GH students take it to the streets

According to the Trib, students "risked an unexcused absense" and protested the video of two girls kissing. Here's my take last week.

There is this odd spot in the middle of the Tribune's coverage:

The girl who organized Monday's event had the words “Love is not a sin” on her T-shirt. What really upset her and other students is their belief that Nelson gave special consideration to the other girl's parents' request because of a shared church connection.
Shannon Wiggs, assistant superintendent for Peninsula School District, said the students are misinformed. She said the district hired an outside investigator to look into the case. The investigator spoke with Nelson, the parents of both girls and the bishop of the local Mormon ward, among others.
“The district through the investigation didn’t find a nexus” between the church and Nelson’s actions, Wiggs said.

A nexus? What does that mean? This got very vague here.

Peter Callaghan also weighed in, and his column yesterday "Videotape your high school kids for fun and profit" was aptly titled. Here's the best dissection of the screwy situtation the Gig Harbor admin has created for itself:

It’s also the situation where the school district asserted that the dean did nothing wrong but that he’ll never do it again. And that this was an isolated incident but that using the cameras to sleuth out similar minor offenses has happened before.
And that the cameras are really to keep the kids, the staff and the school safe from danger, but that they’ve been handy in stopping littering and the epidemic of public displays of affection. And that such displays violate school policy but that only this couple has been affected in such a drastic way. And that the official involved is called the dean of students but says he’s all about doing whatever the parents want.

Keep it up, kids. You're in the right.

The best end to a great weekend

After a long and awesome weekend, the best way to end it was simple: get in to work and find that there is no flashing red light telling me I have a voicemail. Ahhhh .... bliss.

On the funnies

Caution: Erik is about to get all bothered about a relatively unimportant topic.

Now that you're warned, let's talk about the comics in the paper.

Author Johnny Hart died recently, whose B.C. comic was rather tired (although it hasn't shown nearly the kind of wear as the Family Circus or Blondie). According to the Editor's blog at the Tribune:

This week Creators Syndicate, which distributes “B.C.,” announced its plans for the continuation of the strip. Hart’s family has selected six weeks of his favorite strips that will run until early July. Afterwards, Hart’s daughter Perri Hart, will continue the strip on a regular basis.

The thing is--and here's that high horse moment you've been waiting for--you wouldn't know that Johnny Hart wrote BC if you read the Tribune. Actually, that's true of at least one other paper I've read. For some reason the authorship of daily comics is left off. So the change from Johnny to Perri Hart won't really be noticed because no one will know.

Why don't cartoonists get bylines? I would think that columnists and reporters would get pretty darn mad if their name suddenly stopped being attached to their work. Shouldn't cartoonists too?

End of random diatribe.

I-5 Meltdown ... what's Plan B?

I think it's a question worth asking right now, in light of what happened in Oakland. If an overpass were struck by a tanker and the explosion collapsed a 4 lane overpass over I-5, and the freeway was closed for 2 weeks as they worked to fix it ... what's Plan B for Tacoma commuters?

I'm guessing the Sounder would get a lot more riders. And 99 would be awful to drive on. And some might go through Bremerton and the ferries. Others might sleep on a cot in Seattle for awhile.

I-5 is a pretty vital link for this region and anything we can do to find alternate routes between Tacoma and Seattle--before we're faced with an emergency--would be a very good thing, I feel.

Note: here's a slideshow of the damage from insidebayarea.com.

Legally Blonde: The Musical

Amazingly, the musical version of "Legally Blonde" got a not-bad review from the chief theater critic for the New York Times. Perhaps he was just glad he didn't have to re-watch the musical of "High Fidelity."

Here's my favorite paragraph:

This high-energy, empty-calories and expensive-looking hymn to the glories of girlishness, based on the 2001 film of the same title, approximates the experience of eating a jumbo box of Gummi Bears in one sitting. This may be common fare for the show’s apparent target audience — female ’tweens and teenagers who still believe in Barbie. But unless you’re used to such a diet, you wind up feeling jittery, glazed and determined to swear off sweets for at least a month.

If you happen to be in New York anytime in the next, oh, seven years, "Legally Blonde" might be there waiting for you!

A night in Seattle

A great weekend so far, and it's just Saturday night!

Friday night started with a nice trip to downtown Seattle for the Beautiful Angle art opening at SVC. Good to see so many Tacomans there with T Town Pride.

We spent the night in Magnolia with friends in a beautiful mansion (long story there) and then this morning it was a long breakfast after waking up to some good ol' fashioned summertime sunshine.

