HorsesAss.Org

As a kid, whenever the power was out, I learned how to play the piano. I re-learned during each power outage. We never had a generator, but my father was smart enough to install a wood stove in the center of the first floor of our house. Because of this we were never cold. The house is in rural King County, an area where folks are still a bit tougher than regular suburban people. While outages were never fun, we got through it.

Not everyone has a wood stove. Or a generator. Or, it would seem, a practical understanding of the dangers of carbon monoxide. Folks, if this event had really been serious, we would be in a world of trouble. What if this was an earthquake? I saw one lady walk into a drug store downtown and ask if they had flashlights. They didn’t. Why didn’t she have one? Everyone should. Getting supplies won’t be so easy in a worst-case scenario.

This storm really hurt people in the immigrant community. Of those deaths caused by carbon monoxide, several were immigrants. Perhaps instead of the dull programming on government cable channels, maybe we should be showing programs on the dangers of CO in languages other than English.

People have to stop whining. After listening to Goldy’s show on Sunday, I was irritated by how people have a sense of entitlement during these tough times. There was lots of complaining about Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light by folks with little understanding of how the electrical grid works. Amazing. With just a little preparation, you can make life a lot easier on yourself.

You’d all be surprised to find that you can buy a generator for 600 bucks. It’s a small one, but you can run a refrigerator, a heater, and some light bulbs, maybe more. If you own a house, it’s a good investment. Also, you’ll be the neighborhood’s hero as everyone will look to you to save their salmon steaks and buffalo burgers.

A few suggestions:

Listen to this guy. Do this stuff. Don’t panic, complain, or put a generator in your living room. If all else fails and you find yourself in the dark after the next storm, grab a sleeping bag and a duffle. I’ll probably still have power.

Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…

But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.

The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!

But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.

“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”

For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…

… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!

Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!

And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!

They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”

“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”

“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.

THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.

Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.

All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”

Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”

And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!

Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”

And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.

The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”

And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”

Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!

Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.

Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.

Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!

It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!

He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”

“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…

Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!

He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!

Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!

Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!

Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…

… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!

©2000 by David Goldstein
All rights reserved

[With apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss — but not to the greedy, litigious bastards at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLC. So there. Happy Christmukah.]

The Seattle Times has some advice for Icos shareholders:

Shareholders of Icos, the Seattle area’s largest locally owned biotech company, have another few days to think about whether to sell out to Eli Lilly, which has just raised its offer by $2 a share. Lilly has not changed its intention to close Icos and lay off all 550 employees here.

[…] Management, which stands to gain tens of millions of dollars in bonuses from the deal, was telling shareholders Lilly’s $32-a-share offer was good. Now, it’s $34 a share. Shareholders might think twice before taking its word for it and selling so easily.

At the risk of being branded a dirty commie, I’d like to also suggest that local shareholders might also think twice about whether their personal profit should take precedence over the broader interests of their community — both the community in which they live and the community of Icos employees.

This is an issue the local media seems to have gingerly danced about since Lilly announced their intention to shut down Icos and lay off all 550 employees. The decision has been described as “strange” and “unexpected,” but now that Lilly has made its intentions clear, Icos managers and shareholders can’t blame Lilly for the layoffs. If shareholders approve the deal, they will be directly responsible for shutting down a company they helped create, and laying off all of its employees. They can’t just blame Lilly; they must blame themselves.

I know it is apostasy in a nation that deifies capitalists to suggest that there is more to life than maximizing ones profits, or that individuals have an obligation to society that sometimes trumps personal self-interest. And it may appear idealistic and naive to advocate that there are some values that can never be quantified on a spreadsheet. But it is likewise idealist and naive to hide behind the notion that the market always makes the most efficient allocation of resources.

No doubt many Icos shareholders are only in it for the money, and they should follow the Times advice and evaluate Lilly’s offer based purely on whether they are getting a high enough price for their shares. But I’d wager that many shareholders — as well as the vast majority of Icos employees — also take pride in having helped to build something larger than themselves.

