HorsesAss.Org

Reacting to an explosion in the use of so-called “independent expenditures” in Washington state — particularly in judicial races — the Public Disclosure Commission has asked the legislature to impose tougher restrictions on how PACs fund political campaigns. Not so fast, says the Seattle P-I editorial board:

Whoa. We have our own concerns about the distorting effects disproportionate amounts of money can have. The pursuit of large, centralized contributions can tend to draw candidates away from their individual constituents’ concerns.

But a citizen’s right to express support for a political candidate with cheers or checks seems pretty fundamental. So it could be that an increase in political spending is no more damaging to the process than an increase in political speech.

After all, some of the biggest spending didn’t pay off at the polls last month. John Groen’s noisy attempt to unseat Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander is the prime example.

I don’t take as much comfort from Groen’s defeat as the P-I does. The nasty, mean-spirited and ham-fisted Groen campaign reflected the character and personality of his primary patron — the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) — and it just didn’t go over well with voters. But while the BIAW may be a bunch of rude, cold-hearted bastards, they’re not stupid. And they’re loaded. That’s why they’ve been one of the most effective political organizations in the state over the past decade or so. Thus I fully expect them to learn their lesson from this year’s embarrassing defeat, and spend their money more wisely next time around.

With few exceptions the initiative process has become the exclusive playground of well-financed PACs and wealthy individuals, with measures often devised more as GOTV tools than serious attempts to legislate. And for all the relief over Groen’s defeat, Alexander still could have been overwhelmed if supporters hadn’t scraped together a sizable if lesser chunk of change to fight back in kind. Do we really want our Supreme Court justices chosen via a multimillion dollar game of campaign finance chicken?

The P-I concludes by saying that in a perfect world “public financing for all candidates would level the playing field,” but apparently dismisses such a reform as panglossian. I don’t.

It is time to learn whether public financing would indeed level the playing field, and our state Supreme Court races are the perfect place to start. Don’t just limit the amount of money special interests can spend on judicial candidates, eliminate it entirely. Our Supreme Court is too important to be jiggered by money coming from the right or the left; if it was encouraging that voters saw through the tsunami of cash that was intended to sweep Groen to victory, imagine what kind of jurists we might elect if we took money out of the equation altogether.

Otherwise, if we accept the notion that political money is political speech, and therefore should never be limited, then we implicitly accept an electoral system in which some people have the right to speak louder than others.

As a Belltown resident, I’ve got a great view of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. I should, because the thing is fifty feet outside my window! Fifty feet! When I wake up every morning, I look out my window at the rush hour traffic whizzing by on the Eisenhower-era structure. The Viaduct is not some political abstraction for me.

There’s a debate about how to replace the Viaduct. Some folks want a tunnel, or a rebuild, or what is being called the “roads and transit” option. Lots of people are against the tunnel option, but not all of those folks are for another viaduct. A new viaduct will be at least thirty percent wider than the current viaduct, thanks to modern DOT guidelines. Maybe it made sense in the 1950’s to build freeways through the city’s core, but it sure seems like a bad idea these days.

Do we need to replace the car capacity? Not necessarily. Plenty of car trips made on the viaduct could be made on arterial streets. We could mitigate the West Seattle to Downtown and Ballard to Downtown routes. Most Viaduct users make local trips. Is it cost effective to spend billions on a mile of roadway? It may not matter what a Seattle guy like me thinks, as these big decisions are made in Olympia. If only Seattle had an ace up their sleeve, a power broker with influence to spare, someone to push for a progressive solution. Someone like…

Frank Chopp!

He’s the ‘big dog’ of the Democrats, and he’s against a tunnel. He’s corralled a bunch of Democrats into signing a letter stating the tunnel option is a bad idea. Big shots like Frank can stop things, but what plan would Chopp actually go for?

Here’s a snippet of The Stranger’s Josh Feit’s interview with Rep. Frank Chopp.

Then Chopp surprised me again: “That leaves two alternatives that I’m very open to.” He started sketching again, drawing two options he felt hadn’t been given a fair hearing. “One is the surface transit option,” he said. “I’m okay with this if it’ll work.”

