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Weekend Links

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A few items of interest:

– Glenn Greenwald has a couple of tremendous posts this week, taking on the Obama Administration’s reluctance to give up numerous aspects of the Bush Administration’s attempts to expand the power of the executive, and on the flip side, looking at the right wing loonies who are now beginning to talk about Civil War against Obama, only weeks after finishing their 8-year stint crying about how it’s unpatriotic to question the President.

– CNBC recently aired a good hour-long special on the economic aspects of northern California’s marijuana industry. It can now be seen in its entirety on Hulu. A Zogby poll this week showed that 58% of west coast residents believe that marijuana should be regulated and taxed like alcohol and cigarettes.

– I also recently watched a documentary on the case from Tulia, Texas, where a corrupt cop named Tom Coleman working for a drug task force managed to get over 10% of the town’s black population in jail before lawyers were able to prove that he was lying. I don’t think it’s being shown again on PBS, but hopefully it’ll be online soon.

– The story about the corrupt judges in Northeastern Pennsylvania who were getting kickbacks to funnel kids into private detention facilities is just amazing. This is stuff that would be shocking in the third-world, let alone America. And there are now allegations that one of the judges has been closely linked with mob figures for whom he used his position on the bench to extort money from journalists who’d been investigating them.

– Neal Peirce has a good editorial in the Denver Post today on Obama and the drug war.

A Seattle HuffPo?

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Eli Sanders at The Stranger (and Slog) is posting on what he senses may be the P-I’s online plan: a Seattle HuffPo. It’s already started, he believes, with direct linkage to the West Seattle blog.

As someone who has been pitching this concept virtually since Arianna Huffington started her site — to David Brewster for Crosscut (Brewster had not even heard of HuffPo when I first mentioned it to him), to Horsesass’ David Goldstein and friends, and to executives at my career-long employer, The Seattle Times —  I hope Sanders’ conclusion is correct. I continue to believe this is the way to go, despite the fact no one ever responded to the notion with, “Hey, that’s a great idea!” (The HuffPo model, as I’ve acknowledged, does present issues of derivativeness and compensation. It’s also not cheap to do.)

Eli is right, this represents a complete flip of the typical gatekeeping model of news providers, which I explored in one of my first blogs in 2001. So the question naturally is whether a legacy news organization can pull it off.

The key line in Eli’s post: Can the P-I “become a sticky portal through which people enter the online universe of Northwest news and opinion (in the way that Huffington Post is a sticky portal into the online world of liberal news and opinion)”?

Perhaps unintentionally, the statement poses the key hurdle for a local iteration of HuffPo. Huffington Post represents the vision of a single person — the incomparable Arianna — who does have a liberal bent, but who also has imparted a sense of cutting edge tech, social and cultural savvy to her site. She has tapped into a Web consciousness regarding what “news” is. It isn’t just linking to an outside world of bloggers and celebrities. It’s linking in a way that appeals to a Web mindset and certain cultural demographic.

This consciousness, which I call Web affinity, has never been geographically based — at least, not so far. By that I mean, people do not aggregate on the Web according to where they live. Instead, they gather according to their interests — hobbies, sports, politics, social spheres. You see this everywhere in social networks, from LinkedIn to Facebook to Ning. Even sports fans have allegiances and interests extending far beyond the home team.

I doubt there actually is an “online universe of Northwest news and opinion” that could be as compelling as Huffington Post. There are pockets of Bellevue, Tacoma and Snohomish County (to say nothing of outlying sub-regions) that are nearly the obverse of Seattle’s liberal majority. I don’t think you can aim at “Northwest.” You might be able to get by with “Seattle.”

But even then, the geography is not the connection. To make a local HuffPo work requires that powerful sense of “a new who we are” that HuffPo leveraged so well in the past election and continues to ply for the Obama era. This runs precisely counter to the long-standing legacy news approach of Olympian objectivity — where the news purveyor inscrutably represents various sides of an issue without getting into the fray. Students of news history know well that newspapers did not start out this way but rather began life as bully pulpits for ideologically passionate publishers. Gradually the fear of offending advertisers led newspapers to become averse to crusades and meaningful editorializing, though, and today taking a controversial stand is anathema.

