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This afternoon, for the first time since it opened, I walked by the new Chihuly exhibit. I wasn’t going to pay $19 to get in* so I can’t speak to the exhibit itself. Still, walking by I was struck by having to walk by it. Where once you could cut through the fun forest, the area is now fenced off.

That’s been true for some time, of course, but with the construction fencing down, and seeing Seattle Center how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future, now is as good as any time to reflect what we lost.

I know thinking of privately owned silly amusement park rides as a public amenity is over the top. But it’s more of one than a walled off courtyard. And I know there are plenty of areas in Seattle Center that are walled off. I’ve been to enough plays and concerts there. I know with the Science Center, the Children’s Museum and the Children’s Theater, (not to mention plenty of open space) Seattle Center is still more family friendly than much of the rest of the urban core. But it still feels like the loss of a public good.

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Last week, I posted about how I was mystified that newspapers ever oppose transit. Transit is the best time to read newspapers. Compare that to the attempts to replace the King Dome and to keep the Sonics. They kept pushing to make a deal no matter how horrible it is to Seattle and King County; I had always figured their editorial board were at least partially doing it to keep the newspaper afloat (not necessarily consciously, but at least in the back of their minds).

I mean, I care about what’s in the news and editorial sections, but I also care about the sports. And a lot more people care about sports than they do about another piece on how we need charter schools, or even good reporting. When Goldy asks, “what’s changed between now and then?” in relation to The Seattle Times’ editorializing against the new stadium, he means in terms of policy. After all, whatever problems this stadium proposal has, it’s better than ones they shilled for. But I wonder if maybe there’s a business model factor.

20 years ago, the two papers were the only game in town in terms of covering sports. Now though, if you think bloggers and other independent agents have done a number on the news, well that’s nothing compared to sports. The Seattle Times won’t be the only place to get the scores on the new Sonics or the new Seattle Metropolitan Hockey Club.

Another thing is that The Seattle Times pissed away a lot of its credibility pushing for the stadiums that turned out to be a bad deal. I go to Mariners games regularly and absolutely love it. But I wish that public money hadn’t been used to build it. When the people who shilled for the stadium see it 2/3 empty, well, it makes it tough to demand another one.

Finally, it’s a different editorial board than it was 20 years ago. It’s not the same thing for it to have different positions as an individual changing positions willy nilly.

Please join us tonight for another evening of politics and conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet this (and every) Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm, but a few folks show up earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Tonight the Tri-Cities and Bellingham chapters also meet. The Burien chapter meets on Wednesday, and the Woodinville chapter meets on Thursday.

With 232 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and three more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s a chapter close by.

– There was some discussion in the comments of George Tierney Jr of Greenville South Carolina.

– Save LBA Woods (h/t)

– John Hodgman on the importance of restoring civility to politics.

– For every wrongful conviction there is likely a criminal out and about in our communities…the wrongfully un-arrested who are free to continue and often shielded from arrest by a system allergic to self-examination.

– This piece on George Romney (h/t to Howie‘s Facebook) contains one of my favorite opening paragraphs in a long time.

– Chart of the Day

Yesterday the 7th Congressional District, along with every district in the state, picked delegates to the Democratic National Convention. As I mentioned on Thursday, I was trying to be a delegate to that convention. So I was there. Here’s a little bit of what happened that day.

Sign in was 9:00. AM. Sunday. Nine fucking O goddamn Clock. On a weekend day. But because the bus only came once every half hour, and I’m paranoid about being late for these things, I was there by 8:50. I just grabbed some coffee before getting on the bus and will grab some food there.

So I got there and was told not to sign in yet. So I looked around and it turns out there’s no food. This is going to be a long day. I found some friends including HA’s own N in Seattle who wasn’t trying to be a delegate, but was thinking about becoming an elector. I also got to meet Vashon Dogboy.

As I mentioned, I had originally hoped to go to the convention to push for a marriage equality plank in the platform. But now that President Obama supports it, it doesn’t seem like it needs my push. So I didn’t bring any material, but I still wanted to see this thing through, so I made my pitch as to why I’d be a good delegate to people individually for a while. Then I found a seat.

Soon enough they announced that there were 140 delegates and 35 alternates. Since a fair number of people hadn’t shown up, most of the alternates were seated. In the time it took to make sure the alternates got their proper credentials, we had speeches from a representative from any presidential candidate who got over 15% of the vote, Jim McDermott, and Kathleen Drew.