A vote to sell out is a vote to dismantle Seattle’s largest locally owned bio-tech company and lay off all of its employees, and I don’t think it unfair or unwise to ask local Icos shareholders to factor that into their decision. And if Lilly ultimately prevails, and yet another local bio-tech company is bought out and shut down, I think it is time to ask our elected officials to reconsider whether the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and other public subsidies we are investing in this industry is really benefiting the region, or merely benefiting a handful of savvy investors?

Maria Cantwell’s drug policy… um, not so great.

The youth vote in Western states is killer. Killer good for Democrats.

State GOP leaders, beaten like a bad dog in recent elections, resort to whining. You’d think they might accidentally learn something.

Stahl is dead-on:

In order to make good public policy decisions, one must consider all the options, all the facts, fairly and without prejudice. It is clear that everyone who has approached the Viaduct thus far has done it with strongly preconceived notions and wishful thinking, and that has prevented an open, honest discussion about a critical decision for our city’s future.

Bush wants to “win” on Social Security. I hope our Democrats show the same backbone they did last time when they told Bush to go to hell.

Andrew’s got THE power.

I don’t support Kucinich For President, so according to one diarist, I’m a coward. Ladies and gents, let’s go to the Primary Season Rule Book. Can we all agree to cool it with that stuff for a while now? Just a little while?

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

I’ll be filling in tonight for Frank Shiers on 710-KIRO from 9PM to Midnight, so I’ll be arriving and leaving early tonight, but I’m sure there are other folk worth having a drink with.

Not in Seattle? Washington liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities, and a full listing of Washington’s 11 Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

I’m not a very religious man, but as a blogger there are times when stories seem to fall from the sky like manna from heaven, threatening to shake my lack of faith to its very foundation. For example, here I was mired in the post-election doldrums when suddenly, as if by Divine intervention, the Seattle Port Commission inexplicably throws itself into the FOX-manufactured “War on Christmas“, providing my readers a welcome diversion from an oppressively informative string of posts on education, transportation and other boring, policy-wonk stuff like that.

Not only did Christmastreegate generate fodder for both my blog and my radio show, it also earned me a spot on KING-5 TV’s Up Front With Robert Mak. I was without power when the show aired Sunday, so I only just got a chance to view it streaming online, and I thought my performance was steady if unremarkable. But the most entertaining part of the show was by far the interview with Pastor Joe Fuiten, who basically proved by example all my insinuations of anti-semitism.

When asked if the Christian faith is under attack, Fuiten said yes. When asked who is responsible for the War on Christmas, Fuiten implied that Rabbi Bogomilsky deserved the “universal condemnation” he was getting. The Christmas tree is not a religious symbol, the pastor insisted, but when asked how removing a supposedly secular object could possibly be considered an attack on Christianity he argued that this dispute was part of a “pattern” — a fifty-plus-year effort (ie, conspiracy) to “eradicate” Christian activity and symbols from public life. Fuiten accepted that this is a “very diverse country” and praised American Protestantism for being so “accommodating to minorities,” but when asked if he would object to having a menorah displayed at the airport, he refused to embrace multiculturalism.

Apparently, Fuiten believes that only Christmas should be recognized in our public places because this is a “Christian nation” that celebrates Christmas “big time:”

“The reason the airports are packed is because of Christmas — they’re not traveling for Hannukah for sure. […] Even Jewish merchants ought’a be gathered around their cash registers singing ‘what a friend we have in Jesus.'”

Uh-huh. Not only does he diminish American Jewry while perpetuating anti-semitic stereotypes, he does so entirely unaware that anybody might take offense. Yeah… nobody travels for Hannukah, and besides, all us Jews should just shut our yaps and count our money. This is exactly what I mean when I say that “War on Christmas” rhetoric can’t help but spur anti-semitic sentiment… especially when the pastor of the region’s largest and most politically influential mega-church is so clearly and cluelessly anti-semitic. But of course, what do you expect from a man who responded to my posts on the Cedar Springs Bible Camp by attacking the residents for conspiring with “Christian-hating Jews and homosexuals.”

All Rabbi Bogomilsky asked for was single menorah, a symbolic recognition that our nation is home to more than one faith, and celebrates more than one holiday this time of year. And for this, Uncle Tomsteins like right-wing toady, Rabbi Daniel Lapin have the gall to demand that Rabbi Bogomilsky publicly apologize. But what happens when Lapin’s buddy Fuiten overtly insults in the Jewish people? I intend to find out.