By “work” I asked him if that meant “maintain capacity”… and he said simply: “I don’t know if the surface transit option is good or bad, but I’m open about it. If that’s what we end up with, I’m happy.”

Others aren’t so happy. Some are attacking the People’s Waterfront Coalition, the folks behind the plan, saying the idea is non-starter. Then again, lots of people thought the R. H. Thompson Expressway was absolutely necessary for Seattle’s economic health. You can see what happened to that proposed freeway when you drive through the Arboretum. (Look for the freeway ramps that just… end.) The Washington State Department of Transportation is a highway building bureaucracy. That’s their job. Where they see traffic problems, they see highway solutions.

As the tunnel option seems unaffordable, and the elevated option unpalatable, a truly progressive solution to the Viaduct problem is at hand. Instead of spending millions studying the same old auto-centric ideas, I hope the WA-DOT can think about moving people, not just cars. That would make this Belltown resident sleep more soundly.

Can’t get enough of “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO? Well tune in a half-hour early tonight as I take over the microphone from 6:30PM to 10PM:

6:30PM: Sonic bust? As long as I’ve got sports fans listening, I thought I’d ask the question once again: are you willing to pay higher taxes to finance a new arena for the Seattle (or Bellevue or Renton) Supersonics? If not, I’ve got a proposal — a tax on the income of visiting athletes. Twenty other states already levy a “jock tax,” why not WA?

7PM: Are we winning the War on the Christmas? Sea-Tac Airport officials removed 9 Christmas trees late Friday night after a Rabbi asked to have an 8-foot-tall menorah displayed next to the largest tree. Was this the latest battle in the much ballyhooed “War on Christmas,” or just an example of timid, narrow-minded airport officials acting really, really stupid? Either way, Barry Nelson and Tom Schecker, authors of “War on Xmas: the Official Field Manual,” will join me to offer useful tips on how us secular humanists can cast off the shackles of Christianist oppression.

8PM: Are you and your partner ready to take that big step, and get civil-unionized? With Democrats holding the Governor’s mansion and large majorities in both houses of the state legislature, now is the time to push for a civil union bill, but some in the gay community seem to want same-sex “marriage” or nothing, a political hot potato that many Democrats just don’t want to touch. How much is the word “marriage” worth, when civil union can offer most of the same rights and protections for a fraction of the political cost? The folks at “Think Equal” think a lot, but are Washington voters ready to approve “gay marriage” by any name?

9PM: To be announced.

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

The Fighting First Family:

Courtesy of Jesus’ General

Just read Robert Jamieson’s column in today’s Seattle P-I: “Critics go after the wrong pastor.”

Hmm. I wasn’t aware that us critics were limited to going after only one pastor at a time.

It’s an embarrassment of riches out there with the likes of Mark Driscoll, Ken Hutcherson, Joe Fuiten, Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, and the inimitably mule-fucking Rev. Neil Horsley routinely making headlines. So many pastors, so little time.

While Tim Eyman this week was flooding local media with press releases touting an inane new initiative (but not touting the State Supreme Court’s thrashing of his I-776 appeal), a far more dangerous ideologue was filing an initiative of his own.

Rev. Ken Hutcherson, of the Eastside evangelical powerhouse Antioch Bible Church, has three things that Eyman no longer has: money, followers, and (at least in some circles) credibility. In the wake of Eyman’s bungling this year of a slam-dunk initiative to overturn Washington’s new gay civil rights law, Hutcherson and other evangelical leaders promised such an initiative — which Eyman essentially stole from them — would be back.

Now it is.

Hutcherson quietly filed exactly such an initiative late last week, a fact only reported yesterday. Maybe that’s because the initiative is purely symbolic and is going nowhere. Hutcherson would need to gather 225,000 signatures by the end of December. The state has not even reviewed the initiative’s language yet or given it a title and number, essential steps before Hutcherson can even start gathering signatures. It really would take an act of someone’s God for this initiative to qualify for next year’s ballot.

Except that by refiling the identical initiative on Jan. 2, with the initiative language already approved, Hutcherson gets a few extra days in 2007 to gather signatures, and four extra weeks this month to organize his anti-fag army. Hutcherson is many things, but stupid is not one of them.