But Web followers demand to know where one stands, and they vote with their clicks. Broadcast has already undergone the transformation, with Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart refining a “news as personality” approach to journalism. HuffPo is far from the only site to tap into Web affinity on a news basis, but it’s the model most worth emulating today.

In terms of what the P-I may be trying to do, mere aggregation is not enough. Crosscut excels at pulling together a daily overlay of “news” throughout the region. But Crosscut, alas, has little of HuffPo’s vision or magic. There’s no Oz behind the curtain, just a bunch of bots.

The problem for the P-I, or for any local HuffPo,  is finding an Oz — an individual, or core group of individuals, with enough experience, background and connections to convey a sense of what Seattle is all about via links, blogs, original reporting and whatever else might cross the transom. Just slapping stuff up won’t do it. There has to be a core vision that prioritizes and filters the cluttered static of Web discourse.

The closest this area comes to the right model is Slog. But Slog is staff-only, and while The Stranger staff is a great bunch, they can’t begin to generate the breadth and diversity needed to emulate HuffPo. Slog also has technical limitations — it’s been compared (I believe by staffer Charles Mudede) to the reading version of watching a waterfall — and is basically all over the place in content. It does have (quite astonishingly, given its resources) the best City Hall and neighborhood coverage in Seattle, and a lock on sexual dynamic, of course.

Other blogs, notably Horsesass.org and its new, still-undefined cousin, Publicola, would provide fodder for a local HuffPo. Seattle also has a rich panoply of neighborhood blogs, although most lack the resources and flair to qualify for a HuffPo.

There may indeed be a real content shortage when it comes to pulling local stuff together and feeding the monster. Career reporters tend for one reason or other not to be bloggers, and releasing them into the Web wilds (as the P-I is about to do) without a paycheck hasn’t yet proven to be much incentive (most have gone into government or PR jobs). Former P-Iers John Cook and Todd Bishop have proven an exception with Techflash, which I’ve written for (along with most of the other alternative Web pubs I’ve mentioned, in a pitiably forlorn search for digital kindred spirits). And Techflash, as I’ve written, could provide a seedbed for the tech slice of a local HuffPo, although its ownership by Puget Sound Business Journal could prove problematic. Indeed, there are thorny proprietary issues here for any P-I-sponsored umbrella, including clarifying its online relationship with The Times (as Northwest Source). One wonders if the P-I effort won’t prove merely a stalking horse for an eventual Times Web rehab, but given the paucity of a post-P-I news landscape, you have to question whether an online P-I wouldn’t wind up linking a lot to The Times.

If a HuffPo zeitgeist already resided within the halls of the P-I, one assumes it would have asserted itself by now. On the other hand, it might have met the same fate (at least, till now) of my entreaties to The Times, which clunked to the floor like a tray of lead type (The Times, incredibly enough, never even let me link from my tech column to my blog). But one thing the P-I has that is lacking in other Web forays is deep pockets. If Hearst is serious about experimenting with the new world of online journalism, it has the perfect incubator in a newly printless but link-rich P-I.

Open government isn’t free

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A couple weeks ago I made fun of a Seattle Times editorial for suggesting that public agencies actually profit off of public records requests, for which some folks attacked me as some sort of anti-sunshine government stooge.  Well, in a guest column this week, attorney Ramsey Ramerman also took issue with Times, reiterating that open government is worth it, but it doesn’t come cheap:

Open government is not easy. Trust is hard to mint. It also isn’t free. Unlike in most states that allow agencies to charge for search time, agencies in Washington charge only for copy costs. Taxpayers foot the bill for the rest. Fairley’s bills try to look out for taxpayer dollars by making sure requesters are paying for the actual cost of copies they request. Why should taxpayers have to pay for copies when a requester asks for copies and then chooses not to pick them up?

Our public servants work hard to keep government open and to serve as prudent stewards of taxpayer dollars. It is too bad The Times insists on attacking them simply because they are trying to do both in hard economic times.

Something for nothing is always a popular position, but it isn’t very realistic or responsible.  The Times wants government agencies to be more responsive to public records requests, but doesn’t want to invest the money that would make this possible.  Pretty typical.

Maybe we’ll catch bin Laden now too

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Sorry for the family’s pain, actually. Too many media flashbacks involving sharks. Anyhow.

