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Just spoke with Will, who reported with pride the SUVs braving Belltown’s icy streets to buy crack from the dealers in the alley behind his building.  I guess all it takes to keep our local economy going through this wintery mess is a little motivation and a good, old fashioned, American entrepreneurial spirit.

While one needn’t design a transit system to deal with weather conditions that occur once or twice a decade, it’s important to note the failure of our region’s bus system to operate anywhere near full capacity during our week of snow and sub-zero temperatures.  Light rail and street cars, on the other hand, they can handle nearly anything our Puget Sound climate can throw at them, as long as trains are run frequently enough to prevent the overhead power lines from icing over.

I don’t point this out as some sort of I told you so, or as a bit of advocacy for even more rail, but rather as an observation about differing attitudes toward transit in cities with rail versus those without.  Those of us who grew up in cities with extensive rail systems expect transit to be reliable, because… well… it generally is.  In cities like Seattle however, we merely expect transit to be somewhat reliable, conditions permitting.  Snow, floods, traffic jams and accidents… that sorta shit happens, and bus commuters learn to deal with it.  (Whether your employer is willing to deal with you missing a week or more of work because your bus route was canceled, well, that’s another story.)

I think over time, as more rail comes online, and more commuters grow accustomed to its comfort and reliability, attitudes toward transit in this region will gradually change.  No longer looked down upon as mostly an alternative for folks who can’t afford to drive, we will eventually become both more appreciative of our transit system, and more demanding.  And that’s a good thing.

I just watched a bit of 60 Minutes for the first time in God knows how long, and I learned that Andy Rooney is still alive.  Sorta.

Who knew?

I parked my car by my house Wednesday afternoon, not really believing the weather would live up to the dire forecasts, and there it remains for at least a couple more days, if not a week. Silly me.

Coming from Philadelphia, I know how to drive on ice and snow, and therefore I also know when not to drive.  I have no four-wheel-drive, no traction control, and no ABS, and while I might be able maneuver down my hill without fish tailing into the cars parked on either side… I might not.  The relatively passable Rainier Ave. tantalizingly beckons only a couple blocks away, but for now I can only reach it on foot.

I can’t say I’m bored, but I’m certainly a little stir crazy, so this afternoon I’ll pass some time by hiking a couple miles back and forth to the Viet Wah to pick up a few supplies.  (I’m out of goddamn garlic, and I’m craving fresh ginger.)  And I imagine tomorrow, I’ll take the bus somewhere… anywhere… if only for a change of scene and some face to face conversation.

I suppose I could get me one of those four-wheel-drive trucks or SUVs to get me off my hill on those handful of days every few years when the roads actually demand traction… and, you know… I actually need to go somewhere… but I’ve got a better solution.  A few years from now, the next time one of these big storms hit, I intend to be living walking distance from a light rail station.  Sure, I’ll miss the view from my hill, but I’ll love the year-round convenience.

The answer to last week’s contest was Vienna, VA. The big winner was ‘tgf.’ Extra credit to Toby Nixon for figuring out who actually owns that house. The internet really is a wonderful thing…

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

I’m still annoyed at Obama’s “diversity” justification re: giving Rick Warren such a prominent role in the inauguration. 

Warren leads the fourth largest church in America. It’s not like Warren and his supporters don’t already have a seat at the table in America. 

If Obama was in earnest about celebrating different view points, and he truly wanted to send a message about “the magic of this country” being “diverse and noisy and opinionated,” I bet Jeremiah Wright is available.

It’d be more poignant and symbolic to give the microphone to someone who actually represents a minority view like Wright than to someone like Warren whose church is hugely popular.

In less sarcastic terms: Obama was forced to dump Wright. Why is a hater like Warren any better?

Speaking of desperate Times, more bad news may be coming for the struggling Seattle-area newspaper as longtime advertiser Windermere Real Estate mulls pulling out of the Sunday Times, and taking its four pages a week of advertising with it.  And if Windermere goes, could other realtors be far behind?

In recent meetings, Windermere managers have advised agents of the possible end to the weekly, multi-page advertising buy, which has been a fixture in the Times’ real estate section for… well… forever.  Agents were told that with 87-percent of clients now coming to Windermere via the Internet, management is exploring whether newspaper ads still provide a sufficient return on investment to justify their cost.

Managers also cited what they saw as relentless and overly gloom-and-doomish coverage of the local real estate market on the Times’ front page, complaining that compared to the rest of the nation the local market is actually much healthier than the Times reports.  I guess the thinking is, why spend money advertising in a paper that’s actually hurting your business?

But whatever the reason, chalk up yet another formerly steady revenue source on which the dailies can no longer rely.

