Goldy

The Seattle Times thinks that Gov. Chris Gregoire’s budget is too high because it leaves the state with projected budget deficits out into the future.

Well, yeah… but even a budget that merely keeps pace with growth in demand for public services (which roughly tracks growth in personal income) would result in projected budget deficits out into the future. In fact, even if we ratchet government down and only try to have spending keep pace with population growth plus inflation, we’ll still end up with budget deficits projected indefinitely out into the future.

That is because we have an inadequate and unfair tax structure that simply cannot keep pace with our economy, resulting in a structural budget deficit as far as the eye can see.

For too long the state has dealt with this structural deficit by delaying investment in critical infrastructure. The result is a multi-billion dollar backlog in transportation maintenance and construction, and a higher education system that’s fails to accommodate all our state’s college bound students… and at an ever increasing tuition cost. Spending per K-12 student is amongst the lowest in the nation, and Spokane and Seattle area teacher salaries adjusted for local cost of living are near the bottom of the 100 largest metropolitan areas nationwide.

There is a popular fiction — which the Times editorial board fails to refute — that Washington is a high tax state. It is not. In fact, it’s rather middling. And average state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income have dropped steadily since I moved here in 1992. I pay no state income tax, and while my property taxes have more than doubled since I purchased my home in 1997, they are less than half that of a similar house in the Philadelphia suburb in which I was raised.

A tax structure that heavily relies on taxing the sale of goods simply cannot sustain adequate revenue growth in our 21st Century service economy. It has also created the most regressive state and local tax structure in the nation.

If you earn less than $20,000 a year you live in the highest taxed state in the union. If you earn over $200,000 a year you live in one of the lowest. Unless and until we reform our tax structure so as to tax all families more fairly, we will never adequately address our state’s long term structural budget deficit. And we’ll never have a fair and adequate tax structure until we implement an income tax.

Tune in to a special Saturday night edition of “The David Goldstein Show” from 7PM to 10PM tonight on Newsradio 710-KIRO, as I fill-in for Frank Shiers. Subject to change, here are the topics for tonight’s show:

7PM: What have we learned (if anything) from last week’s power outage? Both the Governor and the Seattle City Council have asked for reports from the powers that be, evaluating our emergency response and suggesting what we might do better. Here’s one idea: mandate backup generators at filling stations. Here’s another: do a damn better job maintaining the existing infrastructure. You’ve got a better idea? Give me a call.

8PM: Is it time to legalize pot? At over a billion dollars a year, marijuana is now Washington state’s number two cash crop, just behind, well, you know… apples. At what point do we finally admit that our silly little War on Drugs is going even worse than our war in Iraq? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just legalize pot, regulate it… and tax the hell out of it?

9PM: Is this a Christian nation, or just a nation of Christians? And either way, why do so many politically prominent Christians feel so comfortable getting so damn pissy about it? Locally, mega-church preacher and Republican activist Pastor Joe Fuiten describes Jews as a bunch of money-grubbing merchants who should thank Jesus for their yuletide profits… and barely anybody bats an eye. Nationally, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) warns that if we don’t reform immigration “there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office.” Heaven forfend.

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
I’ll be on at my usual 7PM to 10PM time tomorrow night, and then filling in for Dave Ross and Ron Reagan all week, from 9AM to 1PM.

Business is booming:

Washington is among the top five pot-producing states, producing a $1 billion-a-year crop that is second in value only to the state’s famed apple harvest, according to an analysis released this week by a public-policy researcher.

Hmm. If the state legalized and taxed pot at the same rate it taxes non-cigarette tobacco products (75 percent of the retail price,) that would produce about $750 million in revenues a year.

Yeah, yeah… I’m making a lot of bogus assumptions there, but the point is that our embarrassingly ineffective war on drugs has only succeeding in creating a burgeoning black market, costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenues… not to mention the many millions more spent interdicting, prosecuting and jailing pot offenders. This is money that could not only be spent on important public services like health care and education, but also on treatment and prevention programs that couldn’t possibly be any less effective than our existing efforts at interdiction.

There’s absolutely no way to prevent people from growing, selling and consuming pot. It isn’t just climate or an abundance of hippies that makes WA a prime pot-growing region — hell, Tennessee and Kentucky rank second and third respectively, for a combined $9.4 billion crop that makes WA look like a community pea-patch. So if we can’t stop farmers from growing reefer in the heart of the old Confederacy, how are we going to stop it here in the liberal-tarian Northwest?

Of course, we can’t.

Prohibition just doesn’t work, and at least when it comes to the relatively innocuous social harm caused by marijuana — arguably less harmful than alcohol — it just doesn’t make sense. That’s reality. I’m not saying we should encourage or promote our local pot industry, but it’s far past time we legalize, regulate and tax it.

As for those who continue to attempt to make rational arguments in favor of marijuana prohibition, well… I don’t know what they’re smoking.

DISCLAIMER:
I did occasionally smoke pot during college, but no longer do because it now makes me physically uncomfortable. So I have no dog in this fight.

Gov. Christine Gregoire has ordered the head of WA’s Emergency Management Division to review how the state responded to the recent wind storm and power outage. My guess is that the report will be mixed.

