I say what the hell. It’s not all that bad, folks. Consider, for example, the gathering anticipation, the electrifying undercurrent, the swelling municipal pride and giddiness over the new streetcar system, our very own SLUT. Tomorrow morning hordes of suited dignitaries and eager sycophants will board the cute, colorful trolleys for the inaugural runs from one end of town to the same end of town.

If only Paul Allen could helicopter in from one of his many yachts for the opening festivities, my day would be complete. No wait, the capper would really be all the homeless people in Seattle lining the route, shoulder to shoulder, waving to the passing gentry while holding signs, “Hungry, Broke, Anything Will Help.” Now there’s an image that would really bring me some holiday cheer.

Truth be told, I could not wait till tomorrow to experience the SLUT. A friend of mine and I yesterday walked the entire line, up and back from Fred Hutch, as the blue and orange lines did their test runs (c’mon let’s be honest here, it’s purple, not blue). And knock me over with a feather: It was actually faster to walk the route than it would’ve been to ride the trolley. It took us 21 minutes to Westlake Mall’s stop, about 5 minutes faster than the trolley, whose driver said he was trying to simulate actual operating conditions. Now granted, we tend to walk kind of fast. But even with a stop at Whole Foods for a few groceries, we almost beat the damn thing back to Hutch. And let’s face it, most of the time folks won’t be walking the entire line. To suggest that this farcical amusement park ride will fill any transportation need is like saying a new basketball arena would give us a championship NBA team.

You call this blue?

Just for another basis of comparison I rode my bike on the line back downtown from Hutch. It took me under 8 minutes, which means I could ride downtown, back to Hutch, and back downtown and still beat the trolley. I figure I could even shave a minute or two off that time by taking an alternate route. The SLUT line, as has been noted, is extremely dangerous to bikes, since the rails run parallel on both sides of Westlake with little curbside clearance, given that cars can park along the route. In fact, there’s not much clearance between the trolley and parked vehicles. You probably want to make sure you’re right up against the curb, and maybe leave the SUV on some other street.

The trip has been compared by the ever cynical press to “riding on air,” and at $1.50 per 1.3 miles (unclear whether 1 ticket gets you both ways) it’s only slightly more expensive than jet travel. The $52 million or so pricetag figures out to just under $8,000 a foot. Now yes, the natterers will point out that you can buy a pretty good used car for that, but the point is getting people out of their cars. So all those drivers who hop in their SUVs to go 4 blocks for a latte will now just take the SLUT instead.

Of course, the above estimates are in 6:12 a.m. Tuesday morning dollars. Our friend John Fox points out that the SLUT cost thermometer just keeps going up — by $1 million since last June alone, to $52.13 million as I write this. The mayor is seeking $3.75 million to cover the SLUT’s rising appetite. (He calls it a supplemental appropriation, I call it PIMP, or Pork Inviting More Pork.) Yes this is the same mayor who told the Madison Park flood victims hey, don’t you understand? We just don’t have an endless supply of cash laying around to fund expanded storm sewers!

SLUT is here to stay, however, providing the inspiration for endless jokes and a little cowboy ditty. Nice try, but I’ll wait for Jim Page’s take. There’s gotta be a companion song for “Paul Allentown” in this.

Sure, he’s dreaming. He may unload the thing, but if I was negotiating, my pitch would be, Hey, I can only go $450k. I know that’s low, but I’m taking it off your hands and you’re gonna take a bath if you don’t flip it now. Etc etc. Would such a sale translate into housing values going down? Not really. But from a perception standpoint, oh yeah. And that cycle is just as potent downward as the boom cycle was upward.

Fasten your safety belts, we’re in for a ride. Still to be addressed: Now that the crash has begun, why is so much building still going on???? Might be a story there…

Pimp yo iRide

Why did we build this thing? The answer isn’t quite as clear as, say, the monorail, which promised to whisk people over city traffic until it was scuttled in 2005. But at least the streetcar got built.

