendly way. But seriously, nobody says don’t try to hold Frank Chopp accountable. We’re just saying what you want him to do is dumb and there are better targets if you actually care about passing the budget.

But as always it’s McGinn who really gets under the Seattle Times’ skin. Ryan, start off with something I’m not sure if it’s a mixed metaphor or horrible pun:

McGinn has become a regular thanks to his tunnel vision on the replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and numerous other issues. Last week’s McGinn editorial du jour was his hiring of the former advocacy director of the Cascade Bicycle Club. In an editorial we argued that David Hiller is not a great hire for a transportation and external communications gig. More important, though, was the way the announcement of the hiring was handled.

I literally can’t tell if “tunnel vision” is a joke or if he’s just trying to say McGinn is obsessed with one issue. In any event, you can’t have tunnel vision on “numerous other issues.” Tunnel vision means one issue, numerous issues means more than one issue.

Anyway, David Hiller is fucking rad. He helped turn the region more bike friendly. Right now, to take one example out of many, there’s construction on the Burke-Gillman trail in Lake Forest Park that Cascade helped bring about. Yes, he’s said some controversial things. Yes, he can be a lightning rod. Those are things that make an interesting story. The announcement aspect is so boring (not to mention piss poorly handled by the local media) that just thinking about it now, I’ve fallen asleep and am typing in my sleep zzzzzzz.

When the city is facing budget shortfalls, a mayor should know he needs to justify the hiring of a political ally in a well-paying job — even if that $87,500 job fills an existing opening. A clear explanation of Hiller’s hiring is not what the public heard. His job description was vague and the media were provided with a salary higher than the actual number.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

*Wakes Up*

*Re-reads this paragraph and decides to keep making fun of it*

Why should he get credit for significant cuts his office’s budget? Don’t you know that one specific hire is more important than the overall picture? (And I’m not even arguing that the amount he cut is right; the city probably should have kept the head tax, and it some of that money stayed in the mayor’s office, that’s fine by me.) Again, you’re allowed to look at the mayor’s office, but when you make dumb arguments, expect to get called on them.

Reporters rightly had questions because of the salary given and the lack of a job description. KOMO-TV was frustrated enough to send a reporter to McGinn’s house the evening Hiller’s hiring was announced. This angered the mayor and his staff. So much so that Aaron Pickus, the mayor’s spokesman, sent an email to the television stations telling them how far away they should stand from the mayor.

Because they have no idea how to contact him during business hours or at any of the multiple public events he does around town, KOMO were forced to go to his house after 9:00. And don’t give me that he’s a public official bullshit. We’re talking about a fairly routine hire.

Any politician with a taxpayer-supported salary should understand that reporters might show up in places they would rather be left alone. There is no Fortress of Solitude in politics.

If this was a major event, I’d agree. If, say, one of McGinn’s deputy mayors had got arrested and McGinn refused to talk about it, I’d be with you. Go to his house and demand answers. For David Hiller being hired, wait until the morning.

Anyway, how about going into super defensive mode and attacking a straw man?

One of the criticisms I often hear is that it is unfair for us to beat up on public figures. It would be if they didn’t have multiple outlets to voice their displeasure with us or support their cause. We are quick to offer up oped and letter space to the people we take to task. If a politician is frustrated with our stance they are free to complain about it to reporters, to us, or to unions or to business chambers.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that nobody has ever said it’s unfair for any newspaper to beat up on public figures. They may say your take is unfair. That you’re focusing on some public officials over others. Maybe someone has compared it to the embarrassingly fawning coverage Boeing and Microsoft get. Anyway, Ryan Blethen thinks he’s very brave for doing his fucking job. Poorly.

At a recent Drinking Liberally, Goldy and I were discussing what the comment threads have become. I think regular open threads have kept most of the things that would otherwise be off topic out of the other threads (although not completely). And while the threads have always been pretty loose, since the 3 regulars are all part time, the enforcement of the comment policy has gone somewhat downhill.

So the question is: do we need a new comment policy now that Goldy isn’t posting, do we need better technology, or is it working fine now? Goldy said he would be willing to work on something with registration, but I’m not sure that he has the time, and I don’t know exactly what it would look like. I can step up enforcement somewhat, but between 8:30 and 4:30 (give or take depending on the day) on weekdays, that’s not going to happen, and I can’t really force the other posters to do anything.