An arrest may be near in the nearly decade-old slaying of federal intern Chandra Levy, whose disappearance in 2001 ended Gary Condit’s congressional career, several television stations reported.

The California Democrat was romantically linked to Levy, but was not considered a suspect in her death or disappearance. Television stations, KFSN and KCRA in California and WRC in Washington, D.C., reported that police were seeking an arrest warrant.

Speaking of the media, that second graph is kind of confusing. If you google around it appears authorities are looking at some guy, not Condit, who is in prison already.

If one were to point to an exact moment when people started passionately hating the legacy media, the Chandra Levy-summer of sharks frenzy would merit serious consideration. Again, sad for the Levy family, having your loved one’s death compounded by an absurd media circus. I’m sure all the right wing radio blowhards are very very sorry now.

Bank Failure Friday–another NW bank

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Silver Falls Bank, Silverton, OR.

For those keeping score at home, that’s a total of three Pacific NW banks so far this year. The previous two were Pinnacle Bank of Beaverton, OR., and Bank of Clark County of Vancouver, WA.

Of course, the number of banks is not so important as the size. If you go back to last September, there was some big NW banky thing that had to be dealt with, even if they were technically listed as Nevada and Utah institutions.

I have to say, cat blogging is way cuter. I can haz natunilization pweeze? :-)

Stupid fucking credulous hacks

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The Stranger’s Dominic Holden catches the Seattle Times rewriting a federal prosecutor’s press release on a marijuana conviction.  Oops.

Reporters rewrite press releases all the time—usually about restaurant openings or events without much widespread impact. But the war on drugs costs billions a year, kills innocent people in raids, and has resulted in increased drug use. News coverage of any other miserable war would get a some scrutiny after 30 years of empty-handed results. In the service of objectivity, reporters for daily newspapers make a moral virtue of getting “both sides of the story.” The war on pot deserves more than regurgitating government press releases and some scrutiny—at least a fraction the scrutiny our reporters give plastic bags.

And for this they want a tax break?

Hike tuition to save higher ed

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In the best of all possible worlds, state taxpayers would invest lavishly in expanding access to quality higher education in Washington state.  But this isn’t the best of all possible worlds, and with an $8 billion revenue shortfall looming, even modest tax increases aren’t going to spare our state college and university system from devastating cuts.

But there is a rational, well-tested policy solution that would help alleviate some of the immediate pain, enabling state colleges and universities to make do with less while providing more access to more students than currently possible.  It is a policy currently in place at nearly every private college and university in the nation, and at public institutions in Texas, Ohio, Virginia and other states.  And it is a policy that has been proposed by both liberal bloggers like me, and by Republican state legislators:

Dramatically raise tuition while shifting the bulk of state funding from the current flat, per-student subsidy to a means-tested, financial aid model.

Those students and families who can afford to pay the full cost of tuition, will.  Those who cannot, will have the higher costs offset through grants and loans, proportionate to their needs, as long as they maintain academic standing.  The end result would be to increase tuition revenues without increasing the financial burden on students from low and middle income families.

Yes, this is a form of rationing, but we are already rationing higher education by reducing the number of available seats, increasing class sizes, and eliminating many academic options.  In education as in everything else, you get what you pay for, and if we buy ourselves a second-rate higher education system our children will ultimately inherit a second-rate economy.

So in the midst of this unprecedented budget crisis, when steep cuts to higher education funding are all but inevitable, the time has come for legislators in both parties to brave the public’s understandable, but knee-jerk, revulsion to tuition increases, and move to a financial model that guarantees the greatest access to the best higher education system the state can afford to provide.

DISCLAIMER:
This isn’t the first time I’ve advocated for the high tuition/high financial aid model.  In fact, I first hawked this proposal back in July of 2004, and at least four times since:  here, here, here and here.  So once again it is only fair to disclose that my own GET investment for my daughter (four years of tuition and fees purchased at 2002 prices) insulates us from rising tuition costs, regardless of means.  In fact, dramatically higher tuition could prove a windfall should my daughter choose to go to a private or out of state school.  Just thought you should know.

Griffeymania eludes me

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I don’t get this whole “Griffeymania” thing, especially considering his obvious lack of dedication to the game.