I believe Obama had all 140 delegates, but in any case, he was the only candidate to get 15%. Someone from the Obama Neighborhood team (I’m sorry, I didn’t write the name down) encouraged us to all go onto barackobama.com and get involved. A plea for time more than money is always appreciated from me.

Then McDermott gave a speech similar to the one he gave at my LD and at the King County convention. The main addition was that that he mentioned that there was no coffee at the event. He said at the legislative district caucuses they had expected about 10% of the delegates to come and instead only 2% came, so they didn’t know what to expect at this one. He used that to say if we want to do good we have to show up.

Kathleen Drew spoke next. She talked about how she won in the 5th district supporting Democratic values. She was the only Democrat to win that seat in 50 years and the first Democratic woman to defeat Dino Rossi. She is the only Democratic woman running for statewide executive office, and that Sec of State is important because it’s where we stop efforts to block legitimate voters from practicing democracy.

Then we got to delegate selection. The men and the women went back and forth one each giving one minute speeches. We picked 6 each. I was incredibly nervous and didn’t say my line about the most swear words and according to N in Seattle, I said that “I moved out here when my family was 11,” so that’s something.

I didn’t know that many people running for delegate but my criteria for who to vote for was as follows:

– Me
– People I knew
– People who rode the same bus as me
– Based on the speeches
– Based on people trying to convince me one-on-one or in small groups
– Minus points for the one person who called me after 8:00.

While they were tallying up the votes for delegate, we voted for elector. N in Seattle decided to put his name in, and he gave a speech with a little history of the Electoral College and saying he’d write about the process here and on Daily Kos to shed some light on it. I voted for him basically with the same criteria as above.

Then when they tallied the votes for elector, we found out who won the delegate elections. While I won’t be going on, I think we have a pretty strong delegation from the 7th district.

Then the results for elector came in. Because nobody got a majority and because the elector and the alternate had to be one each, a man and a women we had a second round with the man and the woman who got the most votes. N in Seattle was the man who got the most votes in the first round, so we knew he’d be a delegate or an alternate. We had another round of voting and he’ll be the alternate elector from the 7th district. I look forward to him writing about the process.

It was a long day and I was hungry by the time I got home. But I’m glad I went. It’s farthest in the process that I’ve ever been.

– A proper (or as proper as I do) write-up will come later today, but I didn’t make delegate at the 7th district convention. These people did.

– The NAACP endorses marriage equality.

– It’s not just that men and women both engage in slutty behavior and therefore no one has a right to throw stones—it’s that there is nothing wrong with slutty behavior (or, as I like to call it, behavior) in the first place.

– It’s a bit of a clusterfuck, but I’m basically fine with the candidates running in both first districts.

– Lies about Elizabeth Warren are going to come in fast the rest of the campaign.

– Ask before unwrapping.

– The free market is speaking.

Last week’s contest was won by Julia (some NSFW content at that link). It was the Century City, CA office tower used in the movie “Die Hard”. Thanks to YLB for finding the link.

This week’s contest is a location somewhere in Washington state, good luck!

Filing week, when candidates who may have been running for office for a year or more make their intentions official, is always of great interest to the political class. Back when they actually had to go to Olympia to file in person, candidates often played the waiting-game, trying to cut as close as possible to the deadline before submitting their paperwork. Inevitably, that strategy backfired every once in a while … a flat tire, a speeding ticket, an accident.

These days, filing happens on the internet, removing that sort of fun from the process. But now that Washington uses the (utterly ridiculous, IMHO … but that’s for another day) Top Two primary system, there’s a new source of amusement available to observers:

(Prefers ___________________ Party)

Sure, most of the time that blank space is filled by something conventional — Republican or Democratic. Not always, however, and I always like to review the atypical ones. For instance, three Congressional candidates, two candidates for Governor, an Insurance Commissioner aspirant, and one apiece for State Senate and State House of Representatives prefer the Independent Party. Which doesn’t really exist. Why those candidates didn’t use the (States No Party Preference) option, as 13 others did, escapes me. Surely that’s what they actually mean to say.

As always, a few supposedly-Democratic candidates omit the ic, telling us they prefer the Democrat Party. That irksome misconstruction is particularly favored by Republicans; Bob Dole was a frequent ic-dropper. Note to WA-01 special election candidate Ruth Morrison, 26th District House candidate Stephen Greer, 42nd LD House candidate Matthew Krogh, and 49th District House candidate Sharon Wylie — if you want us to believe you’re really Democrats, get Sam Reed to add the ic to your preferred label. Linda Wright (39th LD House) goes them one better. In addition to the dropped syllable, she eschews the capital D; she Prefers democrat Party.