That was followed by a sunny walk at the new Olympic Scuplture Park that SAM opened in January.


Tacoma would do well to create a beautiful sculture garden modeled on SAM's Olympic Sculpture Park or the Walker's Sculpture Garden in Minneapolis.

After lunch followed a beautiful ferry crossing to Bremerton and then to the Lake, where we get to enjoy a great night with the fam.

It's a weekend away, and a full one at that. Said Erik at 9:39 Saturday night. More to come, I hope!

High School Students, 24 Frames Per Second

Gig Harbor High School's security cameras are there to help prevent crime, vandalism, and--apparently--kisses between students.

The kiss was between two girls, who kissed and held hands. A school administrator witnessed the kiss by chance in the lunch room. He then went and found it on the school's tape and called the parents of one of the girls in to see the tape because they had requested to know if their daughter did anything "out of the ordinary." They later pulled their daughter from the school.

Then there is this in the Tribune article:

There’s no expectation of privacy when students are in a crowded place, Nelson said. And he would have acted the same way if it had been a boy and a girl kissing, he said.

I would agree that there is no expectation of privacy in the school commons, although there might be an expectation of restraint in showing the film footage of the commons. But, Mr. Nelson, I must seriously question the next part of what you had to say. Really? If you saw a 17 year old boy kiss a girl in the lunch room, you would call that girl's parents in and show them the video? Really? I find that hard to believe.

Of course, students at Gig Harbor High feel there are other incidents where administrators have gone too far. Like using the cameras to figure out who left trash on a lunch table. Like we didn't already know high school students were messy. The principal defended the cameras:

In fact, the cameras helped the school determine earlier this month that students weren’t behind an incident in which posters appeared to be ripped from a wall. The footage showed the posters were too heavy and fell to the floor, Schellenberg said.

This is the natural progression of cameras, unfortunately. They start with well meaning people who want to fight crime and eventually end up catching kids who should bus their table better. And you can bet that Tacoma's red light cameras will eventually catch jay-walkers and people whose car tabs have expired.

I will finish with a final point. Mr. Nelson's quote finishes the article thusly:

“They’re paying good money for us to make their kids good citizens,” he said. “Whatever that means to the parents, I’ll do it.”

O, Mr. Nelson, you are quite wrong. "Whatever that means to the parents?" You've just walked into a mine field. Let's say I'm a traditional Muslim who insists his daughter wears a burqa at school. If you see her without one will you inform me? If I have told my son he shouldn't go to the Gay Straight Alliance, will you rat him out if he goes?

Public schools and their administrators should not be in the business of enforcing the morals of a student's parents, Mr. Nelson, because every set of parents has different morals and you can't possibly enforce them all. The Dean of Students should be there to make sure the students are as safe as possible. To that end I will not make a stink about the cameras, even though I hate them. But keep your cameras. But you are not the morality police. I don't believe you when you say that you would have done the same thing if it were a boy and a girl. Even if you didn't show the parents the video, it's not the kind of thing the school needs to be reporting back to parents.

Make sure they are safe, Mr. Nelson. Keep them away from drugs, stop vandalism, discipline them when needed, and work to keep your students safe. But this is way way over the line.

The Tacoma Political Landscape

Things just got a little more surprising in Tacoma (link to Exit133).

For awhile now, Position 8 has been a hotly contested seat for the Tacoma City Council. John Hathaway of the New Takhoman decided to go after Julie Anderson because he didn't want to enter the free-for-all of Position 8.

And now, Tom Stenger, the incumbent for District 3 (central Tacoma) just announced he won't be running again. It's a pretty big surprise, as his opponent Lauren Walker confirmed (she was flabbergasted apparently).

I expect things to get a little hairy. Will anyone switch from #8 for #3? Let me revise that ... can anyone switch? Who will join the fray?

In other news, the Tribune is reporting 3 contenders for Jack Fabulich's seat for Port Commission. It's going to be an interesting summer and fall ...

Good to Go, Good to Go

The plan to sell RFID transponders has progressed and they are now on-sale.

The official toll won't be set until June 6, but I guess people are figuring it will be $3 or $1.50 if you do it electronically.

WashDOT wants 25,000 people. So far they have 1,378. Not bad, I'd say! I'll buy once at some point, I figure, before the summertime trips to the Lake start up.

GreeNYC

Major kudos are due to Mayor Bloomberg, I'd say, whose plan for remaking New York green and sustainable seems ... frankly, awesome.