He will be a far more formidable opponent than Eyman, who, contrary to the preenings of the coalition optimistically self-named “Washington Won’t Discriminate” (Really? Asked any farmworkers lately? Or Afirican-Americans with a family member shot by SPD?), was stopped by Eyman’s own incompetence, not by any liberal opposition. It will take far more than a smug (and white) group of Seattle libs launching a web site and handing out flyers to derail Hutcherson. It will take money — a lot of it. It will take a prolonged statewide media campaign featuring a bipartisan roster of Washington’s political, business, and cultural leaders. And it will take serious outreach into Hutcherson’s religious base of support, speaking with pastors, other religious leaders, and their congregations about, for example, Jesus’ teachings on discrimination, forgiveness, and the judging of others. There’s a lot more of that in the Bible than there is gay-bashing.

Or perhaps we should launch an initiative banning cotton/polyester fabrics, on both religious (Leviticus) and purely aesthetic grounds. Both are just about as improbably random, Biblically speaking, as the demented fundamentalist Christian fixation with same-sex couples.

I have a career-ending confession to make. During the heat of Washington state’s US senate campaign, a senior Cantwell staffer once bought me a beer. Oh sure, we were both understandably giddy after a successful campaign event. And a little drunk. But nothing can really excuse my stunning lapse of journalistic ethics.

Had I disclosed this compensation at the time, I suppose my credibility might have survived tattered but intact. But now that I’ve made my mea culpa, it’s hard to imagine that my once-loyal readers could ever trust me again. Nor should they.

Or at least, that seems to be the thinking of some of our nation’s “professional” journalists.

Today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer features an editorial chastising bloggers for their “rather surprising ties to specific politicians or parties.”

A New York Times article and chart showed extensive financial links between some prominent national bloggers and politicians across the political spectrum. Most bloggers promptly disclosed roles as campaign advisers and the like, as the article said and offended bloggers emphasized in responses. As at least one poster mentioned, though, disclosures can easily get lost.

[…] There remains a disconnect, however, between bloggers’ image and their increasing ties to the political establishment, whether the pay comes from Republican Sen. John McCain, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton or a host of other figures.

Um… I’m not sure what “image” they’re talking about, but I find it a little offensive that “real” journalists feel that they are entitled to earn a living from their profession, but apparently us bloggers are not. And if there’s a growing disconnect, it’s between the legacy media and the millions of Americans who are now getting their news and commentary from us bloggers. Breaking news guys: our readers aren’t dumb. They know we’re biased. In fact, they expect it.

For example, I once received a small speaking fee from the SEIU for moderating a panel discussion. Should my blogging on labor issues now be discounted as biased, due to this previously undisclosed payment? No, my blogging on labor issues should be discounted as biased because I’m, um, generally biased towards labor. I’ve never claimed to be objective. I don’t think it’s even humanly possible.

Likewise, I provided plenty of advice to the Darcy Burner campaign, solicited and otherwise. Had I been compensated for my valuable political and media consulting, could my coverage of the Reichert/Burner race in WA’s 8th Congressional District have possibly been any more one-sided? I sure hope not. Once I decided that Burner had a shot at winning I was determined to do everything possible to help boost her to victory.

The point is, my readers aren’t idiots. They read me in context.

On both my blog and my weekly radio show I make it absolutely clear that I am unabashedly liberal. I wear my bias on my sleeve. I aggressively advocate for candidates and issues — and should one of these campaigns choose to hire me to do additional work behind the scenes… how is that any less ethical than the publisher of the largest newspaper in Washington state shamelessly using his op-ed pages to shill for an initiative that will save him and his heirs tens of millions of dollars? How is a payment from a candidate you openly believe in and advocate for, any more compromising than a paycheck from a publisher you fear to contradict? No one seriously believes that there is unanimity at the Seattle Times in opposition to the estate tax, and yet on such a high profile issue, of all the editorialists and columnists, only Danny Westneat had the balls to speak out against its repeal; and even then, only briefly. The Seattle Times is a newspaper that claims to objectively serve one of the most liberal, Democratic cities in the nation, and yet it had the unmitigated gall to endorse a slate of Republicans in a Blue Wave election, and suggest that the region’s interests would be better served by a half-wit, two-term minority member of Congress than a Harvard educated member of the incoming Democratic majority?

