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Hmm. I originally wrote a lede to this post in which I accused the Seattle Times editorial board of flat-out “lying,” but I’ve decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the possibility that they may have only been inadvertently, but flat-out wrong.

In an editorial today advising state legislators to exercise fiscal restraint — a sentiment with which I don’t necessarily disagree — the Times characterizes our current state budget as the largest increase in spending in over a decade… technically accurate, for whatever it means. But then the Times slips in a totally gratuitous piece of GOPropaganda:

[The budget] followed the 5-percent increase of the previous two years presented by Sen. Dino Rossi.

Yup. There you have it: the Times editorial board echoing the key Rossi campaign talking point that he authored the 2003-2005 budget. Only problem is, this talking point was directly contradicted way back in 2003 by Dino Rossi himself, and in the Times’ own reporting:

The Republican budget has much in common with the all-cuts plan that Democratic Gov. Gary Locke unveiled in December. In fact, Rossi opened a press briefing yesterday with a PowerPoint presentation titled: “Following the Governor’s Lead.”

That’s right, Rossi was only “following the Governor’s lead.” And in fact, according to the Times’ reporters, he actually presented a 1-percent (not 5-percent) increase in spending, which would have been largely achieved by leaving 46,000 children without health coverage.

The myth that Rossi authored the 2003 budget is largely that, and while I suppose its inclusion in the unsigned editorial may have been an honest mistake, the total irrelevance of its inclusion to the subject at hand suggests otherwise. Fresh on the heels of a campaign season in which Times editorialists aggressively and intentionally misled readers about the facts pertaining to the issues and candidates endorsed, the Times seems to be already gearing up for the 2008 season.

Dino Rossi authored the 2003 budget the way, you know… Dave Reichert caught the Green River Killer. But considering how unremarkable Rossi’s legislative career really was, prepare to see the Times repeatedly trumpeting this fictional accomplishment over the next 23 months.

Of course the Times has the right to use their op-ed pages to present their own opinions — opinions with which I often agree — but they do not have the right to present their own “facts.” Even if you buy into the argument that there is a wall between editorial and news that protects the ability of reporters to remain objective, it is a wall that is entirely invisible to the readers. The average reader may understand that editorials represent the opinion of the publisher and the editorial board, but he also expects that the information used to back up these opinions is as factually accurate as that presented in the rest of the paper. Thus when an editorial misleads the readers either through a lie of omission or through a deliberate or accidental misstatement of fact, it diminishes the credibility of the publication as a whole.

Today’s editorial is filled with hard numbers that one assumes have been appropriately fact checked, and then almost as a non sequitur it throws in the factoid that Rossi deserves credit for authoring a fiscally responsible budget… an assertion that is refuted by the Times’ own reporting. It is this type of blatant electioneering that made the Times op/ed page a laughingstock during the 2006 campaign and which threatens to carry our state’s largest paper further down the road towards irrelevance. Eventually, we’ll just come to the point were the only people who bother to read Times editorials are the copywriters putting together Republican political ads.

Yesterday I criticized the critics of Seattle Public Schools for comparing the district to “the failing school systems of blighted East Coast cities,” a critique I find irksome both for its intentionally hyperbolic portrayal of the district’s woes, and the narrow-minded provincialism in which it off-handedly disparages historic cities that long ago achieved the kind of economic and cultural greatness Seattle’s civic boosters have aspired towards since the city was first christened Alki New York: “New York, by-and-by.” (We’re still waiting.)

The post generated quite a vigorous debate, some of which was openly hostile and personally dismissive, with many commentators choosing to take offense at words I never wrote. Apparently, I’m a selfish elitist because I choose to send my daughter to an underfunded and ethnically diverse South End school. Go figure. I’m also, apparently, an unashamed apologist for the district establishment. (Um… did any of you actually read my running commentary on the school closure process?)

