Mortie, Mortie: He's no shorty, Mortie.
Howard Dean borrows from Apple’s “switch” campaign to help his campaign, but it’s likely too little too late. To rest one’s hopes on the state of Wisconsin is a shaky foundation indeed.
“If size really mattered, then elections would be won by the guy with the most votes.”
Bill Maher, reading from the Democratic Guide To Dating and Marriage
I’m back after a restful two weeks in Seattle, albeit half of that was spent with the flu. With the help of a cat named Harley, a fireplace and plenty of bedrest, I was able to overcome the bug that’s going around and spend the second week enjoying New Year’s Eve with friends at the Old Pequliar in Ballard, followed by New Year’s Day night of karaoke at Molly Maguire’s.
New Year’s Resolutions:
1. Sing more.
2. Dance more.
3. See #1 and #2.
And to being a tradition, tomorrow begins my second cleanse. I’m anticipating 28 days, to give my body, and more specifically, liver, a rest.
I spent a wonderful few days in Washington state, making the rounds with friends at Molly Maguires, The Twilight Exit and at various coffeeshops and restaurants around the area. The highlight of the trip was a couple of days with the family at a rented cabin in Ocean Shores, WA — only a two minute walk from the beach. Simply amazing, and it got me a little homesick when I returned today. Some friends from Molly’s, as it happened, travelled to Ocean Shores to see a friend’s band play, and I hung out with them until about 4am, and had a late-night walk back to the cabin. No lights, no cars, no people on the way home; only a deer that came within 5 feet of me as I walked past a bush it was hiding near.
Whoops! It looks like the Kalakala didn’t get sold to the San Francisco bidder after they defaulted on the $140,000 bid.
As pointed out in MiscMedia and reported in the Seattle Times, the Kalakala was purchased for $140,000 and is moving to San Francisco. The irony of this is that the ship, a Seattle icon, was originally built in Oakland.
Check out every misstatement by the Bush administration on misleader.org – with so many to keep track of, the site also offers a daily digest and is an easy resource for the media.
Two years ago the Stranger put on it’s cover the most powerful image I’ve ever seen about the events of September 11th.
Two must-see PBS specials cover the event well. Frontline’s “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero” discusses the spiritual and religious ramifications of survivors and witnesses in New York, and this week’s NOW with Bill Moyers talks about four widows demanding answers from the Bush administration to events leading up to the attacks. Al Franken’s book discusses the Bush administration failure to heed warnings from the Clinton administration about the impending threat of Al Qaeda.
My friend Todd sent me the story of The Worst Waiter in Seattle — of course, that could only happen at the infamous Cafe Minnie’s, now closed on Broadway, but still for some reason open on lower Queen Anne. While you’re there, be sure to ask yourself, “Is it okay to hate Dale Chihuly?”
From the “It’s Always Nice to Hear Good News Once In A While” Department: the Senate votes to deny funding for the Terrorism Information Awareness Program.
Hey, and I got to design the look-and-feel for this! Happy happy joy joy!
At TomPaine.com, Ralph Nader writes about the last 40 years export of millions of jobs overseas in the name of free trade. It really is no secret that IT jobs being outsourced overseas is reminiscent of Detroit’s export of automotive jobs from its Michigan plants to cheaper states, and then eventually to Mexico and other countries with a cheaper labor force and lax environmental laws. This race-to-the-bottom is covered in detail at Washtech.
Yay! The Ballard Seafood Festival! Lutefisk, anyone? July 26th and 27th in Seattle’s favorite neighborhood. It looks like polka!
I got to walk through a giant colon in San Francisco this weekend!
“Well aware I am that the colorectal cancer cause is noble and good and hence the Colossal Colon Tour was decent and right, sort of, but also not, it’s also just a little weird, as it was, you know, a giant crawl-thru colon, and you don’t exactly see The Voluminous Vagina Tour or the Stupendous Skin Cancer Tour or the Bulbous Breast Tour or the Powerhouse Prostate Tour featuring a giant bulb-like fortress thing kids can romp around in a like one of those inflatable toy castles. But hey, maybe you should.”
Mark Morford, on the giant colon, in his SF Gate “Morning Fix” column
Ralph Nader made an appearance on CNN’s Crossfire today, and James Carville was probably the angriest I’ve every seen him with a guest, insisting that Ralph Nader stole the election from Gore. While that assumption is an easy way out, maybe it has more to do with the way the Florida election was mishandled (see Unprecendented: The 2002 Presidential Election). Even Pat Buchanan admitted that some primarily Jewish counties most likely didn’t vote for him.
The Stranger is reporting this week that Sorry Charlie’s, one of Seattle’s endangered piano bars, might be saved from an outside investor.
The world’s most frightening SUV? Probably.
“There’s big money in fashion, for both men and women — even though the best most of us can do with clothes is hide how funny we look naked.”
60 Minutes’ Andy Rooney on fashion
There were more nude bicyclists in this year’s Fremont Parade than I’ve ever remembered. I’ll have another one-minute movie up tomorrow about it.
Must… keep… credit cards… at… bay.
Howard Dean formally announced his candidacy yesterday. I missed the event in Seattle, but the excitement around his campaign reminds me of the grassroots Nader support for the 2000 election. Kucinich has a similar groundswell. He’s not as liberal as conservatives make him out to be, which leads me to believe a Dean-Kerry or Kerry-Dean ticket may be a very realistic option.