If some wealthy, Democratic benefactor were to pay me a much-needed stipend to keep me blogging, how could that possibly make HorsesAss.org any less credible than the op-ed section of the Seattle Times given its shameless, self-serving shilling over the past election cycle?

So my question for those who question the propriety of political bloggers seeking political consulting work on the side is: what is it about blogging that makes you think that we must do it for free if we’re to remain genuine and relevant? The vast majority of bloggers can’t possibly garner enough readership to earn a living from online ads — should our voices be silenced because the free market can’t support our efforts? Must the very best of us commit to a life of poverty in order to pursue our vocation full-time, or seek meaningful remuneration only from work outside our area of passion and expertise? Is a corporate paycheck the only legitimate income for an ethical journalist?

The Seattle P-I editorial board fears that we are regressing to the days when newspapers were once as openly biased as, well… us bloggers:

There’s also a back-to-the-future aspect to the one-sided advocacy. American newspapers began as organs dedicated to serving particular political parties. Advocacy is a political right and a fundamental source of U.S. strength. But it’s not the main thrust of journalism. And in the journalism generally practiced in America, accepting pay from politicians — disclosed or not — is about as far off the map as one can go.

But the “journalism generally practiced in America” today is an historical anomaly that grew out of the media consolidation that shuttered the vast majority of dailies early in the twentieth century. “Objectivity” was a necessary sales pitch required to reassure readers that one or two dailies could adequately replace the many different voices to which they had grown accustomed. It is also a wonderful ideal, though unfortunately impossible to achieve in reality, for as Woody Allen astutely observed, even “objectivity is subjective.”

I’m not one of those bloggers who long for the extinction of the legacy media, nor do I think this modern American model of an objective, fair and balanced press will ever perish at the hands of us advocacy journalists. But there’s certainly more than enough room for both models to coexist, and to some extent, converge. Both models can be equally honest and informative, as long as the practitioners remain true to themselves, and to their slightly divergent ethical principles… principles which most definitely include disclosing all relevant financial relationships.

But in the end, how is my openly biased blog really any different from the op-ed section of any major daily? Facts are facts, and when I get them wrong my readers abrasively taunt me in my comment threads. The rest of what I write is nothing but personal spin and opinion, and as long as I remain honest about who I am and what I’m trying to achieve, does it really matter who pays me?

Tim Eyman gets another notch in his belt—his belt for losses. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled that I-776 cannot repeal a prior Sound Transit motor vehicle excise tax (MVET).

The Sound Transit MVET was authorized some four years before I-776 passed in 2002, and resulted in the issue and sale of Sound Transit construction bonds. But I-776 stated “Any motor vehicle excise tax previously imposed under the provisions of RCW 81.104.160(1) shall be repealed, terminated and expire on the effective date of this act.”

In other words, I-776 attempted to retroactively repeal a tax enacted by a regional taxing authority for a regional transportation project, even though the construction bonds were sold in 1999 and matured in 2028.

The lower courts held that this part of I-776 was unconstitutional because the bonds were an “obligation of contract” and that laws impairing such obligations are prohibited by the State Constitution. Thus, it should be no surprise that the Supreme Court voted to uphold the lower court ruling :

The intervenors (Salish Village Home Owners Association, one of its members, and Permanent Offense, sponsor of the initiative) seek reversal of the trial court ruling, contending, among other arguments, that the bonds are not impaired. The crux of the intervenors’ argument appears to be that the people, through initiative, have the right to repeal taxes, pledged as security for capital intensive projects such as highways and bridges, when they no longer want to pay such taxes. However, the contract clause of our state constitution guarantees that “No . . . law impairing the obligations of contracts shall ever be passed.” Wash Const. art. I, § 23.

The intervenors ask this court to ignore the contract clause and long-standing case law in order to repeal MVET taxes securing Sound Transit bonds. Unfortunately, the intervenors point to no authority for their contentions which are contrary to well-settled law and the plain language of our constitution.

