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I currently live within walking distance of the Space Needle. I’d say that among random people who ask for directions to things in town it’s either first or second.* And I understand that a lot of locals also like it.

I’m not here to judge, but everybody is wrong when they say they want to keep the views of it. I mean honestly, it’s not that attractive of a building, and the roof is usually painted a strange color. It doesn’t have much utility, and the location smack dab in the middle of a park is strange.

Now I’m not going to go so far as Guy de Maupassant eating at the Eiffel Tower to get away from looking at it. I get that it’s a thing that makes Seattle Seattle. It’s funky and unique. It’s a part of New Year’s and of the civic things that happen at Seattle Center.

But if it wasn’t there, other buildings would do that for us. I personally love the old pictures of Seattle where the Smith Tower dominates the sky line. And occasionally you see even older pictures with Saint James’s spires tucked away in the background, that I’m sure you could see from much of the city where you can’t see it any more.

So maybe what we need isn’t lots of places to see the Space Needle, but more buildings that will inspire awe. If we get buildings that block the Space Needle with their radness, that would probably be better than blocking the view with another box that could be switched with any high rise downtown without people noticing.

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– We’ve got ourselves a new Pope whose archdiocese did some terrible shit (h/t). But the horror in Argentina did lead to my favorite short story (I could only find a Spanish version online, and I’ve only ever read it in translation since I don’t speak Spanish).

– It turns out repealing the sick leave portions of the sick leave/safe leave law will also hurt actual people.

– The Bellevue Gap.

– Rape Is Not Inevitable

– The cowardly legislature refuses to enact background checks for firearms.

– The ethereal form of Judge Scalia

[This post talks about the law related to rape, stalking, and domestic violence]

I was thinking about the Senate voting to repeal the Seattle Sick Leave/ Safe Leave law in many cases when I read this piece from Cienna Madrid on Tom sending the Reproductive Parity Act to die in committee.

You see, as Senate Majority Leader (a position he also attained with his weasely prowess), Tom is responsible for assigning bills to the appropriate Senate committees. And instead of assigning the Reproductive Parity Act to the Senate’s Financial Institutions, Housing & Insurance committee where it was promised a fair hearing and vote from the committee’s Democratic chair, Tom instead sent the bill to the Senate’s Healthcare Committee, headed by anti-choice Sen. Randi Becker (R-Eatonville).

Yeah, that’s pretty terrible. It would have been an important law to have, and would have been a step in the direction of fairness in Washington. It’s one the reproductive justice community has rightly been fighting for for years. It also would have been important to say Washington affirms that abortion is a right. But we all pretty much knew this was going to happen when they said that social issues weren’t going to be the focus of this session. So while it’s awful, it isn’t actually moving back any laws, and Tom would argue that he still supports the law and whatever other excuse.

No, for Rodney Tom’s moving us backwards on safety and decency for women, you have to look at the Sick Leave/ Safe Leave law. Specifically the safe leave portion. You see when a woman who works in Seattle is stalked, or raped or beaten by her spouse, she can take safe time off. In the rest of the state, there aren’t as many protections.**

Rodney Tom looked at the difference between Seattle and the rest of the state and decided that the problem was Seattle. He co-sponsored SB 5728 to preempt that for the whole state, and ESB 5726 to make it only apply to Seattle based employers. The later passed, and the former might still.

I know the point of these laws is just to fuck with Seattle, but I wish the people passing them would give some consideration to the people actually hurt by them. I emailed Rodney Tom to ask him what he might say to a woman in his district who worked in Seattle and didn’t have the protections if she needed them if the law passed. So far he hasn’t responded.

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The other night, I was a bit early for an event in Queen Anne. I walked passed Mercer where Easy Street Records used to be for the first time since it closed. A half demolished building with no signs that it used to be a a hip music store stood exposed to the elements and fenced off. It’s rather sad.

Don’t get me wrong: the Internet is objectively a better place to get music than a record store. It has a wider selection and your MP3’s don’t scratch.

Still, the thing of it is when you’re 20 minutes early to an event, the greatest way in the world to kill that time is to find a local record shop and fart around. Sometimes you buy something and sometimes you don’t. The next best place of that sort is a book store, and those are experiencing the same sort of existential problem.