And then there’s Brad Owen. Is it any surprise that this guy, who’s running for his fifth term of sullying the office of Lieutenant Governor, Prefers Democrat Party? Look up “DINO” in the dictionary, and you’ll find a picture of Brad Owen (or maybe his pal Tim Sheldon). That no actual Democrat ever tries to wrest the office (and, more importantly, the Senate gavel) from him astonishes me.

Quite a few candidates described themselves with riffs on the names, or nicknames, of the major parties. Thus, we find preference (with minor variations) for:

• F.D.R. Democrat Party — Dave Christie (WA-09)
• Independent Dem. Party — incumbent Christopher Hurst (31st District House)
• The Republican Party — John C. W. Shoop (WA-02)
• Indep Republican Party — Glenn Anderson (Lt. Governor)
• Independent GOP Party — incumbent Cheryl Pflug (5th District Senate), John Swapp (40th LD Senate), Eileen Qutub (49th LD Senate)
• GOP Party — Scott Sutherland (WA-07), Nancy McLaughlin (3rd District Senate), Tim Benn (3rd LD House), Mark G. Schoesler (9th District Senate), incumbent Linda Evans Parlette (12th District Senate), Adrian E. Cortes (18th LD House), Ed Orcutt (20th District House), incumbent Mike Carrell (28th LD Senate), Eric R. Alvey (32nd District House), Michael Casey (38th LD House)
• The most creative of these is 36th District House aspirant Leslie Klein, who cleverly(?) Prefers (R) Hope&change Party.

Members of several real political parties filed to run for office in 2012. Or maybe they aren’t party members … after all, a candidate can write anything on that blank line, as long as it’s short enough and not profane. The Green candidate, Howard A. Pellett for the House in the 40th District, is probably the real thing. Karen Murray, Constitution Party candidate for Secretary of State, is definitely for real; she’s their Vice Chairman/Communications Director. So too is Progressive Party chair Linde Knighton, running for the open 36th District House seat. I’m not so sure the Reform Party wants to take the blame credit for crazed ex-felon and US Senate candidate Will Baker, but then again he’s called himself Reform Party before.

Spiraling ever farther away from serious politics, we come to a bunch of so-called candidates with one-off, semi-random “party” preferences. Get a load of these:

• The 99% Party — Mike Lapointe (WA-02)
• Prog Independent Party — Sue Gunn (WA-10)
• Democracy Indep. Party — Mark Greene (Lt. Governor), who often trolls blog comment threads calling himself Party of Commons
• Neopopulist Party — Dave T. Sumner IV (Lt. Governor)
• The Human Rights Party — Sam Wright (Secretary of State)
• Non-Partisan Party — Tamra Smilanich (37th District House)
• Socialist Altern Party — Kshama Sawant (43rd LD House)

I’ve saved the best for last. Yes, our favorite perennial candidates are back for still another round!

Still utilizing Washington state elections as advertising for his business (the $1740 filing fee buys him millions of views in the primary’s voters’ guide every two years, as well as free TV time on TVW), Mike The Mover is running for the US Senate this time. Interestingly, he’s calling himself a Republican in this election. In previous years, he’s generally said he was a Democrat.

Goodspaceguy has set his sights a bit lower than usual in 2012, running for the WA-07 Congressional seat rather than a statewide office. Is the grind of all that campaigning wearing him down? His choice of a party affiliation demonstrates imagination, at the very least. What else would you expect from a man who has legally changed his name to Goodspaceguy? He Prefers Employmentwealth Party.

And last but not least, what would we do without Stan Lippman? Who knew that the Redistricting Commission extended the borders of the 46th Legislative District to the north and northeast in order to bring Stan back into a Seattle-based LD?! He’s one of the cast of thousands running for that open House seat in the 46th. The other candidates are four Democrats and one Republican, whereas Stan wants to have it all. He Prefers Democratic-Repub Party.

One more item … as I write this, the Secretary of State’s list of candidates who have filed has some rather glaring errors. According to the SoS, Zack Hudgins isn’t running for re-election to the House in the 11th District and Sylvester Cann didn’t file to run against Gerry Pollet for the House in the 46th. King County Elections doesn’t make either of those mistakes. The SoS also seems to say that Senator Joe Zarelli’s surprise retirement leaves a Democrat running unopposed for that blood-red Republican seat. Goldy tells me that the SoS list isn’t official yet, which is made abundantly clear by those mistakes. Check back with them on Tuesday.