OK, if the answer isn’t as clear, then it would follow that the monorail should have gotten built and the streetcar shouldn’t. So where are you going with this? A clearer-headed friend from West Seattle had a more utilitarian assessment. The streetcar buys him nothing, whereas the monorail would have gotten him all the way home, completely plastered, from a night at the Tractor.

Redeemingly, the story contains a great quote: “Right now, it just seems like a toy for tourists.” Now why would someone say that? The car I saw yesterday on a test run was purple, just like Barney. The other one is reddish orange, like Boober Fraggle’s hair. Come to think of it, has anyone tested those paints for lead?

Anyway, real soon now SLUTs will become official, even if the nickname Nazis keep up their censorship campaign. My take: SLUT will stick, and not only because of the streetcar. Think about Hutchinson & Others (including Group Health) being the hos, and the Mayor and city council being Vulcan’s bitches, and the whole mix starts to resemble an upscale First & Pike. Anything that costs $40M or so per mile to build is paying off a lot of people, let’s face it. Even the P-I is sniffing that coffee: “Some residents are also concerned that Vulcan may be allowed to move forward with 12-story buildings before a neighborhood-wide discussion about taller buildings, view protection and urban design occurs.” Here’s a little tip, passed along from a lawyer friend in commercial real-estate: The stuff already built isn’t selling. Could be a story there.

So here’s a PR inspiration: Invite all the folks around the city complaining about flooding (especially those whiners in Madison Valley, where someone actually died in another one of those 100-year-floods just last year) up to SLU to ride the trolley during its grand debut…for free! Then they’ll understand exactly why it’s more important to build a 1.3-mile amusement-park ride than waste valuable taxpayer dollars on expanded storm sewers. The latter, after all, would be pointless: “The city is not going to spend ‘billions and billions of dollars’ to construct a larger system, Nickels said.” If they did, there might not be anything left over for purple streetcars, developer kickbacks and the grand corrupt miasma of SLU, aka Allentown.

Also, further proof that news media get wet just thinking about flooding: More, so much more, coverage. Good thing this only happens once every year or two. That’s all for now, I’ve got a trolley to catch…

I am aware, however, that it is the last month of 2007, entering the thick of the holiday season, which means a lot of snow news days, make that slow news days, are on the way. Not that no news is actually happening. It’s just that the real news, the bare hungry sniffin’ truth, is not likely to be covered during this or any holiday season. There are two reasons for this: First, the real truth is kinda depressing and might serve up a real downer during a season to be jolly. Second, reporting real news would usurp space reserved for contest entries. The Seattle Times is particularly aggressive with prize-based, multi-part series this time of year. After all, the many prizes the industry awards to itself (no one else volunteering for the privilege) translate into respect, leadership and the current booming circulation rates that newspapers enjoy.

So yesterday’s and today’s Times are dominated by a series on old people being victimized by mortgage lenders (the headline says “Seniors prime targets…” shouldn’t that be subprime?), focusing on the trials of 96-year-old Frances Taylor, who lost $2 million in a sort of Ponzi scheme of refinancing during the housing boom. Anyone who owns a house, of course, is aware of the lending vultures eager to separate the gullible or defenseless from their life investments, and one wouldn’t wish Taylor’s experience on even the greediest of homeowners. But cynics like me (who was told repeatedly from 1999 on to refinance my home because equity is “dead money”) scoured the news media rabidly during the boom years for even a hint, a shred, a scintilla of skepticism arguing against leveraging equity. Perhaps The Times and other news media would have better served Frances Taylor and the rest of their reading public with a series on the dangers of the lending market in time to save people their homes. Granted, such unpleasantness might have discomfited the real-estate advertising community and probably not won any awards. But it would have saved a lot of readers a lot of grief.