Pretty solid logic. But, over at (un)SoundPolitics, there is an “alternative” interpretation of the ruling. Said Stefan,

The statist Alexander Court again upheld executive preference to ignore the will of the voters

I’m not sure what he means by the phrase “executive preference,” but it is very interesting that Stefan used the word statist. Statism refers to government meddling in “personal, social or economic matters.” But the real statism in this case comes from initiative (I-776)—a statewide initiative that prohibits people in smaller (regional or local) tax districts from taxing themselves. Initiative 776 attempted to retroactively repeal a regional tax that was supported by 57% percent of the voters in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. Furthermore, I-776 lost by 57% in the Sound Transit Taxing district.

“Will of the people,” indeed, Stefan. I suppose Stefan meant the will of people outside of the Sound Transit taxing district. But, why the hell should the will of people in, say, eastern Washington be considered?

The “statist Alexander Court,” by the way, is made up of eight justices including Justice Charles Johnson. (Oops…I grabbed the wrong Justice Johnson. Justice Jim Johnson didn’t rule on the case.) Only Justice Sanders dissented.

The bizarre theory that Justice Sanders offered in his minority opinion is that

Sound Transit lacked authority to pledge to levy MVET notwithstanding possible repeal.
[…]

The State authorized Sound Transit to levy MVET. Former RCW 81.104.160(1) (1998). And it authorized Sound Transit to pledge MVET revenues. RCW 81.104.180. But it did not authorize Sound Transit to pledge to levy MVET for all time notwithstanding repeal. Accordingly, Sound Transit’s pledge to levy MVET in the future was ultra vires [beyond their power] and invalid.

Uh-huh—Like we should be surprised that a regional transit authority, with billions of dollars in transportation projects would have to issue 30 year construction bonds. In fact, the minority opinion contradicts the notion that Sound Transit’s bonds overstepped authority of the authority:

In RCW 81.112.030, the legislature authorized two or more contiguous counties each having a population of more than 400,000 persons or more to establish a “regional transit authority.” Such authority is to “develop and operate a high capacity transportation system as defined in chapter 81.104 RCW.” Id. The regional transit authority is responsible for planning, construction, operations, and funding of transit system within its area. See, e.g., RCW 81.104.070(2). The regional transit authority is authorized, after receiving voter approval, to levy taxes and issue bonds to finance the transit system. See, e.g., RCW 81.104.140, 81.112.030, .130.

More than anything else, this case brings up a perplexing political issue: since when did the Wingnuts decide that big government should override local control of taxation and spending? This seems paradoxical to me (just as I find their professed interest in small government and fiscal responsibility dripping with paradox as the federal government grows and accrues unprecedented debt under the Republicans). I mean, aren’t Wingnuts supposed to want control of taxation and spending at lower governmental levels?

I can only conclude that the disapproving tone of Stefan’s post is little more than contrarianism.

Washington businesses will save $89 million next year due to lower unemployment and workers’ compensation premiums approved this year by Gov. Chris Gregoire and the state legislature. Now Gov. Gregoire is proposing a six-month suspension of a portion of workers’ compensation premiums that could save employers and workers an additional $315 million.

The rate reductions and suspensions are made possible by higher than expected investment earnings on premiums, and L&I’s success at controlling health care costs. Workers have also filed fewer workplace injury claims.

This is great news for both employers and workers. A typical building contractor employing 25 full-time workers would save about $22,000 over the six-month suspension, a vegetable farmer with a similar sized work force about $5,300. And workers who have premiums deducted from their paycheck will also see substantial savings: $267 for an agricultural worker, $378 for food processing and manufacturing, $153 per health care worker.

You’d think such a win-win proposal would elicit cheers from business groups like, say, the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), but so far… crickets. One reason for their silence I suppose is that when state government actually works efficiently and saves their members money, well, they lose their favorite rhetorical stalking horse. Another reason, just perhaps, is that these lower workers’ comp premiums actually cost the BIAW money.