I don’t know what in the Internet era replaces that for places to hang out on a rainy Seattle day with some time to kill. Coffee shops are fine, but you really have to buy something, and maybe you don’t want something to eat or drink.

Please join us this evening for some politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to tonight? Check out another meeting of Drinking Liberally over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets. Finally, next Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima and Olympia chapters meet.

With 206 chapters of Living Liberally, including fifteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

– I support the rights of police to collectively bargain. But this is a pretty shit reason to sue.

– Cut cut cut cut. NOT ME!

– It’s hard to get a full sense of it from a Twitter conversation, but predictive policing seems to be a positive idea.

– The full state senate repeals Seattle’s sick leave/safe leave law.

– Good news everybody! Scott Brown landed on his feet.

– The right is its own best argument against taking anyone in the movement seriously on matters of national security.

For serious, when the Spokane police need to put this warning up, it’s probably bad news.

Due to the recent high volume of citizens applying for concealed weapons permits, the average wait time for applicants is currently 2 – 3 hours. Customers visiting Police Records for other transactions may also experience higher-than-normal wait times. In order to serve customers within our hours of operation, any concealed weapons permit applicants arriving after 1:00pm may be asked to return on a different day to complete their transaction. Thank you for your understanding, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Or just don’t get a gun. Don’t get yourself a concealed weapons permit. Just, you know, it’s fine if you don’t have a gun. Getting a concealed weapons permit isn’t a reasonable response to Sandy Hook. It isn’t a reasonable response to moderate gun control measures proposed in the state, but that won’t go anywhere, or at the Federal level that might get a bit of traction.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that anyone trying to get a gun now is hoping to get in under the wire before the background checks.

– RIP Richard McIver.

– Telling women to get a gun is not rape prevention

– Can we close the gun show loophole please?

– David Brooks was wrong, wrong wrong on Iraq. Good thing they gave him the New York Times slot.

– Chihuly Broken Promises

– You Suck at Constitutionality Tim Eyman!

Last week’s contest was won by Geoduck. It was near Marston, MD.

This week’s is back to Google Maps, a random location somewhere on earth, good luck!

Song of Solomon 4:5-6
Your breasts are perfect;
they are twin deer
feeding among lilies.
I will hasten to those hills
sprinkled with sweet perfume
and stay there till sunrise.

Discuss.

Thom: more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Ann Telnaes: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Drone.

Ed: Voter fraud is perpetuated by Republicans.

Aqua Buddha Filibuster:

• Jon: “What the who?”
• O’Donnell: What Cukoo Sen. Paul said during his filibuster.
• Young Turks: Rand Paul—winner or loser?
• Sam Seder: Like a broken clock, Rand Paul is right on drones
• O’Donnell: Paul’s empty headed stunt filled with infantile fantasies.
• Rand Paul’s filibuster in 2 minutes.
• Young Turks: Rand Paul’s filibuster angers the establishment.

Thom with The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Do Republicans even care about how sequester cuts affect people?

Maddow: Republicans scapegoat MSNBC for their 2012 failures:

Young Turks: U.S. sponsored death squads in Iraq.

Bill-O The Clown Bizarre Melt-Down:

• Sam Seder: Bill-O the Clown has a melt down.
• Maddow: Bill-O rules for anger management.
• Ed: Bill-O’s body language.
• Bill-O flips his lid on Alan Colmes
• Young Turks: Bill-O the Clown freak-out.
• Sharpton: Bill-O apologizes for his meltdown.

Sharpton: Jomes O’Keefe to pay $100K for his false ACORN smears.

A Twitter conversation with Sarah Palin.

White House: West Wing Week.

Voting Rights Act:

• Jon on The end of racism.
• Mark Fiore: All in the Scalia.
• Stephen on Scalia’s voting right act defense.

Maddow: Rare terrorist suspect arrest.

Young Turks: Florida Gov. Rick Scott admits he was wrong and Obama was right.

Red State Update: Obama will suck you into the ground.

President Jeb:

• Young Turks: Jeb Bush disagrees with himself.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: More Bush!

Maddow: Obama invites a pack of hyenas to dinner.

Ed: The world according to Cheney.

#GOPSequester: Defenseless.

Ed: Obama signs VAWA.