What all this tells me is that an awful lot of people seem emotionally or ideologically invested in portraying Seattle Public Schools as a district in extreme crisis on the edge of an abyss… if not already irreversibly plummeting towards the bottom. And at risk of resorting to the same sort of broad-brush-stroke methodology adopted by my detractors, I’d wager that many of those advocating drastic measures such as a city or state takeover of the district, don’t actually have children in the Seattle Public Schools. How much of this is cognitive dissonance (Seattle residents who opted for private schools, now seeking to justify their decision,) or political convenience (non-Seattlites looking to block spending more state money on city students) I don’t know. But I do know that the rest of the state uses this popular portrayal of the district as a bloated piggybank for corrupt, incompetent officials as their primary justification for refusing to throw good money after bad. And as long as civic leaders prop up this simple-minded analysis we will never restore state education spending to adequate levels.

Fortunately, we still have two newspapers in this town, and this morning the Seattle P-I warned the crisis-mongers to “back off“:

Yes, the board has handled school closures badly, essentially leading to the resignation of Superintendent Raj Manhas. But is the school system in “crisis”?

The district has turned a multimillion-dollar deficit into a multimillion-dollar surplus. Academic performance is on the rise and the district retains its “market share” with private schools.

Again, let me repeat for the umpteenth time that I’m no fan of the current school board and district administration, and I’m sick and tired of uninspiring bean counters and educational amateurs guiding the district on their own. But as the P-I rightly points out, “poverty, not governance, is Seattle education’s greatest challenge,” and all this talk comparing Seattle schools to those in Boston or New York or Philadelphia or any number of other “blighted East Coast cities” is not only misleading but counterproductive.

Yes, there are governance problems, and I’m not opposed to considering reforms that include appointing some (but not all) school board members. And while I’m not convinced, I’m intrigued by the possibility of a Superintendent Norm Rice who can wield his political skills and connections on behalf of the district.

But the district is not anywhere near a crisis that warrants a takeover, nor does it appear to be heading in that direction, and any debate over such a move would only distract us from the more important debate over prioritizing real educational reforms, and coming to consensus on how to pay for them.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM:

7PM: Can you take a joke? While filling in for Dori on Thanksgiving day, I did a very funny hour with General JC Christian of the satirical blog Jesus’ General… and man did he light up the lines with angry callers. Callers took the General at face value, even as he talked of tazering folks who refuse to say “Merry Christmas,” and of arming fetuses with tiny in utero handguns. The General will break character with me tonight to talk about whether some people really do lack the satire gene. Then later, I intend to raise the thorny question of whether comedian Michael Richards’ racist tirade was more an example of bad comedy than virulent racism, and whether perhaps his hecklers might not have been innocent victims after all.

8PM: Are Malkin and Coulter joking? Recently, a devotee of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin perpetrated an anthrax hoax by mailing a white powder to Nancy Pelosi, Jon Stewart and other political and media figures. Malkin claims to have no responsibility for the actions of others, but author/blogger David Neiwert of Orcinus — who has made a career of tracking right-wing hate speech and militia groups — says Malkin and other spouters of eliminationist rhetoric are fundamentally irresponsible. Neiwert joins me for the hour.

9PM: What would victory in Iraq actually look like? I asked this question of my righty trolls last week, and got very little in the way of a serious response. Now with the situation continuing to deteroriate, and King Abdullah of Jordan warning of civil war in Palestine and Lebanon as well as Iraq, I’m asking the question once again. Republicans ran against Democrats arguing that we would “cut and run” from Iraq. So if we stay and fight, what exactly would we be fighting for? And if Henry Kissinger is now right when he says that victory is no longer possible, why are we still there?

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

No doubt there are profound problems with the Seattle School District and its management, but it still kinda irks me when some stodgy old white guy starts pontificating about how crappy our schools are without ever spending any meaningful time in them himself:

Seattle has problems but it prides itself on being a living urban center, a city with rich talent and both a creative and entrepreneurial class. Such places do not have the failing school systems of blighted East Coast cities.