See, the pro-business/anti-government BIAW earns most of its money managing a workers’ comp “retro rebate” program, in which it pools members premiums to spread out risk, and then earns a rebate from the state for filing fewer claims than anticipated. BIAW members get this money back, minus the twenty-percent the BIAW skims off the top to support its “operations”… operations which mostly consist of spending millions of dollars supporting right-wing judges, politicians and initiatives.

But if due to greater efficiency on the part of the state, businesses and workers pay lower premiums going in, they’ll get lower rebates coming back, and that means the BIAW will have lower revenues. And thus, less money to spend on politics.

I’d call that a win-win-win.

Outgoing superintendent Raj Manhas, of whom I have been rather critical, has a guest column in the Seattle Times today defending Seattle Public Schools.

According to Manhas, scores have improved for seven straight years, and the district now outperforms the state average on standardized tests, matching or exceeding many of our neighboring districts. Over the past few years the district has also managed to turn a $34 million shortfall into a $20 million reserve. Hardly an argument for a state or city takeover.

Given all the talk about a district in crisis, I think many people would be surprised by the reality. Take a tour of the city’s elementary schools and you’ll mostly find well maintained, recently constructed or renovated buildings with orderly, well behaved classrooms and a dedicated teaching staff. These are not the inner city schools of Detroit or Philadelphia — many would be virtually indistinguishable from their nearby suburban counterparts. There’s a reason why communities fought so hard to save our local schools from closure… we love them.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems. Seattle is an urban district with all that entails, but the image propagated through hyperbolic editorials only makes matters worse. At least at the elementary school level I believe it is often a complete waste of money in Seattle to send your child to private schools, but way too many families now do exactly that. This removes from the district the children of many of our most affluent and best educated parents — the children who are typically the easiest and least expensive to teach — leaving behind a disproportionate number of students who face additional educational and life challenges.

As Manhas points out, our schools have these children for only six hours a day, nine months a year:

For us to make true strides in academic achievement, we need to pay much more attention to basic quality-of-life issues for our children. Research confirms what test scores also reveal: Childhood poverty and racism are the biggest factors keeping our kids down.

Yes, hands-on parental involvement is perhaps the most accurate indicator of academic success, but some of our parents are simply unwilling or unable to participate in their children’s education. You cannot blame an immigrant parent who works ten hours a day and who has no formal education nor competency with the English language, for not helping his children with their homework. And you cannot blame a child growing up in an unstable household for being unprepared to learn. What you can do is attempt to intervene as early as possible. Headstart, pre-school, and full day kindergarten are all solutions that are proven to work, and the only thing preventing us from implementing these programs for all our needy children is the political will.

It is critical to recognize that all that has occurred in Seattle Public Schools over the past decade — both the successes and the failures — has occurred in the context of systemic underfunding. Washington state’s public education funding now ranks in the bottom ten nationwide, and Seattle’s teachers are amongst the lowest paid of any major city when adjusted for local cost of living. To hear many of the district’s right-wing critics tell it, our schools already waste the resources they have, so any increase in spending would only be throwing good money after bad. But as Manhas poignantly asks, “How can we demand that our children reach for the stars when the grownups have them in the nation’s basement in terms of education funding?”

Of course money is not the only answer, but not a single educational reform being touted from the right or the left or anywhere in between can possibly have a hope of succeeding unless we adequately fund it. Our educators, editorialists, elected officials and yes, even us citizens have given way too much lip service to the ideal of educating all our children. Now it is time for us to put our money where our mouth is.

What is it about “diversity” that seems to get conservatives’ nuts all in a knot? I can certainly understand the rational and legalistic arguments against say, “affirmative action,” but I have trouble grasping the vehemence in which some conservatives fight against any affirmative policy aimed at promoting racial equality and diversity in public services and facilities. They don’t only seem to disagree with the policy, but with the goal.

I got to thinking about this after laboring through the front page at (un)Sound Politics, which at last glance consists of forty posts over the past seven days, seven of which deal directly with racial integration at Seattle Public Schools, and three of which raise the issue peripherally. That’s ten out of forty posts, a full twenty-five percent of the past week’s drivel that just couldn’t stay away from the subject. You gotta love their passion.