If the blogosphere has a God, then surely Pastor Joe is one of the Creator’s minor miracles. It would be a sin for me to let this story go.

As Dan Savage reported yesterday on Slog, in assisting with Rev. Ted Haggard’s “restoration,” his New Life Church is conducting a sexual witch hunt, soliciting the public’s help in uncloseting other sinners amongst its staff and leaders. Well, score…

New Life Church — still reeling from the fall of its charismatic founder — was stunned when a second church pastor left due to sexual impropriety.

Christopher Beard, 35, who led the young-adult leadership program twentyfourseven, resigned after telling New Life’s Board of Overseers about a one-time sexual encounter he had several years ago, before he was married.

In a statement released Monday evening, New Life said Beard had “displayed poor judgement in several decisions throughout his tenure. This poor judgement included one instance of consensual sexual contact with another unmarried adult several years ago.”

Officials for the 14,000-member church declined to say anything more about the encounter.

Beard’s resignation came a little more than a month after the Rev. Ted Haggard, New Life’s senior pastor for 21 years, was dismissed after allegations he had a three-year sexual tryst with a male escort. The escort also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine.

Gees… I sure hope Beard didn’t get a blowjob in Georgia. He could do hard time.

Around 200,000 customers are still without power four days after Thursday’s wind storm, but I’m not one of them. My power came up around 7PM tonight, and my cat is damn thankful.

Personally, I’d like to thank all the people who offered to put me up over the past few days, but I felt if I were to write credibly about the outage I couldn’t abandon my neighbors. Or my cat. I also want to thank the several people who offered to lend me a generator (except for the guy who insisted I run it in my basement.) And of course, I want to thank all the linemen who have been pulling long shifts to bring heat and light to the rest of us.

More later, but for now I desperately just want to climb into a warm bed and watch some TV.

UPDATE:
I woke up this morning to find my house at 52 degrees. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have things back to normal.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
I just took a long, hot, wasteful shower, and then threw out about $150 worth of food. I feel like an American again.

I first heard about Gov. Gregoire’s viaduct “punt” last Friday following the big wind storm right as I was in the middle of a two-hour commute from Redmond to U-Dub. (Yeah…I know I should have stayed home, but I didn’t really have a choice.) Normally, my commute is 25 minutes by car or an hour by bus. On Friday, however, the SR520 floating bridge was shut down to repair wind damage. At about the one hour mark, crawling along at under 10 mph on I-405, I was contemplating the many ways my quality of life would decline if the SR520 bridge decided to sink. And then the news broke about Gregoire’s statement.

Frankly, I was irritated by another delay in replacing a failing piece of critical infrastructure. Gregiore had her chance to be The Decider™ and she decided to punt. Or so I thought from the media account.

After the sting of a painful commute faded, I looked into Gregoire’s statement and it became clear to me that she had, in fact, made nearly all of the important decisions. She decided that all options were out except the tunnel and the rebuild. Essentially, Gregoire validated (politically and practically) the engineering, environmental, and fiscal analyses found in DOT’s Supplemental Draft, Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that rejected all but these two options. And eliminating the fringe options is a good decision.

The DEIS dealt with each fringe option in turn. I’ll only mention the so-called no-replacement option because, I believe, Goldy disagrees with me on it. The DEIS finds that the no-replacement option isn’t viable:

• Replacing the viaduct with a four-lane surface street would substantially increase congestion for most of the day and part of the evening on I-5 through downtown Seattle, downtown streets, and Alaskan Way. These congested conditions are predicted to occur even if improvements were made to downtown streets and transit ridership substantially increased.
• I-5 through Seattle doesn’t have room for additional trips since it’s already congested through much of the day and into the evening. However, under the No Replacement concept, many trips that currently use the viaduct would shift to I-5, causing it to become even more congested.
• Downtown street traffic would increase by 30 percent, though traffic increases to specific areas like Pioneer Square and the waterfront could exceed 30 percent.
• With a four-lane roadway, traffic on Alaskan Way would quadruple to 35,000 to 56,000 vehicles per day compared to about 10,000 vehicles today. This traffic would make it difficult for patrons to get to waterfront businesses and would create more conflicts between vehicles and the many bicyclists and pedestrians that use Alaskan Way.
• Neighborhoods west of I-5 (Ballard, Queen Anne, Magnolia, and West Seattle) would have less direct connections to and through downtown; therefore, travel times for trips to and through downtown would increase for drivers from these areas.