O’Donnell: Hillary Clinton leads everyone for 2016.

Liberal Viewer: Can Republicans steal marijuana issue?.

Romney Resurfaces:

• ONN: Mitt Romney blames his loss on successfully communicating his message to minorities.
• Ann Telnaes: Ann Romney reflects on the election loss.

Sam Seder: Jeb Bush snakes his way to 2016.

Will DeGra: Mississippi and the 13th Amendment:

Stephen on Obama’s outrageous record on Israel.

Maddow: Big tobacco’s disinformation strategy.

Ann Telnaes: Dow closes at an all time high.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

I know this is a few days old, but I want to applaud Seattle for considering allowing more emergency credit before it shuts off water.

The Seattle City Council is now considering legislation that would give a second emergency credit of up to $340 per year for any family registered in its low-income Utility Discount Program with children in the home. Currently, only one credit is available annually per household.

Seattle Public Utilities said it shut off water to 138 households in 2012 that were part of its low-income program. Of those, 68 had children under 18 years old.

Councilmember Jean Godden, who is sponsoring the legislation, said providing a second credit to those 68 families would cost the city about $20,000 a year. She called that a small subsidy in the context of the utilities’ nearly billion-dollar annual budget.

The article goes on to say that number is probably low because some people don’t know they qualify for the program. When people and families fall behind it’s unfortunate. And I’m glad in a relatively wealthy city like Seattle we’re figuring out how to make this situation a little less awful.

There was a shooting at the Parks Department. It looks like the police have the suspect in custody, but this is scary stuff.

Officers responding to a report of shots fired in a building near N. 80th and Densmore Avenue N. found a man with gunshot wound to the chest just around 2:15 p.m. Medics transported the man to a hospital; he was last listed in critical but stable condition.

Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation spokesperson Dewey Potter identified the victim as Bill Keller, 65, the executive director of the Associated Recreation Council, and the suspect as Carolyn Piksa, 46, a current Seattle Parks and Recreation employee. Piksa is described as a white female wearing a blue stocking cap and a beige or green camoflage jacket.

Since the shooter had the keys to all of the community centers, the kids who were going there after school have been rerouted back to their schools.

Meanwhile, Seattle police have asked several schools in the area of N. 130th and Linden Avenue N to be placed in lockdown as a precaution. The following schools are currently in “shelter in place,” which means exterior doors are locked, but classes are being conducted inside: Broadview Thomson Elementary K-8, Bagley Elementary and Wilson Alternative School.

As a result of the community center closures, Seattle Public Schools released the following statement about students en route to after-school programs at the centers:

Due to the City of Seattle’s closure of all community centers citywide, Seattle Public Schools is returning all students who were on buses bound for after-school programs to their schools of origin. In some cases, students were delivered to community centers before the closure announcement was made. In that case, the community centers are calling parents and asking them to pick up their students. Students returned to their school will remain at school with adult supervision until their parents can arrange for pick up.

I can’t imagine what any of those parents have been going through. Hopefully any parents reading this have found your kids.

The state house passed the Washington Voting Rights Act (second section). If passed it would allow minority groups that could prove discrimination at the local level some relief. The example in the piece, that’s the most common example I’ve heard relating to the act is Yakima:

His bill would give minority communities that can prove they’ve been disenfranchised at the polls (say, in Yakima, whose at-large city council lacks a single Latino member despite the city’s large Latino population) to move to districted elections.

Great. Now we can look forward to it dying in the state senate.

I hate that Metro has to go begging the state just to tax ourselves, but that’s the way we do it in Washington, so sure. Representative Farrell has a bill to let localities either have a $40 car tab or in some cases up to 1% of the value of the car go to transit.* She has a post on Slog in support of the bill.

When King County Metro was last facing service cuts, the legislature authorized a temporary congestion reduction fee that temporarily stabilized budgets of transit agencies. It was temporary because the state expected to move quickly to provide a more stable, comprehensive funding source for public transportation.

That state support has not materialized, however, and with transit services in jeopardy, we need to take action to ensure our economy, our environment, and our quality of life aren’t degraded. My legislation would give King County the local funding options they need to save core programs and high-demand service routes.

OK, I’m sold. You can find your legislator here.

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