127 projects that are likely to make a lot of people angry, but from this little West Coast burg, it looks like good planning. Most controversial will likely be the $8 daily fee for cars who enter Manhattan south of 86th Street. Least controversial seems to be cultivating mussels to the rivers to help clean them out.

Glad to see him and Schwarzenegger (who introduced Bloomberg) standing apart as beingly strongly pro-green but still Republican. It's certainly a welcome change from other Republican leadership. And if 'going green' can become a bi-partisan agreement, this country will really be moving in the right direction.

Thanks, Mayor.

Now, what does Tacoma have up their sleeve? ... I'm think we need to do a dramatic expansion of Wright Park and add a lot more trees.

A quick word on Boris

Boris Yeltsin died today.

He is most often remembered now as a drunk by Americans and an awful President by Russians. But on today at least it's worth remember that during the 1991 Soviet coup, Yeltsin stood on top of a tank outside the Russian parliament and railed against the "junta" that had seized power. That coup led to the end of the Soviet Union and a Russian flag was finally flown over the Kremlin (I was fortunate enough to be in Russia for the 10th anniversary of the coup).

It is hard to dismiss how important Yeltsin was during the three day coup. The courage he showed standing on the tank, how he lambasted Gorbachev in Parliament immediately after. For three days he was the right man in the right place at the right time. August 1991 is the way to remember Yeltsin today.

Washington my home, wherever I my roam

Congrats to the legislature and the governor. The same-sex partnership bill has been passed and signed. From the Trib:

The state law will take effect July 22. It gives gays, lesbians and unmarried seniors rights to visit a partner in the hospital, inherit property when there’s no will, and make decisions on matters such as emergency health care, funeral arrangements and disposition of remains. Domestic partners are to register with the Secretary of State’s Office to qualify for the rights.

Washington now joins a small group of states (California, Maine, New Jersey, Hawaii and the District of Columbia) that have domestic partnerships.

Time to strike up the state song if you ask me.

Washington my home;
Where ever I may roam;
This is my land, my native land,
Washington, my home.
Our verdant forest green,
Caressed by silvery stream;
From mountain peak to fields of wheat.
Washington, my home.

Why UP should merge into Tacoma

On Wednesday I posted that Councilmember Rick Talbert wanted to expand Tacoma's borders toward 512. I went on to suggest:

Fircrest, Ruston, and UP would also join Tacoma, but I believe that requires a vote of the State Legislature and I'm not sure those residents would be totally down with it.

One UP-ite wasn't. S/he commented on my blog anonymously:

Nothing against Tacoma, but why in the world would anyone in UP believe they would have anything to gain by being annexed by Tacoma? Is it Tacoma's stellar school system? Or perhaps its professional and world famous police force? Or maybe because UP residents are just dying to help pay for Tacoma's amazing municipal computer system...

Why indeed would someone in UP want to be part of Tacoma?

I have a couple ideas, which I mentioned in the comments of that post. The easiest reason to point out is that in a state where cities need sales tax to thrive, highly residential communities like UP are forced to try to increase sales tax revenue by creating a new urban center (a la, the UP Town Center). If UP were a part of Tacoma, they wouldn't need to do that (note that Federal Way and Fircrest have run into similar funding issues as UP).

I threw some others out that were kind of lame individually, but the truth is that they are all part of a bigger whole. And while I'm probably not going to sway my UP commenter, I'll lay it down on the line anyway. UP's success is dependent on Tacoma's.

Can I back that up?

Let me try. There was an interesting article this week about St. Louis in the New York Times. Like Tacoma, St. Louis is looking for a renaissance. Like Tacoma it has a rough and tumble image it would like to shed.

But unlike Tacoma, St. Louis has collapsed inward. At its peak population in 1950, St. Louis had 860,000 residents. By 2000, the city had dropped 500,000 of them.

What is interesting is that in 1876 the City of St. Louis (stupidly, it turns out) separated itself from St. Louis County, which now entirely surrounds the city in Missouri (Illinois is the other border for the city across the river). This created a dramatic city / suburbs division that has held until this day.

When the automobile and the freeway created new suburbs in the 50s and 60s, St. Louis lost all of its wealthy residents when they moved to the County. And it couldn't expand to get them back.

Flash forward a few decades now. At the time of the 2000 census, St. Louis residents made 2/3 of what those in the suburbs made. St. Louis is 51% black and 43% white while St. Louis County is 19% black and 77% white. A sharp line now separates the city from its suburbs, separating rich from poor, and white from black.