A four-lane Alaskan Way would create more congestion on I-5 and downtown streets than the Surface Alternative evaluated in the Draft EIS. The project partners dropped the Surface Alternative because it didn’t meet the AWV Project’s purpose, which is to “maintain or improve mobility, accessibility, and traffic safety for people and goods along the existing Alaskan Way Viaduct Corridor.”

More congestion, longer trip times, and greater susceptibility to accidents, construction, and events? No thanks. The no-replacement option would make a trip to (or through) downtown Seattle less desirable than a field trip through a rendering plant. If anything, it’s a plan to slowly strangle downtown Seattle.

I’m also not convinced by reports that other cities have removed capacity with minimal long term effects. Such decisions are generally not made randomly—there is engineering judgment that precedes such a drastic move. With I-5 at capacity and downtown already too congested at peak times, the engineering judgment suggests that the Seattle waterfront is not a good candidate for capacity reduction.

Gregoire made another important decision. She decided that the decision between the tunnel option and the rebuild option would come down to a vote of the people. But not just any people. She put it up to a vote by the people who would gain the greatest benefit. Oh…and the people who would have to pay the price difference for a tunnel.

The Seattle Times editorial board refers to this as Gregoire’s pragmatic punt.

Effectively, Gregoire is saying, “we will go with the rebuild option because the State has an obligation to replace an important and failing part of the highway infrastructure and, by the way, Seattle, if you want a tunnel instead let us know (soon!) and, if so, include your credit card number.”

What some consider a “punt” is really an offer of an upgrade option for Seattle.

The tunnel upgrade option for Seattle is good politics, too. If the voters decide to spend a couple billion of their own dollars for the tunnel, who can deny them? Or if the voters cheap-out and decide that a rebuilt monstrosity along the waterfront is good enough, then…well, then let them lie in their own noise pollution.

This morning on KUOW’s Weekday, Joni Balter and Joel Connelly had a mini-debate over the Governor’s decision. Balter considered the decision strategically sound. Why? Because Gregoire knows that House Speaker Frank Chopp will do everything he can legislatively to kill the tunnel. And Mayor Nickels will interfere with any attempt to implement the rebuild option. As Balter points out, there is one power higher than Gregoire, and that is the voters.

Joel Connelly, on the other hand, felt that Gregoire offered a shanked punt. We pay her to be The Decider™, and she ought to decide. In case you haven’t figured it out, I find Balter’s arguments more compelling.

Clearly, Gregoire favors the rebuild option; she probably expects Seattle to fail in coming up with either the public support or the funding for a tunnel. The ball is now in Nickels’ court to both build public support and convert his fantasy funding plan into something grounded in reality.

The DEIS prices the tunnel at between $3.6 and $4.3 billion, and the elevated rebuild from $2.5 to $2.9 billion. Funding for the rebuild is almost in place, as there is now $2.45 billion committed to the project, including $2.2 billion from the State, $0.24 billion from the Feds, and $0.016 billion from Seattle.

The tunnel option would likely draw an additional $500 million from Seattle and $200 million from the Port of Seattle. Other potential funding sources include a local improvement district (actually, this was proposed by Goldy) that could provide $250 million, a regional ballot measure (i.e. new taxes), additional Army Corps of Engineers funding for the seawall part of the project, and additional Federal highway and emergency relief funding.

In the long run, the tunnel option offers significant advantages. Most importantly, it will remake the downtown Seattle waterfront. Have you ever walked from the Pike Place Market to the waterfront? Man…talk about an unpleasant experience! A tunnel would …

…dramatically decrease noise levels by about 12 A-weighted decibels (dBA) along the waterfront. This would sound like cutting the noise level by more than half. Noise along the central section of the project corridor is currently loud and would not change much if the Elevated Structure Alternative is built.