There are of course a lot of things we need to do better, but I’ve got a suggestion that’s pretty straight forward, and would surely ease the crisis in the wake of future disasters: require the installation of backup generators at filling stations.

Residents throughout the Puget Sound region faced an artificial fuel shortage in the days following the wind storm due to power outages that left filling stations unable to pump gas. Had this been a major disaster — like a massive earthquake — this fuel shortage would have greatly magnified the human misery, preventing residents who had lost their homes from leaving the region. And in the end, it’s not much good installing a generator at your home or business if you are unable to purchase the fuel to run it during a prolonged power outage.

Gas stations are a critical part of our transportation and economic infrastructure, especially in such an automobile-centric region. It only makes sense that we attempt to keep them operating during future emergencies.

I’m not sure what the costs would be, but it’s hard to imagine that a backup generator and hookup sufficient to run the pumps would cost much more than a few thousand dollars per station. And it is very hard to argue that a state law mandating and/or heavily incentivizing such installations would not be in the public interest.

I dunno… just seems like common sense to me.

Apparently, it’s A-okay for a politically connected mega-church preacher to say shit like this:

“Even Jewish merchants ought’a be gathered around their cash registers singing ‘what a friend we have in Jesus.'”

Silly me. I guess I should just learn my place.

The Stranger’s Eli Sanders has more on Seattle’s “Jewish Problem.” It’s a must read.

King County Executive Ron Sims supports a public vote on the future of the Alaska Way Viaduct, but apparently thinks it should initially be limited to an up or down vote on the rebuild option alone. Or so says Sims spokesman Sandeep Kaushik, who joined me last night on 710-KIRO to discuss Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposal to hold a public vote pitting the rebuild vs a tunnel.

At first glance a lot of observers thought the Governor had punted on the Viaduct, but a closer look makes it clear that she’s really made most of the decision, eliminating the retrofit and surface options, and setting up a vote that strongly tilts towards a rebuild. The rebuild is by far the furthest along in the design phase, and comes closest to a fixed price tag, with the Governor promising that the state will pick up any cost overruns. So if the Governor gets her way, Seattle voters will be faced with a choice between the devil we know (a 50-percent wider Viaduct with a fairly fixed cost range to local voters) and the devil we don’t know (a tunnel that could end up looking like anything and eventually cost us $5 billion or more.) I think the Governor is fairly confident that given that choice, voters will choose the rebuild.

Sims however thinks it’s too soon to give up on a “surface-boulevard-plus-transit” option, especially since we haven’t fully explored what such an alternative might look like.

“Governor Gregoire’s announcement today that the public should vote between two Viaduct replacement options – a tunnel or a rebuild – is too limited. While I can support the idea of a public vote, and strongly prefer the tunnel over the rebuild, I disagree with the governor’s call for excluding a surface-boulevard-plus-transit option from public consideration.

“That option, which could potentially open up the waterfront while providing an affordable, environmentally friendly means of moving traffic through the city, has not yet been studied. The surface option that WSDOT briefly examined contained no transit element and bears little resemblance to what surface-transit advocates are proposing.

“If we are going to position Seattle as a vibrant world-class 21st century metropolis, we need to proceed with boldness and vision. We need to think beyond present-day categories, with an eye to the long-term. How we decide on the Viaduct today is a profound test of our commitment to a better, more enlightened future. The right sort of transit-friendly surface proposal could meet that test.”

I agree.

If the Viaduct wasn’t already in place, nobody in their right mind would propose constructing a massive, double-decker freeway through Seattle’s waterfront, and our transportation planners’ inability to envision options beyond a rebuild or a tunnel is a failure of imagination and vision. By all means, let the voters decide if they want a rebuild. But let’s not set up a false choice where a tunnel is the only other option.

So, well… I guess my friends in the local media are just going to give Pastor Joe Fuiten a free ride on this one, huh?

“Even Jewish merchants ought’a be gathered around their cash registers singing ‘what a friend we have in Jesus.'”

The statement, broadcast Sunday on Up Front with Robert Mak, is even worse in context, coming in the wake of Sea-Tac Airport’s Christmas tree fiasco and the torrent of anti-semitic comments it generated on KING-5 TV’s own blog. So it strikes me as more than a little bit insensitive for a prominent public figure to go on the air and say that the Rabbi deserved the condemnation he was getting, that nobody travels for Hannukah anyway, and that Jews are basically a bunch of greedy merchants who should be satisfied enough to just celebrate their profits.

I don’t get it. Seattle has a reputation for political correctness ad absurdum, and yet this clearly insensitive if not downright anti-semitic comment from a major public figure doesn’t even generate a yawn.

Joe Fuiten is the pastor of our region’s largest mega-church, Bothell’s Cedar Park Church. He is also an influential player in Republican Party politics, a close advisor to Mike McGavick during his failed senate campaign, and a publicity hound who actively seeks to interject himself into controversial political and social issues. Fuiten gets air time exactly because he is perceived to be credible.

So I guess in this town, it must be credible to perpetuate anti-Jewish sentiment in pursuit of one’s political agenda. Huh. Who knew?

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?

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.

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.