And it's not like everyone is just moving out of the area. From 1990 - 2000 Greater St. Louis (all the suburbs and the city) grew 4.5%. But St. Louis City lost 12.2%. A rich, white, populous donut of a city is growing around a poor, black, abandoned inner city.

That leads us to the question, are the residents in St. Louis County hurt by what is going on in the City of St. Louis? Things going on like:

In the past few months, the public schools were stripped of accreditation and taken over by the state; the city was designated the most dangerous in the country in a national crime survey ...

That's from the Times article.

So if you live in St. Louis County right now, the most dangerous city in the US is across an artificial border from you. Its residents are poorer, its students badly educated, and the cities are segregated by race. This is bad for you.

There are a million reasons why it is bad for the residents of St. Louis, but it is also bad for you. If you were part of St. Louis, it would only take a very very small portion of your money to solve what is a very bad problem. And it's not like it's someone else's problem. It's your problem, because it's just right across the freeway and social problems don't respect city lines.

Now, obviously, Tacoma and its suburbs are not at this point yet. But it's worth pointing out that Tacoma's problems are the problems of the entire metro area. A family can move to UP because they want to send their children to Curtis instead of Foss, but everyone would be doing better if they were both Curtis and Foss were in the same school system.

And if you think that merging UP, Fife, Fircrest, Lakewood, and Ruston into Tacoma would be impossible, witness Indianapolis.

Surrounded by suburb towns and a victim of white flight and urban blight, in the 1970 Indianapolis and its suburbs created Unigov, which united the governments of Indianpolis, the towns, and the county. The city has since grown by leaps and bounds. It has a lot more room to grow. It is not segregated. And its household median income is 43% larger than that of St. Louis. Everyone wins.

Annexation holds big potential for our region. If you're interested in the problem, I highly recommend the book Cities Without Suburbs by the former Mayor of Albuquerque, David Rusk, which lays out the case surprisingly well. Stephen Goldsmith, the former Indianapolis mayor, also has a book about his experience. Together the books make a compelling case, one from a Democrat and one from a Republican, one with Census statistics and one with anecdotes.

The Best News For Tacoma

Annexation has long been a hot button on this blog.

A central city surrounded by suburbs can't plan for growth. Downtowns languish because the richer suburbs keep all the money to themselves (in the case of schools, property taxes don't fund the full school system).

So Dan Voelpel's article today about Rick Talbert hoping to annex everything to 512 is a welcome sigh of relief. That unincorporated land should be a part of Tacoma.

Ideally, Fircrest, Ruston, and UP would also join Tacoma, but I believe that requires a vote of the State Legislature and I'm not sure those residents would be totally down with it. Maybe with a strong neighborhood council program and some other ways to promote their self-identity. I'm thinking we create 5 burroughs just like another city did when they annexed a few others.

When Brooklyn went into New York they were the 11th biggest city in the US at the time. And many credit that consolidation of New York as a reason for its unparalleled success in the 20th Century.

Let's hope Tacoma can do a little bit of growing in the coming years.

Cross the lake

The Tribune has a good editorial today about tolls across Lake Washington.

I do think that funding bridges with tolls makes a whole bunch more sense than funding them with more general taxes. The traffic management aspect side of it is not bad either. The Tribune concludes:

Convincing state lawmakers still could take some doing. Legislative transportation leaders are cool to the idea of tolling I-90, and some are taking aim at the Regional Transportation Investment District’s plan, suggesting that it should funnel more money toward megaprojects like 520 rather than trying to spread dollars around.

But underlying even that debate is the premise that Highway 520 bridge cannot get built without some tolls. Narrows bridge commuters dreading the advent of tolls this summer can take some comfort that Lake Washington motorists’ day is coming — and that they too might not be able to avoid the toll collector.

11-2? Ouch.

For a brief while I was a Minnesotan, which made me a temporary Twins fan. But that didn't make the loss tonight any easier.

The M's got crushed. It was my second game of the year (2nd this week, too). I think I'm going to try to stick with the Sunday games so I can ride the Sounder to and from. Doing that this weekend was a spoiler; it's the only way to go!

The Case Statement

Thomas Friedman lays it out pretty clearly.

Going green is a silver bullet to our global warming, Islamic terrorism, and globalized outsourcing problems.

Well, I want to rename “green.” I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century. A redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology is not meant to trump the traditional Republican and Democratic agendas but rather to bridge them when it comes to addressing the three major issues facing every American today: jobs, temperature and terrorism.