The way I see it, the tunnel option is a long term investment, and one that will be appreciated by generations of Seattleites. I can imagine thirty years from now, two lovers will be strolling down to the waterfront, hand in hand. Under one scenario they’ll excitedly discuss their future life together as they take in the pleasant views. Under the other scenario, one will bellow at the other , “I can’t believe they built a fucking freeway through the waterfront!”

So I hope Seattle goes for the option…who knows what kind of difference it could make. I’m just sayin’.

The good news is that it can’t possibly get any more miserable in my house. After three-and-a-half days without power the indoor and outdoor temperatures have pretty much equalized. My refrigerator thermometer (no longer needed in my fridge) recorded 36 degrees in my living room this morning, about halfway between today’s expected high and expected low. So if I’m forced to sleep yet another night in an unheated house, it certainly couldn’t get any worse than last night.

Of course I’m far from the only one suffering through the power outage, a fact I was reminded of constantly throughout my four hours on 710-KIRO last night as I took calls from cold, tired people throughout the region. Some just wanted to complain, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Some called to offer take in those less fortunate, and it was wonderful to hear such generosity. A few callers actually seemed to be enjoying the adventure. More power to them. (So to speak.)

But most were clearly frustrated at least as much by the lack of useful information out there as they were by the inconvenience and discomfort. Puget Sound Energy customers — of which over 200,000 households were still dark last night — were especially angry over what they felt to be a lack of responsiveness from their power company. After three hours of callers bashing PSE on-air, I finally challenged the company to call in and give me an update… and to their credit they did.

Likewise, Seattle City Light eventually responded to repeated calls from linemen who were angry that they were being pulled from the field last night when they felt they were still fresh. City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco called in to explain that only crews that had been out in the field for 17 hours or longer were being pulled, but linemen continued to call KIRO to refute him. This went on for hours, with linemen and customers growing increasingly suspicious until finally a manager called in to explain that yes indeed, most crews were being called in from the fields, but only so that they could synchronize teams the next morning in the daylight. One can disagree with that strategy if one wants, but at least it’s a reasonable explanation to what at first seemed to be an unreasonable management decision.

I mention all this because it points out how important good communications and PR is, not just to corporations and government officials, but to customers and constituents. I know a few government communications officials, and I love to tease them as sell-outs and hacks (yeah… I’m talking about you Sandeep,) but the truth is they provide a valuable service.

It’s one thing to be kept in the dark due to downed power lines. We all understand the enormity of the situation and the incredible work the linemen and other crews are putting into restoring our power. But it is just damn frustrating to be figuratively kept in the dark about the pace of repairs, and the decision making process that has led management to focus their efforts on some areas over others.

Stations like KIRO have pretty much covered the outage 24/7 since the wind storm hit, and company and public officials are being just plain stupid if they’re waiting for us to call them to get the latest updates and information. The linemen in the field are so dedicated to their work that they’re calling to complain when they’re pulled off the job. The communications staffs need to be just as tireless and proactive.

The media, legacy and new, is a valuable resource. Use us.

POSTSCRIPT:
As long as I’m lecturing corporate America, I thought I’d send a message to Starbucks… a message sent via the free WiFi network provided by Tully’s. Perhaps Tully’s free WiFi hasn’t directly generated enough extra business to make up for the revenues they could have earned by charging for the service, but it has certainly generated an enormous amount of goodwill and customer loyalty. Given a choice, I’ll certainly choose Tully’s over Starbucks in the future, if only out of a sense of gratitude.

There’s more to running a good business than counting beans — even when it comes to selling coffee.

It’s almost midnight, and I’m sitting here in my car in the parking lot by Tully’s, tapping into their WiFi so I can check my email. It’s now been three days without power, and my house is freezing. This really sucks.

It’s all power outage all the time tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO. In fact, there’s so much to talk about (or so I’m told) they’ve given me an extra hour. So join me and my special guest Feisty from 7PM to 11PM.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

Finally. 58 hours after the power went out I no longer need to drive all the way to the Tully’s on Broadway to charge my cellphone and tap into the Internet. Instead I’m sitting here charging up (and warming up) at the Tully’s on Genesee and Rainier. I guess that’s progress.