And neither does Seattle.

I’ve lived in a couple of those “blighted East Coast cities” (which FYI, Seattle doesn’t hold a candle to in many ways,) and I can’t imagine subjecting my daughter to the typical inner city school there. By comparison, at least at the elementary school level, Seattle has many more good and great schools than it does failing ones, which is why so many of us parents fought so hard to save our neighborhood schools from closure.

Don’t get me wrong, Seattle Public Schools has plenty of problems, from chronic underfunding to an acute lack of leadership — problems complicated by the fact that like all urban school districts it is tasked with educating some of the most difficult (and expensive) to teach students. But lumping Seattle schools in with say, Philadelphia’s educational disaster, is a lazily facile comparison at best and a harmfully misleading one at worst. It is also insulting to teachers and students… and especially to the parents who choose not to abandon their public schools. In fact, it stinks of patrician snobbery.

And while the Seattle Times and other critics are right that the district needs new leadership, I’m not so sure that handing the reigns over to a city government so timid and consensus driven that it puts bathroom breaks out for a public vote would instill much confidence.

Yeah, well, maybe former Mayor Norm Rice would provide the leadership the district has so desperately craved since the death of John Stanford, and maybe appointing a couple school board members might instill a little professionalism into the mix. (Paying them might not be such a bad idea either.) But haughtily pointing towards low WASL scores tells us nothing, and broadly branding schools as “failures” only drives more families away.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the closure process it’s that WASL tests aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, and that results can be cherry-picked and manipulated to justify nearly any argument. The WASL is transforming our state’s educational system into the public school equivalent of a Stanley Kaplan prep course, and thus the only thing it ends up effectively testing is how well teachers prep students for the test itself. For example, perhaps one of the reasons so many of Seattle’s students do so poorly on the science portion of the WASL is that teachers lack the time and resources to prep for that portion of the test at all?

So far I’m as unimpressed with the creativity and intellectual rigor of most of the district’s critics as I am with the leadership of the district itself. For much of the criticism seems intentionally designed to distract attention away from the elephant in the room — the simple fact that no amount of reform or innovation can give our children the educational opportunity we all profess to want, unless we are willing to adequately fund it.

According to the Seattle P-I, bowling is hip:

Brisk business has prompted the Garage’s owners to propose adding six to eight lanes, plus more lounge space, on what is now their parking lot.

“Fourteen lanes just kind of handcuffs us a lot of the time,” said Mike Bitondo, the Garage’s managing partner, who owns the lanes with Alex and Jill Rosenast. “When people walk up on a Friday night and they have to wait an hour or two hours or three hours for a lane, that’s just as frustrating for me as it is for them.”

Apparently a new wave of trendy, upscale bowling alleys is revitalizing the industry, bringing new life to a sport that’s long been one of America’s most popular. Imagine that. Bowling alley proprietors capturing new business by catering to, um… bowlers.

In reading about bowling’s urban-chic resurgence, I was reminded of a piece I wrote way back in May of 2004 — only my sixth post on HA — in which I abused the state’s bowling alley owners for insisting that legalizing slot machines was the key to their survival. We were in the midst of Tim Eyman’s I-892 campaign, the slot machine initiative that eventually went down to a landslide defeat at the polls. Bowling alley operators had became fixtures on local talk radio arguing that they’d be forced to shutter their doors unless voters approved slots. I was um, dubious.

I remember one particular phone call from a woman who pleaded for slot machines on behalf of the bowling alley that had been in her family for three generations. She claimed she just couldn’t compete against the tribal casinos anymore, and if I-892 didn’t pass, she would probably shutter the family business.

Now, at the risk of sounding unsympathetic, I’d like to impart a bit of wisdom from one small businessperson to another:

YOU’RE RUNNING A FUCKING BOWLING ALLEY!!!