It's a long article, but it's very very persuasive, if you haven't been persuaded already.

The Official "Lefties For Obama" Logo

This took way too long to make, but I thought it was kind of funny. In case you didn't notice, that's a left hand giving Obama the OK sign.

There are about a million reasons I think Barack Obama should be the next President, but the least of those reasons seemed like the best reason to build a website for him. :)

www.LeftiesforObama.com

Tacoma Presidential Donations

The information age has struck home.

The New York Times has assembled a list of donors who gave $200 or more to a Presidential campaign into a single searchable database. I could spend a lot of time talking about how unprecedented this is (and it is an incredible amount of access to what has been very nebulous in the past) but I won't. Instead let's just get to the good stuff.

According to the NYT, 23 Tacoma residents gave at least $200 to one of the Presidential candidates in the first 3 months of 2007. Those donations totaled $27,190 dollars. Of those, 2 people gave $4,600, the maximum amount allowable to give to a candidate for both the primary and the general election (one gave to Clinton, the other to McCain).

Here are the Tacoma rankings:

1. John McCain: $7,575 from 4 donors.
2. Hillary Clinton: $6,450 from 5 donors.
3. John Edwards: $6,350 from 8 donors.
4. Barack Obama: $3,115 from 4 donors.
5. Mitt Romney: $2,100 from 1 donor.
6. Dennis Kucinich: $1,000 from 1 donor.
7. Rudy Giuliani: $500 from 1 donor.
8. Tom Tancredo: $100 from 1 donor.

All in all, $16, 915 went to Democrats, $10,275 went to Republicans. 16 donors gave to Democrats (one donor gave to three D. campaigns) and 7 donors gave to Republicans.

This data is just for Tacoma proper, not for the suburbs, just so you know.

Without knowing how many people gave to the campaigns below $200, I don't know what kind of totals you can draw from the data. But if what we see here is indicative, Tacoma keeps its reputation as a blue town, but having McCain on the top of the list was a bit surprising.

If the NYT puts more data up I'll update it here.

Until then, you can have fun with the list by typing in celebrities. Spielberg gave $2,300 to Edwards, Obama, and Clinton. Adam Sandler gave $2,100 to Giuliani? Really? Jerry Springer gave $4,600 to Hillary Clinton? SayWA? Donald Trump gave $4,000 to Clinton? Ivanka gave her $1,000?

Since I've gotten started talking about national politics, I may as well mention that I've started a fun website in support of Obama. It's called www.leftiesforobama.com. And by lefties, I--of course--mean people who are left-handed. Like me!

I want to help make Obama the 8th left-handed President. So many of our Presidents have been right-handed, I think it's about time to get another lefty in the White House. If you're a lefty (either in politics or handedness) you should definitely check it out. I've even started an official Lefties for Obama group at BarackObama.com.

Politics should be fun again. And choosing a candidate based on which hand they will sign bills into law with seems like a fun way to get involved.

I'll keep watching Tacoma's political donations as the year moves along.

The Abatement - Again

For an interesting read, check out the op-ed piece by Mike Lonergan and Rick Talbert in the Trib. It's a solid defense of the property tax abatement.

As I've said before, I have enjoyed the property tax abatement since 2003, but I am also swayed by Peter Callaghan's argument that too much of it is going toward luxury condos.

Perhaps the two councilmembers are correct: there are better ways to deal with affordable housing than attaching restrictions to the property tax abatement. (Check out my brief distillation of the Pierce County Housing Report issued last month.) The close their suggestions:

... city, state and federal governments offer several tools for financing affordable housing development that are far more effective than this tax exemption.

The key message is this: The property tax exemption is working very well to accomplish its intended goals of increased residential density and economic vitality in mixed-use centers. The benefits of this success extend to every resident of Tacoma. We caution against adding requirements to the exemption, which could erase the advantage that is spurring extensive redevelopment.

I think they make a good case.

Thought Provoking Theater

An letter to the editor is on-line at the Trib that argues that TAG fell through because they moved away from thought-provoking and controversial theater.

The author, Heidi Erdmann, writes, "It is curious to me that Tacoma has embraced the Grand Cinema, which has had its fair share of provocative films, but has not been able to replicate the formula for theater."

I might be a good choice to respond to this observation.

She's right on. The Grand can be a lot more provocative than TAG ever could be. From "Brokeback Mountain" to NC-17 films like "The Dreamers" that the Grand played in 2004, a couple weeks before I became the Grand's manager. But TAG could never have gotten away with showing their theatrical equivalent. Why?