Deuteronomy 23:18
Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.

Discuss.

Thom: Can Romney win by lying?

Obama on protecting a woman’s right to choose.

Newsy: Catholic church is investigating girl scouts.

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

Mitt Romney: Hot problems:

Thom: The right’s obsession with female body parts (i.e. the Republican War on Women™).

Jen: Shadowy organizations work to suppress the vote.

Daily Show on Space.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) team up to do comedy.

Stephanie Cutter: Get the facts on Karl Rove’s BS.

Hey, good luck getting laid, Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News fucks up on “liberal intolerance”.

Romney economics and the Bankruptcy and bailouts at GST Steel.

ONN: Republicans stalling Obama’s agenda by speaking & moving in slow motion.

Daily Show: Energy.

The Bane of Romney’s existence.

The Partisans: ZOMBIE AYN RAND:

Jen with Reich: The odd case of Romney praising Clinton.

Obama: One item on the #CongressToDoList.

Mitt Romney: “I stand by what I said, whatever it was.”

Gay Politics:

• Young Turks: FAUX’s Dr. Ablow is “a moron” for gay adoption comments
• Young Turks: NC on gay marriage.
• Sam Seder: RI Governor issues executive order recognizing same sex marriages
• Mark Fiore: Dogboy and Mr. Dan on gay marriage.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt devolving.
• Sam Seder: Lesbian couple denied a driver.

Obama’s accomplishments on Higher education.

Newsy: Minority births outnumber white births for first time in history.

The GOP primary candidate performances embodied as butt plugs:

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

Ann Telnaes: Firing up Romney.

Sam Seder: Someone gives Teh Birfers a bone.

ONN: Alabama hosts first desegregated mass suicide.

Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Bill-O’s “Income inequality is bull”..

Ed and Pap: Obama campaign finally gets tough on Romney.

The Wright Stuff:

• Young Turks: Herman Cain says Rev. Wright Smears are ‘Fair Game’ on FAUX News.
• Thom: Wright vs. Mormonism ?!?
• Young Turks: Sean Hannity says Romney ‘made a mistake’ by not using Rev. Wright.
• Buzz 60: Race returns as an issue.
• Young Turks: The Wingnut plan to bring back failed Rev. Wright strategy.
• Glenn Beck (remember him?) offers $150,000 for Rev. Wright ‘Obama’ box

Maddow Show: Ugly echoes of 2008 encroach on Romney message.

Young Turks: ‘Professor Cenk’ breaks down Bain Capital’s buyout of GST.

The Daily Show on mobile devices.

Sam Seder: Mitt will “stand by” what he said.

Thom: Why Common Cause is suing the U.S. Senate.

Jonathan Mann: Mitt Romney’s Mirthless Laugh:

Actual Audio: Mitt Romney on his high school prank.

Sam Seder: DOJ says it is your Constitutional right to video tape the police.

Pap: Republicans are the losers in the War on Terror.

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

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow Show: Improving economy undermining Romney’s message.

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

The Post Office should be run more like a business than a lot of government agencies. But it still has a need to serve everyone in a way business never would. The Tacoma News Tribune disagrees about any of that public service crap.

The world changes. Heaven forbid that the U.S. Postal Service should change with it.

You can go on the Internet and print stamps right now. You can then go over and schedule a pickup. Just like when Franklin made it! If only they would advance with the times.

The USPS is supposed to operate like a business – which includes adapting to the real world – but the U.S. Senate has again made certain that it operate as a vehicle for patronage and political pandering. It has just pressured the organization into abandoning an emergency-cost cutting plan to close hundreds of money-losing post offices and mail-sorting centers nationwide, including several offices in Pierce County and the processing center on Pine Street in Tacoma.

What business funds its pension obligations 75 years into the future? But, no, the post office doesn’t have to be run just like a business. If they were, they’d probably try to stop FedEx and UPS from using zip codes because they’re propriety. Stamps would probably be a significant amount more. And the Postmaster general would be paid in the 7 or 8 figures. The Post Office is a public good that’s very different from a business. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t hard choices: there are. It just means that the calculus is different than if it were a private business.

Result: The postal unions and the nation’s remaining snail mail fans are happy. And the Postal Service – which has been losing $25 million a DAY – will keep on running immense losses unless Congress permits it to restructure itself for the 21st century.

And a result of the bad economy. Businesses are shipping less to fewer locations. The Internet exists so people aren’t sending as much mail (although I still get plenty of mail, including junk mail and legit correspondence). I doubt other shipping interests are doing well either, but they don’t work in the public interest.