And perhaps, instead of trying to compete with the tribal casinos, you should spend a little time and effort promoting… gee, I don’t know… bowling?!

Saying that bowling alleys need slot machines to compete with tribal casinos is like saying Chuck E. Cheese’s needs a liquor license and strippers to compete with the Deja Vu.

The point is, if you can’t make ends meet enticing people to chuck balls at pins, then perhaps you’re in the wrong business. Or sadly, perhaps bowling just isn’t a viable industry anymore.

That may sound harsh… but that’s capitalism. And until the tribes start building bowling alleys instead of casinos, I don’t want to hear anymore whining about unfair competition.

And whad’ya know? Two years later, people are waiting in line for three hours to bowl at hip new urban alleys. Ain’t capitalism great?

A few years back I shopped around a satirical guest column in which I suggested we could solve our education funding crisis by slaughtering our worst performing students and feeding them to their classmates. The editorial board of one major daily was intrigued, but after a few weeks of mulling it over they eventually rejected my “modest proposal” with the explanation that their readers “lacked the satire gene.”

I was deeply disappointed at the time by what I felt to be a display of editorial cowardice, but in the years hence I have grown to appreciate the editors’ healthy cynicism towards their readers’ own limits. For as I have repeatedly learned during my two and a half years of blogging, some people simply don’t get satire. Ever.

One might think by now that my regular readers would have grown accustomed to my penchant for persiflage, yet many, of both political persuasions, wouldn’t know irony if I dropped the “y” and savagely beat them around the head and face with it. For example, however outrageous or intentionally offensive my attempts at satire may be, accusing a sitting state senator of “fucking pigs” is most definitely not libel, nor is it fair to characterize as “hate speech” a proposed initiative to exempt Christians from our state’s anti-discrimination laws. And when I urged that all extraordinary efforts be used to save a critically ill Rev. Jerry Falwell, no matter how painful or intrusive — to the point of keeping his brain alive in “a jar of nutrient-rich fluid” — well… that was not, as one angry reader conversely described it in an email purportedly copied to the FBI, a “terrorristic [sic] death threat.”

It was a joke.

And as a connoisseur of humor, I would have hoped that it would not be necessary to appreciate a joke in order to at least acknowledge that it exists. But apparently, some people just don’t get satire.

This sad reality was brought home yesterday when General JC Christian of the satirical blog Jesus’ General joined me on 710-KIRO as I was subbing for Dori Monson. This was without a doubt the funniest hour of radio I’ve ever produced, an experience enhanced for the guys in the booth as the lines lit up with angry callers. One would think that when the General started talking about tazering shopkeepers who refused to say “Merry Christmas” and arming fetuses with tiny in utero handguns that nearly everybody would have realized that he was in fact joking. Yet the overwhelming majority of callers chose to take him at face value.

Of course, talk radio callers, just like blog commenters, are a tiny, nonrepresentative segment of the larger audience, so I remain confident that the majority of listeners got the joke. But if not, who cares?

My job as both a radio host and a blogger is to engage the audience, and it doesn’t really matter how I do it. If the audience is laughing, that’s great. If the audience is enraged, that’s okay too. As long as they’re listening to me, they’re listening to the ads, and that after all is KIRO’s business. And oh yeah, as long as they’re listening to me they’ll come away better informed, whether they like it or not… and that after all is my business.

Everybody wants to be liked. But I’ll settle for people just tuning in.

I’m filling in for Ron Reagan and Dori Monson from noon to 4PM today on Newsradio 710-KIRO, and here’s the lineup as of the moment:

Noon: What really happened on election day? Us “nutroots” claimed the Democratic sweep as a huge win for a revitalized, grassroots progressive movement, while many in the media and political establishment talked about a big victory for Southern “blue dog” Democrats. Thomas Schaller, author of “Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South” joins me to analyze the election and measure the prescience of his thesis.