Needless to say I’m still without power, as are twenty thousand or so of my neighbors in and around the Rainier Valley, which apparently is one of the last places in the city where main feeders are still down. Not that I know for sure, because I can’t get through to Seattle City Light’s “hotline” this morning.

Of course, despite all my whining, I can’t say the prolonged power outage is entirely without its positives. We tend to learn a lot about ourselves when faced with adversity, and I for one have learned that I really like electricity. A lot.

Electricity does all kinds of cool things. Like keep my food cold — or even frozen — so it doesn’t spoil. It also does a lot of warm things, like… well… keep me warm. That’s cool. Or warm. Whatever.

It got so cold in my house last night that my cat actually tried to join me and the dog in bed. (The dog was, how shall we say…? Uncooperative.) I can’t tell you exactly how cold it was in my house this morning because the indicator on my thermostat only goes down to 40 degrees. I can tell you that unlike her outside water bowl, my dog’s inside water bowl has not frozen over. Yet. So my house is somewhere within that 8-degree range between virtually freezing and literally freezing.

I’ve gotten a couple emails and comments from readers telling me to quit my whining… that I should have just been better prepared. But I’m not sure how much better prepared I could have been. I’ve got a wind-up radio and some candles and a couple flashlights and plenty of food. And with the dead pear tree that blew down in my yard, I have plenty of well-seasoned firewood. Unfortunately, what I don’t have is a fireplace in which to burn it.

I suppose I could have bought myself a generator to power the blower on my oil furnace, but for a city dweller, that just seems like overkill. It’s not like I’m living on some island or out in the country where the occasional power outage is the price you pay for the beauty and peace that comes from such isolation. I live in the middle of a major American city, and it is reasonable to expect the basic infrastructure to function.

Still, I don’t have it nearly as bad as others. My daughter is with her mother staying with family in Mill Creek, and I was fortunate to have a full tank of gas when the windstorm hit. But the Rainier Valley is filled with working class families, many of them immigrants, who don’t have the same resources or safety net. I’ve run into a couple families from my daughter’s school, and they describe people combing the streets for firewood, and elderly neighbors with no heat and no place to go.

And man, is my cat pissed.

UPDATE:
I’ve heard a lot of news reports about fights at the pumps as filling stations run out of gas. Well, the power is back up along most of Rainier Ave. S., and there are no lines at the gas stations. So fill ‘er up.

I was awakened this morning by my dog snuggling up against me in bed, shivering. Pussy. Granted, with my power still out it was 46 degrees, but that’s only a touch colder than I normally let my house get at night.

(Funny annecdote. I’ve got an old kitchen that probably hasn’t seen a major redesign since the house was built in 1912, thus my fridge actually sits outside the kitchen on an uninsulated, enclosed porch. I keep a thermometer in my fridge, and at 39 degrees, it was actually warmer inside the fridge than outside. My freezer has already defrosted, but at least my condiments won’t freeze.)

No doubt I was woefully unprepared for a prolonged power outage, but then again, I live in the middle of a fucking city, so I wasn’t expecting one barring a major disaster. Sure, we’ve got some rugged country around here, and we expect blackouts from downed trees and such. But not in-city. If this is what happens after a windstorm, imagine what it’s going to be like after a major earthquake? So here I am again back at the Tully’s on Broadway, recharging my iBook and my cellphone. (The Sony Ericsson W600i, by the way, has a helluva a useful flashlight function. Who knew?)

I don’t know enough about the situation to question the pace of repairs, but I do wonder a bit about the priorities. Down here in South Seattle, we tend to have a little chip on our shoulders about what we perceive to be a less than equal share of city services, so it didn’t escape my attention this morning when I called Seattle City Light for an update, and they proudly announced that they had restored all the downed feeders in the more affluent North end of the city, leaving us in the South end to freeze our asses off in the dark. The recording said that of the 55 feeders originally down, the 30 remaining are all in the South. Yippee.

But I suppose my dog and I should just put a few more layers of fleece on and throw my downed pear tree on the fire. Except, of course, not only don’t I have a fridge in my kitchen, I don’t have a fireplace either.

If only they allowed dogs inside Tully’s we could camp out here.