I mean, if Griffey really cared about the fans, he would have always done his utmost to excel by, you know… pumping himself full of dangerous, muscle-building steroids, like his ex-teammate A-Rod.  But no, Griffey just allowed himself to get old.

How selfish.

Murray kicks ass in 2010 US Senate poll

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The first poll in Washington’s 2010 US Senate race has been released, and it looks good for incumbent Democrat Patty Murray.

The Daily Kos/Research 2000 survey polled head-to-head matchups between Sen. Murray and both Dave Reichert and Rob McKenna, both of whom Murray led by double-digit margins.  Sen. Murray scored a respectable 55% favorable rating, whereas Reichert and McKenna registered 38% and 34% favorable respectively.

Not surprising really, though apart from Murray’s strength I think the survey also reveals the inherent weakness of the Republican bench here in Washington state. Indeed, that DKos/R2K would even bother to poll head-to-head with Reichert and McKenna is telling, considering that neither is likely to challenge Murray in 2010.

Reichert is a political lightweight with demonstrated shallow support even within his own district.  There is absolutely nothing to suggest that a Reichert Senate run would end up any differently than 2004, when an equally politically diminutive George Nethercutt got his ass whipped by the physically diminutive Murray.  Reichert might be stupid enough to give it go, but I doubt his handlers are.

Meanwhile, only 63% of respondents even had an opinion of McKenna, despite him being the highest ranking Republican official statewide, and arguably the most talented politician in the WSRP.  McKenna is widely considered to be biding his time in preparation for a 2012 gubernatorial run, a race for which, four years out, many political insiders rank him the frontrunner, despite his obvious handicap (ie, his Republicanism).  McKenna would have to be absolutely crazy to risk his gubernatorial bid on a quixotic challenge of Murray.  And McKenna is not crazy.

Of course, if DKos/R2K was going to run a poll, they had to do a head to head with somebody, and for the life of me I don’t have any better suggestions.  Dino Rossi?  Cathy McMorris-Rodgers? Mike!™ McGavick?  I don’t expect any of them to run, and I wouldn’t expect them to win if they did.  But who else does the WSRP have?

Just goes to show you how weak the Republican bench is in Washington state these days.

Decimation

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dec⋅i⋅mate [des–uh-meyt]
-verb (used with object), -mat⋅ed, -mat⋅ing.
1. to destroy a great number or proportion of: The population was decimated by a plague.
2. to select by lot and kill every tenth person of.
3. Obsolete. to take a tenth of or from.

I’ve heard a lot of talk around Olympia and throughout the rest of the state about how proposed budget cuts are going to “decimate” crucial state services.

Huh.  On the one hand, that’s an incorrect use of the word.

“Decimate,” in the modern sense of the word—referring to destroying a nonspecific but great proportion of—really only applies to the killing of people.  Of course, one could apply it to any object in the more technical and archaic form of the word, but in that sense, “decimation” only means to reduce by 10-percent, whereas in reality many state services will be cut by much more than that.

But on the other hand, “decimation” is perhaps the perfect word to describe our impending budget cuts, at least in terms of its Latin origin:

Decimation (Latin: decimatio; decem = “ten”) was a form of military discipline used by officers in the Roman Army to punish mutinous or cowardly soldiers. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning “removal of a tenth.”

A cohort selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group drew lots (Sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. The remaining soldiers were given rations of barley instead of wheat and forced to sleep outside of the Roman encampment.

Later today the new revenue forecast will be released, and the budget gap is only expected to widen.  Unless they also consider the revenue side of the equation, legislators will soon embark in earnest on the process of decimation:  determining who gets stoned to death and who merely loses their food and their tent.

Baird on the Strip

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Rep. Brian Baird (D-Vancouver) is one of two congressmen currently taking a trip to the Gaza Strip. TPM has the story.

Joining Baird on the visit is Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), America’s first Muslim congressman. They will, according to a joint press release, meet with key officials from the Palestinian Authority and “view first-hand the destruction from recent Israeli air and ground attacks, and to meet with international and local relief agencies.”

It sounds bad, too.

“The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering,” Baird says in the release. “Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed, schools completely leveled, fundamental needs such as water, sewer, and electricity facilities have been hit and immobilized.”

The trip was not sanctioned by the Obama administration.

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