1PM: Is there really a War on Christmas? Thanksgiving Day kicks off the Christmas Holiday season — are secular humanists/Jews like me trying to de-Christianize it? Michael Johnson, chief legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund apparently thinks yes, and he joins me to talk about his organization’s efforts to save Christmas. Personally, I’m a touch dubious.

2PM: Is this guy for real? We’ll stick to the religious theme for another hour when Gen. JC Christian of the nationally renowned blog Jesus’ General joins me to present his own far-right views on the Holiday season and politics in general. No stranger to controversy, it was the General who challenged fellow Republicans to join the military via his Operation Yellow Elephant, and who has made a career out of championing the rights of Blastocyst-Americans. It should be an, um… interesting hour.

3PM: Not quite sure yet. Maybe we’ll just beat the crap out Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin? Or maybe I’ll surprise my family back East by calling them up without telling them I’m on the air. (Oops. Hope they don’t read my blog.)

Tune in today as you’re cooking your Turkey (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

On this Thanksgiving Day — as on all days — I am thankful for the greatest run-on sentence in human history:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

(Yeah sure… I did this same post last year. But since there’s nothing more American than dissent, I thought it was worth repeating.)

Black Press of Victoria B.C. has purchased the King County Journal, it’s printing facility in Kent, and nine other local papers owned by the Horvitz family. It’s unclear what plans, if any, the new owners have for the Journal, which has been losing money and readers since 1994.

I’d heard some speculation that the Journal‘s printing facility in Kent might be attractive to the Hearst Corporation should the Seattle P-I lose it’s arbitration with the Seattle Times, and choose to continue publishing outside of the Joint Operating Agreement. Apparently, that option is now off the table.

Looking for something to do tomorrow afternoon while you’re preparing your Thanksgiving turkey? Tune in to 710-KIRO, where I’ll be filling in for Ron Reagan and Dori Monson from noon to 4PM.

Oh… and if you’re a prominent politician or controversial public figure who’s looking for an excuse to get away from your family for a little while — or who just wants to take pity on me — I’m still looking for some compelling guests. Barring that, I’m always open to suggestions for topics to discuss.

In the days since the Democrats took control of Congress there has been increased criticism of the war in Iraq from prominent members of both parties. Sen. John McCain has called our current efforts “immoral”, saying we either must step up our commitment or pull out, and the legendarily calculating Henry Kissinger has suggested that the war is no longer winnable.

Of course the war still has its supporters inside and outside the Bush administration, and you still can hear daily attacks from the right accusing Democrats of undermining our efforts to win the war. Which got me thinking. Assuming we did decide to recommit our ourselves towards winning the war in Iraq, exactly what would that victory look like? Surely it wouldn’t look like this:

The United Nations said today that 3,709 Iraqi civilians were killed in October, the highest monthly toll since the March 2003 U.S. invasion and another sign of the severity of Iraq’s sectarian bloodbath.

The U.N. tally was more than three times higher than the total The Associated Press had tabulated for the month, and far more than the 2,866 U.S. service members who have died during all of the war.

The report on civilian casualties, handed out at a U.N. news conference in Baghdad, said the influence of militias was growing, and torture continued to be rampant, despite the government’s vow to address human rights abuses.

“Hundreds of bodies continued to appear in different areas of Baghdad handcuffed, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture and execution-style killing,” the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq report said. “Many witnesses reported that perpetrators wear militia attire and even police or army uniforms.”

Perhaps there was a path to victory way back in 2003, where we could have left a relatively pacified Iraq a better place than we found it, both for its own citizens and its neighbors in the region. Perhaps not.

But with violence growing by the day despite (or because of) our continued military presence, it’s hard to see us imposing a stable, democratic government by force. Assuming that’s what we’re shooting for.

So I’m just wondering… for those of you who think we should stay in Iraq until we win the war, could you please share your concept of what winning might look like? After all, how can we ask our military to devise and execute a strategy for achieving a victory we’ve failed to define?