To be fair, the posts occur within the context of Monday’s US Supreme Court hearing on Seattle Public Schools “integration tiebreaker,” but (u)SP’s contributors clearly show more than just a passing interest in the issue, coming back to it again and again. Our friend Stefan was so impassioned by the discussion that he had to comment on one Seattle P-I editorial twice. The offending passage…?

Unfortunately, the country has a long history of conscious, legal discrimination once justified by the pseudoscience of racial classification. The hateful, comprehensive U.S. apartheid system continues to affect how communities are organized, where families live and what schools children attend. Some Americans think that, because most apartheid laws were gone by 1970, the issue is closed. Ironically, at the same time, U.S. troops are at risk daily over issues dating from the Crusades.

Stefan only reproduced for his readers the second sentence, which he calls “over-the-top” and “completely unhinged.” Stefan writes:

It is preposterous to equate South Africa’s former enforced system of Apartheid and ethnic clustering in America, which is a function of non-race-based economics and voluntary home choices, and most importantly, permeable and impermanent. Any vestiges of legally enforced segregation were eliminated here decades ago.

Uh-huh. The impact of hundreds of years of slavery and nearly a century of legal apartheid was simply erased with a stroke of LBJ’s pen. To Stefan and his cohorts, the last “vestiges” of our nation’s long history of institutional racism “were eliminated here decades ago.”

But here’s the thing: it’s just skin pigment. We don’t “voluntarily” segregate ourselves based on hair color or height or breast size or any number of other physical characteristics. Only race. And while it’s true that much of the segregation has to do with economics, the fact that people with dark skin on average tend to be much, much poorer than people with light skin probably tells us something. I suppose it could tell us that people with darker skin are inferior. Or maybe — just maybe — these economic and educational disparities that so closely track along racial lines, are in fact a vestige of the “hateful, comprehensive U.S. apartheid system” that Stefan so snarkily dismisses.

Seattle schools are segregated, and in recent years increasingly so. That’s a fact. And to be honest, I’m not exactly sure what to do about the problem. It’s really, really complicated.

But the difference between me and the folks over at (u)SP is that at least I think it is a problem, whereas apparently, they don’t. They are certainly opposed to any sort of government sanctioned affirmative action or racial balancing, to the point that they would ironically argue that the 14th Amendment forbids taking race into consideration when attempting to correct racial inequality. Talk about a Catch 22.

But why so passionate? Well, I suppose it might be reasonably inferred that they are all a bunch of fucking racists. Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way implying that they are a bunch of fucking racists, I’m just saying that I can understand how somebody else might infer that. Personally, I think their position is more reflective of the type of cold-hearted social Darwinism that seems to afflict the most rigid, free market ideologues. It’s not that 94 percent of the students struggling to get a good education at Rainier Beach High School are black or hispanic or asian… it’s that they’re poor.

People make choices. They compete. There are winners and losers. And hell if the children of winners should be penalized or even inconvenienced on behalf of the children of losers. Other poor people in previous generations struggled mightily to give their children a better life than they had, and any mollycoddling of today’s underclass does them more harm than good.

Or so the thinking goes.

Personally, I believe that institutional racism is still rampant in our nation even if legal apartheid is not. And I find it “completely unhinged” and “over-the-top” to imply that “any vestiges of legally enforced segregation were eliminated here decades ago.”

In Exodus, God had Moses and the Israelites wonder the desert for forty years, waiting for the children of slavery to die. I’m not much of a talmudic scholar, but I’d say that this Old Testament God was a helluva better sociologist than Stefan or Eric, or even Matt.

Virgin birth?

Mary Cheney, the vice president’s openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are “ecstatic” about the baby, due in late spring. […] The circumstances of the pregnancy will remain private, said the source close to the couple.

Embattled Seattle Parks and Recreation Dept. Superintendent Ken Bounds has announced his retirement effective February 2007, saving Seattle City Council the bother of forcibly retiring him in 2010.

Bounds, you’ll recall, was the major inspiration for Charter Amendment #8, the successful council-sponsored citywide ballot measure last month which stipulated that the heads of Parks and two other departments, now serving at the permanent pleasure of the Mayor, be subjected to four-year reappointments by City Council. Only Police and Fire are now exempt from the requirement; all eight other department heads must now go before council after fixed terms.