On hold, too, is the USPS plan to end Saturday mail delivery – another fossil from the age when snail mail was the only game in town. Ending that tradition would have saved the system – and ultimately the taxpayers – royal sums of money. It would also have antagonized the people who don’t the status quo to change, ever.

Fair enough, but there are real consequences if the post office doesn’t run on Saturdays. Also, does whoever wrote this think the taxpayers are on the hook for the Post Office? Because, that’s not how it works:

In 1982, U.S. postage stamps became “postal products,” rather than a form of taxation. Since then, The bulk of the cost of operating the postal system has been paid for by customers through the sale of “postal products” and services rather than taxes.

Each class of mail is also expected to cover its share of the costs, a requirement that causes the percentage rate adjustments to vary in different classes of mail, according the costs associated with the processing and delivery characteristics of each class.

So I guess the good news is that the Post Office is already run more like a business than this article calling for it to be run like a business thinks. Anyway, I’m getting bored, but I’ll give you a terrible metaphor.

Communities defend their post offices like Rottweilers, and they terrify members of Congress who otherwise wouldn’t spend a penny bailing out an archaic mail system.

Rottweilers are well known for defending post offices and terrifying members of Congress.

Congratulations on finding a typo from the middle of George Herbert Walker’s administration. I’m sure this this typo, that if it was human would be able to vote, stacks up against the state of Hawaii saying he was born in that state, and showing his records. It stacks up against the birth announcements and the recollections of people who were there. I’m sure in your mind this is incontrovertible proof that Obama was born in Kenya.

But here’s the thing: even if he was born in Kenya*, he’s still a natural born citizen. You see, because of the 14th amendment, everyone born in the United States is an American citizen. That is not the only way you are a citizen at birth though — if it were, nobody would have been a natural born citizen until after the Civil War. Having an American mother who still holds her passport is fine. Unless your next step is to prove that his mother wasn’t an American**, this whole thing is moot.

XXOO,

Carl Ballard

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Thanks to everyone who sent me well-wishes last month. Baby Ava is doing great and despite being incredibly busy, I’m enjoying every second of it. Here are a few items on my mind these days:

– I just finished reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow“, an incredibly well-researched and well-argued book that explains how the war on drugs has created a new form of racial segregation very similar to the original Jim Crow laws of the south. The racial separation in the drug war comes from having much higher levels of drug law enforcement in black communities along with differences in prosecutorial discretion and the inability of many black drug defendant to adequately defend themselves from even totally bogus charges. The end result is a mass incarceration crisis with hundreds of thousands of black Americans saddled with felony convictions for the kinds of small-time drug violations that whites are almost never charged with.

I had this in mind as I heard the news today that THC was found in Trayvon Martin’s system after he was murdered. For a 17-year-old to have THC in his system is far from unusual, about a quarter of all teenagers have used pot in the past month. But because Martin was a young black man using marijuana, the likelihood of him being saddled with a felony for making that choice is significantly higher than it is for a white teenager. And once you’re saddled with that felony, finding employment, housing, and education becomes nearly impossible for the rest of your life. As Alexander points out in her book, people in that situation have all the doors of opportunity closed on them and usually fall into a criminal lifestyle and return to prison. The reality that her book should make clear is that even if George Zimmerman hadn’t ended Trayvon Martin’s life that night, there’s a good likelihood the war on drugs would’ve done it a short time later.

– I don’t think the lawsuit against the liquor privatization initiative has much of a chance of succeeding, but if it did, it would be really bad news for I-502, which also appears to do the “two separate things” that the liquor privatization initiative does. And for good measure, I-502 does a third thing, establish new DUI per se limits for marijuana. But again, I don’t expect this lawsuit to be successful. And as for the DUI issue, the Colorado legislature once again failed to pass a bill that would establish a 5ng/ml limit because of concerns over its lack of scientific backing.

– Scott Morgan has been wondering whether or not Romney would be worse for medical marijuana than Obama has been. As bad as Obama has been (and he’s been terrible), I could certainly envision Romney being worse. Particularly when it comes to U.S. Attorney appointments. Jenny Durkan hasn’t been as aggressive as some of Obama’s other USA’s in going after state-sanctioned medical marijuana distribution. Under Romney, it’s possible we could find someone far less progressive in that post. But it’s also possible he’d tap a progressive Republican in the Dan Satterberg mold. For those of us who actually want the DOJ to respect state marijuana laws, Gary Johnson is likely our only hope.