Hard times in newspaperin’ everywhere:

Less than a year after moving into a new building downtown, The Columbian newspaper’s newsroom and business staff will return this weekend to its former headquarters in an effort to cut costs.

The newspaper is looking for a buyer for the new building, and the asking price is $41.5 million.

But the threat of bankruptcy — mentioned in October when the building move was announced — appears to have subsided.

Editor Lou Brancaccio is taking stock in the spirit of the season:

I am grateful for those who oppose us and say bad things about us. Does this sound strange to some of you? It shouldn’t. Of course I’m most grateful for those who criticize us in a constructive way. Still, I accept those who simply are bitter. It takes all kinds to make the world go around. Ironically, it is the free press that has helped to guarantee that their bitterness is heard.

Meanwhile the editorial staff itself is brimming over with holiday joy:

Jeers: To the close-minded, agenda-anchored über-liberals who are castigating Barack Obama for inviting Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration on Jan. 20.

Warren’s allies in California are spreading Christianist love all over the court system, with the help of none other than Ken Starr:

The sponsors of Proposition 8 on Friday argued for the first time that the court should undo the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters banned gay marriage at the ballot box last month

Nice.

Look, if Obama wants to call Rick Warren in for a nice chat about why the fuck Rick Warren and his fundamentalist allies think it’s legitimate to revoke people’s basic civil rights, fine. They can talk all they want.

That’s not what’s happening. Warren will be delivering the invocation at the inauguration, with all the attendant symbolism that entails.

Progressives have a moral duty to point out what Rick Warren and his ilk actually stand for, and it’s not a pretty picture, all the glossy trappings aside. If it makes editors feel better to harrumph and snort about how middle-of-the-road they are, also fine, but they’re missing the entire point.

In the latest sign of their increasingly desperate financial situation, the Seattle Times instructed about 500 managers and non-unionized employees to take one week unpaid leave by February 28.  The Times would not reveal the amount of money it expected to save by the mandatory action, only that it needed to achieve cost savings early in the coming year.

Scary time to be in the news biz.

A horrible incident involving alleged police misconduct in Houston Galveston, Texas. More here.

(NOTE–I see Goldy posted below about trying to raise scratch to send Josh to Olympia. I think that’s a fabulous idea.)

The Advance, the relatively new blog of the state House Democrats, notes an Andrew Garber article lamenting the shrinking pool of traditional reporters that will cover the session in Olympia. A key bit from Garber cited by the Dems:

During the past 15 years, the state population has increased by 25 percent and the amount of tax money spent by the state has more than doubled. Yet the number of print, television and radio journalists covering the state Legislature full time has dropped by about 70 percent.

It is a long-term trend that accelerated this decade and finally fell off a cliff this year because of plunging advertising revenue in face of the recession and a changing media landscape.

In 1993, there were 34 journalists covering the Washington state Legislature. By 2007, there were 17. This year, there may be as few as 10 full-time journalists, mostly newspaper reporters.

The Advance chimes in:

For those of us who work in the Legislature, we would add the point that reporters also keep each other honest. When fewer of them are trying to cover the same amount of news, it’s harder for them to make sure their facts are straight and their stories are objective.

So the seasoned, can’t-pull-the-wool-over-my-eyes Dave Ammons is no longer around to drill legislators about the nitty-gritty details of budgets and bills? The Columbian apparently won’t be sending Kathie Durbin up from Vancouver to be embedded in legislative life for the few months of session? How much does it matter? When we see this same trend across the country and in the D.C. press as well, what does it mean about the Fourth Estate’s ability to keep tabs on Congress and the White House?

I don’t know, smells like opportunity to me. And for once I mean that in an earnest rather than a snarky way. Out of destruction comes rebirth and all that, you know.

News gathering is hard work, at least if it’s done well. I’ve done a small bit of it in my time, in college and with an alternative newspaper here in Vancouver, and most folks are not going to do it without getting paid at least something. Plus there is no substitute for having eyes and ears on the ground.

Talking Points Memo is the exemplary national example of an internet site that does news gathering. Other members of this site, especially Goldy and Josh, certainly gather news. Not sure if the TPM model could be adapted to this state, but the need is clearly present.

The internet has paradoxically created the ability for interested citizens to seek out large volumes of information from multiple sources, including media outlets outside their home market, blogs and primary sources such as government documents.

But normal people still expect the news to be delivered to them, and as time progresses I hope we’ll see a move towards building a progressive infrastructure that can do some more grunt work news gathering. Opining is loads of fun, but we need both.

[NOTE:  I’m not sure what happened, but the server burped and I lost this post, and all its comments.  Strange.  So please add your comments to the thread again.]