City Council (and Peter Steinbrueck in particular) in turn pushed the charter amendment because Bounds had in 2006 reached the apex of a long career of high-handedly pissing off neighborhood groups by stoking separate controversies this year at Gas Works Park, Woodland Park (both the zoo garage and a skatepark), Occidental Park, City Hall Park, Freeway Park, Loyal Heights Playfield, Magnuson Park, the wetlands abutting Union Bay, and, um… others. The Gas Works flap (over a back door city deal with One Reel to host its Summer Nights concert series and give One Reel $150,000 worth of park utility infrastructure upgrades) resulted in a successful lawsuit against the city. So did the Occidental Park remodel, though not in time to save the trees that lawsuit was intended to save.

Bounds, in other words, was costing the city and his close ally, Mayor Greg Nickels, both goodwill and money. Many of these controversies, like the concerts and the zoo garage (in anticipation of a new events complex), have commercial or property value elements, leading critics to charge that Bounds was doing Nickels’ bidding (so to speak) in offering up the city parks as a lucrative new source of income streams.

Nickels was effusive today in his praise of the outward Bounds. But you can bet David Della’s Parks Committee (with Della in a 2007 reelection year) and the full council will give whomever Nickels nominates to replace Bounds a careful, careful going over. Demands for more transparency and accountability will be prominently featured. And a bunch of neighborhood groups will be celebrating happy hours together this week.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Join us for some holiday cheer and hoppy beer as we devilishly plot our next strike in the War on Christmas.

Not in Seattle? Washington liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. Here’s a full run down of WA’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters:

	Where:	When:	Next Meeting:
Burien:	Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub, 435 SW 152nd St	Fourth Wednesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	December 27
Kirkland:	Valhalla Bar & Grill, 8544 122nd Ave NE	Every Thursday, 7:00 pm onward	December 7
Mercer Island:	Roanoke Tavern, 1825 72nd Ave SE	(Starting January) Second and fourth Wednesday of each month, 6:00-8:00 pm	January 10
Monroe:	Eddie’s Trackside Bar and Grill, 214 N Lewis St	Second Wednesday of each month, 7:00 PM onward	December 13
Olympia:	The Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill, 4611 Tumwater Valley Drive South	First and third Monday of each month, 7:00-9:00 pm	December 18
Seattle:	Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave E	Every Tuesday, 8:00 pm onward	December 5
Spokane:	Red Lion BBQ & Pub, 126 N Division St	Every Wednesday, 7:00 pm	November 29
Tacoma:	Meconi’s Pub, 709 Pacific Ave	Every Wednesday, 8:00 pm onward	December 6
Tri-Cities:	O’Callahans – Shilo Inn, 50 Comstock, Richland	Every Tuesday, 7:00 pm onward	December 5
Vancouver:	Hazel Dell Brew Pub, 8513 NE Highway 99	Second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	December 12
Walla Walla:	The Green Lantern, 1606 E Isaacs Ave	First Friday of each month, 8:00 pm onward	January 5

(And apparently there’s also an unaffiliated liberal drinking group in Olympia that meets every Monday at 7PM at the Brotherhood Lounge, 119 N. Capital Way.)

The righties had a field day attacking Senator-elect Jim Webb (D-VA) for the following exchange with President Bush:

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly…

Republicans and their toadies in the media accused Webb of being rude to Bush and disrespectful to the office of the President. But as it turns out…

Today we learn that Bush was warned to be “extra sensitive” about asking Webb anything about his son. While Bush’s partying daughters were causing a diplomatic row in Argentina, Webb’s son had a close call with a car bomb and almost died the day before in Iraq. But Bush being Bush—and being Bush means being an asshole—couldn’t resist the opportunity to piss on Webb.

As the WP reported, Webb tried to avoid Bush but “it wasn’t long before the Bush found him.” So Bush sought Webb out, and asked him about his son.

Because, as Dan Savage points out, President Bush is an asshole. But then, that’s not really news, is it?