So hark, the herald angels sing: It’s not too late to report today’s news today! Here’s an idea: How about a three-part series, or let’s not be greedy, just one good, hard-hitting story on the overbuilding crisis (all those condos and townhouses still being built while the ones already in place aren’t selling). Or here’s one: Somewhere there must be someone who is dying or already dead because they could not afford medical insurance. Or their insurance company did not cover what they should have. Or because their insurance company did not pay, they lost their house to predatory lenders. And how about Seattle’s war on the homeless, led by our curiously unreproachable mayor — a story rife with political and societal overtones. Oh drat, it’s the holidays. Let’s do a roundup instead of where the homeless can get turkey dinners. Or how about the huge giveaways to Paul Allen’s Vulcan, millions for a useless streetcar serving the rich while affordable housing goes wanting. Oh wait, the Beacon Hill News and The Stranger have that covered. So instead we have the P-I airing the kvetches of the privileged and wealthy, who are squabbling over downtown condos blocking each other’s views. “What Do You Think?” the P-I Web site asks. Um, er, can’t those guys afford lawyers?

Perhaps in this season of glad tidings we should adapt the cheerful admonition of suspected war criminal Donald Rumsfeld: You read the morning headlines you have, not the ones you might want or wish for. So for now anyway we’re stuck with 8 guys saying they had sexual associations with Larry Craig. That’s 7 more than got Clinton impeached, and Craig is still walking tall, with a spring in his wide stance. If only Monica Lewinsky had been male. We wait breathlessly for Matt Lauer’s call-back to Craig (with special guests!).

Or here’s something: Obama leading Clinton in Iowa? If I could do it, I would make that little Chris Berman “Wha….????” squeak. And what about Kucinich teaming up with Ron Paul? Hey, they could have their own debate, networks be damned. Ah but that would be the news we wish for, not the news we have.

Good news and glad tidings abound today. We need look no further than Olympia for an inspiring monument to legislative productivity: The “emergency” passage of I-747’s recently ruled illegal 1 percent cap on annual property tax increases. Wow…that was intense. Hey, the next time anyone complains about government lethargy, ineffectiveness and sclerosis, just remind them of Nov. 29, 2007, when in just 1 day, not even that really, 10 hours or so, the Legislature passed and the governor signed into law major legislation affecting the future welfare of the entire state! So let’s not talk about “lazy politicians” and “government inaction” here. Our folks showed they can really get the lead out…provided it’s the holiday season and they’d rather not be working, provided an election year is approaching, and provided political expediency obviates any real need to consider the implications behind what they’re doing. Somehow in all the hand waving and bombast, the real issue of a tax cap in a worsening recession (the P-I quote from the Gig Harbor homeowner who somehow thinks his house is worth more at the end of the day than when he woke up going stupefyingly unchallenged) just never quite made it to radar. Ah well. Gotta get back to the home district and finish the Christmas shopping…

Speaking of housing, we regrettably inflict on you dear readers the latest woeful stab at coverage of the Seattle affordable-housing rat’s nest. Today’s P-I has a long piece on quote affordable housing that somehow never manages to answer the musical question, What Is Affordable? Now you will find, if you stick with the package long enough, a reference to affordability based on median income: “Apartments would be affordable to a single person earning $43,600 a year or a family of four bringing in $62,320 a year. Condos or homes would be affordable to a single person making $54,500 a year or a family of four bringing in $77,900.” But there’s no translation of this to real-life application, e.g., how many square feet for that single person or that family of four? How much of that income is assumed to be for ‘housing.’ And what does ‘housing’ constitute in the income formula.

As HA’s own astute readers have noted, yes I’m talking about you Roger Rabbit (if that is indeed your real name), housing costs a lot more than just a roof and four walls. Do those income figures include property taxes…maintenance…utilities and other costs of being ‘housed’?

The real problem, of course, is that income-based indices in today’s economy are a moving target, moving faster all the time. Virtually all costs of living are going up onerously while income, especially at the so-called “affordable” level, is frighteningly stagnant. Those teachers and firefighters and cops and service workers who cannot “afford” to live in Seattle are finding it harder to afford even the suburbs. The rule of thumb used to be that housing should take up no more than a quarter of one’s take-home salary. Now it’s up to half for many. Which might be reasonable except that other costs are taking up a fatter part of the equation. Transportation alone now accounts for a quarter or more of many worker incomes. In California, some municipalities have to go without police and firefighters because they simply cannot afford to live anywhere near the jurisdiction.