With a budget battle brewing in what will be one of the most consequential legislative sessions in years, the number of journalists covering our state government has plummeted:

During the past 15 years, the state population has increased by 25 percent and the amount of tax money spent by the state has more than doubled. Yet the number of print, television and radio journalists covering the state Legislature full time has dropped by about 70 percent.

[…] In 1993, there were 34 journalists covering the Washington state Legislature. By 2007, there were 17. This year, there may be as few as 10 full-time journalists, mostly newspaper reporters.

We are facing the prospect of a huge hole in political coverage, with potentially devastating results for our state’s citizenry, but it’s also an opportunity for new media to rise to the task and help fill the void.  I thought about heading down to Olympia myself for the session, or hiring some youngster at slave wages to do it for me, but what’s really needed is a seasoned reporter who knows the ropes.  You know… like Josh Feit, who has been covering the Capitol for years.

The problem, of course, is the money.  It’ll cost HA about $15,000 in salary and expenses to pay Josh to cover this four month session… and that’s on top of the money I ultimately need to raise to support myself.  And I’d like to hear from you, my readers, whether you think it is worth it?

I don’t expect to raise all, or even most of the money in an online fund drive; I’m pursuing larger commitments from individuals and interest groups eager to see more in depth coverage of the coming session while promoting the growth of independent media.  But it all starts with your support.

So let me know what you think about these ambitious plans, and we’ll move on from there.

Here’s this morning’s Washington Post obituary (co-written by Bob Woodward) on W. Mark Felt, aka, “Deep Throat,” the Post’s famous anonymous source on the Watergate story, who didn’t so much mind what Nixon did, as much as he minded how he did it.

And here’s the conclusion from my review of Bob Woodward’s The Secret Man, Woodward’s account of the Deep Throat saga published in 2005, which explains what I mean about Felt:

The going criticism of Woodward’s book, though, is that he doesn’t really shed any conclusive light onto Felt’s motivations—he simply ponders the whys and hows. And despite a later section of the book where, indeed, Woodward does burden the reader with his own existential (and boring) discussions with his wife about the ethics of it all, I actually got a perfect sense of what Felt was up to. Woodward sums it up in his conclusion: “The crimes and abuses were background music. Nixon was trying to subvert not only the law but also the Bureau. So Watergate became Felt’s instrument to reassert the Bureau’s… supremacy.” It wasn’t what Nixon did that bugged Felt. It was how Nixon did it.

Woodward is right on two counts. Not only did the White House derail the FBI’s investigation into Watergate and, more importantly, cut off the investigation into related White House espionage, but it created—through the ratfucking squad of Nixon’s Plumbers—a B-movie, surrogate version of the FBI. Nixon’s paranoia about the Democrats compelled him to create his own “intelligence” agency.

Felt, who Woodward shows to be a consummate counterintelligence agent dating back to his work outing Nazi spies in WWII, was obviously offended at both Nixon’s clampdown on the FBI (shredding files of the FBI’s investigation into Howard Hunt, for example) and at the slimy decision to pay thugs like G. Gordon Liddy to do secret agent work against the Democrats that it couldn’t ask the FBI to do.

I think, ultimately, super-spy Felt was offended at what has long been the bottom line analysis of Watergate: It was just a “third-rate burglary.”

At the top of the Obama Transition Team’s change.gov website is the following quote from the President-elect:

“Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today”

The website allowed for users to submit questions through the site about the incoming administration’s agenda. After visitors to the website were able to vote for or against the submitted questions, the following question was the most popular:

“Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

One could easily argue that this isn’t the most pressing issue facing America right now, but it’s certainly the one for which the continued lack of a sane answer from politicians confounds the highest number of people. Obama’s response was predictable:

President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

While I never expected Barack Obama to simply end maijuana prohibition from the Oval Office, there are potential situations for which his role in drug policy will be interesting to watch. During the Democratic primary campaign, he vowed to stop the federal raids in medical marijuana states (then again, so did Bush in 2000, but that certainly didn’t happen). If Obama follows through on that promise, it’ll be a good start. But what happens if a state takes the next step and moves towards regulated and taxed sales as a budget-boosting measure? Will Obama use federal government resources to fight it, or will he also view that as a states’ rights issue?

The reason that these questions matter is because much of the reluctance at the state level to move forward on drug policy is because they fear coming in conflict with federal law. If we have an incoming administration that accepts the right of the states to decide these issues for themselves without interference – even if its something that Obama doesn’t necessarily support – we may start seeing states finding that ending a costly and counterproductive prohibition is a smart move in these tough economic times (remember that alcohol prohibition ended very quickly in the early 1930s after the economy went south).