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Perhaps we’ll even do another podcast tonight after a several week lapse.

If you’re finding it hard to stay interested in politics now that the election is over and the Holiday season is upon us, the least you can do is stay interested in beer.

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, including our newest chapter in the former Republican stronghold of Mercer Island:

	Where:	When:	Next Meeting:
Burien:	Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub, 435 SW 152nd St	Fourth Wednesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	November 22
Kirkland:	Valhalla Bar & Grill, 8544 122nd Ave NE	Every Thursday, 7:00 pm onward	November 23
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 4
Seattle:	Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave E	Every Tuesday, 8:00 pm onward	November 21
Spokane:	Red Lion BBQ & Pub, 126 N Division St	Every Wednesday, 7:00 pm	November 22
Tacoma:	Meconi’s Pub, 709 Pacific Ave	Every Wednesday, 8:00 pm onward	November 22
Tri-Cities:	O’Callahans – Shilo Inn, 50 Comstock, Richland	Every Tuesday, 7:00 pm onward	November 21
Vancouver:	Hazel Dell Brew Pub, 8513 NE Highway 99	Second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	November 28
Walla Walla:	The Green Lantern, 1606 E Isaacs Ave	First Friday of each month, 8:00 pm onward	December 1

(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.)

Apparently, quite a few people thought my piece on comment spam was disrespectful to Milton Friedman… which kind of surprised me because I didn’t really think the post was about Milton Friedman. It was about comment spam, and those free market ideologues who would oppose nearly all government regulation. (And who happen to look to Friedman as some sort of hero, whether they’ve actually read him or not.)

In any case, I’m guessing the free market folk might be displeased as well by the following editorial in Tuesday’s Seattle P-I:

In all the shock surrounding the Bellevue crane collapse, there’s one aspect for lawmakers to remember. The public seemed deeply surprised that no special effort is made to oversee the huge equipment that daily operates above construction sites and nearby traffic, pedestrians and office and housing complexes.

[…] With construction booming, the region is seeing more cranes. But the state has no license for crane operators and no training or testing requirements. A group formed to improve standards statewide in the aftermath of a 1994 accident at the Kingdome fell into inactivity.

[…] State certification of crane operators ought to be enacted quickly. With so many construction projects under way, the public deserves reassurance the state is exercising serious oversight, not waiting for more deadly surprises.

I’m curious to hear the arguments against inspections and certification of construction cranes, but my knee-jerk reaction is to come out in support of such legislation, if only to piss off the BIAW.

UPDATE:
The Seattle Times chimes in:

Self-regulation is perfectly adequate if the public is willing to accept the risk, or, if not, the concentric rings of expense if tougher governmental requirements are imposed.

[…] Beyond the ultimate lessons learned from this fatal accident, the Legislature might wonder if exhaustive investigations after the fact are sufficient.

That’s a reasonable analysis. Regulations cost money, and society needs to make a cost benefit analysis of whether the money saved (by industry and/or taxpayers) in not requiring licensing and inspection is worth the risk of having a giant crane fall on your head.

Um… how will we know which is which?

The Seattle Times editorial board seems to like Gov. Christine Gregoire’s “Washington Learns” proposal, but…

The elephant in the room, however, is education funding. Sidestepping this massive beast threatens the very underpinning of reform efforts. Gov. Christine Gregoire promised a new way of looking at education and investing in it. The smart, holistic proposals from her committee give us the former. Now, where’s the latter?

[…] Pressure is growing to address the funding issue. Lawsuits are being prepared challenging disparities in state money among districts and over the inadequacy of basic education funding.

The time to tackle the funding beast is now.

Hmm. The Times is editorializing in favor of increased funding for education. Great. But… um… didn’t they just spend most of the past year shilling for an estate tax repeal initiative that would have cut $100 million a year from education spending?

Tell you what Frank, I’ll trade the estate tax for an income tax, and that way we all come out ahead. What say?