So yeah, let’s start with how big and where an “affordable” unit would be in our fair city. And then let’s pencil out the numbers, and see whether a single on $43k or family of four on $62k…wait a minute, a family of four in an apartment? OK, you see how ludicrous the game already becomes, simply by failing the sniff test.

And the whole fight is over 3 to 7 percent of the housing?

Memo to news desk: All those folks supposed to fill those thousands of new jobs that we’re building these warehouses in the sky for can’t afford to live there. Talk to them about affordability, don’t go by artificial and patently unrealistic bureaucrat definitions. Then you might be able to publish a story that shows some street sense and actually explains issues and conflicts to the readers you are supposed to be serving.

OK, stepping down off the pulpit, it was with sadness that we read of Benella Caminiti’s passing. In my days of yore as an environmental reporter, I had the great privilege (and learning experience) of working with Benella on a few stories. You always knew it was Benella on the line when, without even identifying herself, she launched into her latest update on her current crusade in diction and detail so refined your head began to swirl. You knew letters and boxes of documents soon were to follow. Benella was a reporter’s best resource: Someone with energy and passion and an unswerving belief in the rightness of her cause, but with the dedication and chops to document and source each iota of outrage she imparted. She made our job so much easier, a concept difficult to fathom in today’s world of paid PR spin and the Orwellian doublespeak of officialdom, where the goal is to make a reporter’s task so convoluted, befogged and enervating as to thwart, if not entirely prevent, real journalism from being done at all. RIP Benella. You made a lot of us better people, and the world a better place.

The kid knew what he was doing. He just wanted to die with dignity, his beliefs intact. You can argue endlessly about whether he was acting against his own eventual interests, whether he might, had he taken transfusions and survived, look back as an adult and be glad. But I’m not so sure. At 14 I was protesting the war and fighting the draft and listening to Dylan and pretty much had the mindset I do today, even if in a lot of ways I was completely clueless about life. So yeah, let the kid decide.

As an aside, searching the Zapata quote today (a far different experience than when I first researched it back in the day) says something about an incipient and encouraging youth awareness. A few years ago a Google search yielded only a few hits, and they all tagged Zapata (rightly so). Today the same search barely turns up the Mexican revolutionary’s name. Instead a raft of MySpace and other personal references show up, many posted by youth who obviously think the quote has some relevance to life in America today. As a meme, the phrase may give hope to aging lefties that hey, the kids are alright.

Richard McIver isn’t exactly walking tall himself, but another judge was probably considering dignity more than legal principle in (Times here, P-I there, both worth reading for their differences) withholding a video of the councilman taken the night of his arrest. The judge mumbled something about privacy rights and McIver not being informed he was being taped (like a camera or camcorder pointed in his face escaped notice?), but let’s face it, McIver is a decent guy who doesn’t deserve to be bandied about on the airwaves in a drunken stupor. Or whatever (since we probably will never see the thing). As for Jane Hague, potentially getting off on a technicality will do hardly anything to restore her dignity, which is pretty much shot forever.

The truth is, it’s near impossible to maintain dignity in public life these days, the Bush administration having so soiled the landscape. Public service has been turned into lackeydom and lickspittlehood, the latest evidence being the fearsome crusader called in to “investigate” Karl Rove. Turns out he is under investigation himself for all kinds of crap, including firing whistleblowers and “using government agencies to help re-elect Republicans.” And we are shocked, shocked at this revelation. Can you imagine this guy even getting up off his knees, let alone dying on his feet? I mean, just look at him. Orwell’s observation about people eventually getting the face they deserve comes to mind.

To end on a positive note, as we always try to do even in this season of commercialized, ersatz cheer, Obama’s comin’ to town! Now there’s a guy not only with dignity, but a face he deserves…