First, for as much as I love movies, I think it's important to note that live theater has a lot more intimacy that even the small theaters of the Grand. A nude man on a screen and a nude man 20 feet from you will cause very different reactions. A string of obscenities can be hilarious in a movie but appalling on stage if not handled just right. Because of the distance, cinema I feel can be allowed to be more provocative.

Second, the Grand benefits from millions of dollars of marketing, not to mention press and star power. Controversial films, films up for Oscars, and the movie industry in general get a lot written about them and they can afford a lot of money spent on advertising. I may be hard pressed to go see a controversial play, but a controversial movie that everyone's talking about with Heath Ledger is a different thing.

Third, and this is important, people who got offended at the Grand (and I will attest that a lot of people did) weren't necessarily mad at the Grand because of it. After all, we didn't make the movies. Miramax, Fox Searchlight, or Warner Independent did. But TAG put on its shows and if they offended people, those who were offended were likely mad at TAG. In the theater, a single show can cause donations could be pulled and season tickets not to be renewed, but people seldom stopped coming to the Grand because one movie offended them.

On top of that, TAG put on 5 plays a year. The Grand does about 70 movies in a year if you count the revivals. That means that the Grand can appeal to a lot of people and try to have something for everyone. Two women in their 70s can go see "Ladies in Lavender" and teenagers can see "Napoleon Dynamite" and everyone's happy.

At the Horatio, I have tried to take some lessons from both TAG and the Grand. From the Grand, I learned that Heidi is right -- people in Tacoma are willing to see provocative, intelligent art, and prove it by patronizing the Grand. And from TAG I've learned that if you're going to do that, you have to manage expectations. In this case, it means that when I launched the Horatio it was made very clear that we wanted to push the envelope. The play selections so far haven't exactly been offensive (I'd give both a solid PG rating) but they are becoming more so. "Stones in his Pockets" in June would be a mild R for language, and "Topdog/Underdog" in the fall will be a hard R.

Anyway, I thought Heidi's letter was worth talking about for a bit because it was so close to comments I've heard for the last few months.

A Ride on the Sounder

I went to the Mariners game yesterday with some friends and took my first ride on Sound Transit's awesome Sounder.

Should I repeat: it's awesome. I've ridden the Express bus to many a Mariners game, but this was much cooler. For a buck more than the bus, we had a much better ride and saw a much more interesting side of the route between Tacoma and Seattle.

The trains right now only run for 1:05 games on Sundays but it's still pretty cool.

Mariners won too and wound up in first place, so all in all--a good Saturday!

Don Imus

I haven't mentioned this on my blog, but as everyone knows Don Imus is off the air. Andrew Sullivan today summed the whole thing up very well.

What we've seen here is, I think, a genuine reflection of the new American mainstream. Most Americans simply find the spectacle of a rich white bigot beating up on young black female achievers after a crushing tournament loss to be gratuitously cruel and unfair. Punishing someone for calling college women "whores" - especially those who have beaten the odds and are role models for other back girls and women - is not a new step in political correctness. It's applying a very old American standard of fairness and decency, which now applies to all Americans, regardless of race or gender. This was the voice of mainstream America speaking. It's not what it once was. I wonder whether many of Imus's buddies realize that yet.

There is a temptation to say that we're enforcing too strict a "p.c." code, but I think Andrew hits the nail on the head. "Nappy headed" is a big problem, but in many ways the "hos" comment is much much worse. Maybe Imus shouldn't have met with Al Sharpton but rather with Betty Friedan.

(And yes I know she is unavailable for the interview as of February of last year.)

Tacoma on TV

If you happen to be watching TV someday, you might see a commercial for Chevy and something about a cruise line.

But that's not what's important. One of the shots includes a truck parked outside of an orange-yellowish building that is actually the cool building across the alley from PSP and Opera Alley.

Watch for it, because it's pretty cool to see a shot of Tacoma in a national ad.

For Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut was an odd, odd writer. He seems to have gone off the proverbial deep end along with Harold Pinter in his old age. If you don't believe me, check out his interview with Rolling Stone last year.

I haven't read everything he's written, but I've read a lot of good stuff. "Slaughterhouse Five" and poor Billy Pilgrim ... "Cat's Cradle" and a new kind of Ice (Ice 9, of course) ... and his really wonderful collection of short stories, "Welcome to the Monkey House."

I have fond memories of this book. When sailing on the SSV Westward in the Caribbean during college, my friends and I read short stories to each other on the roof of the lab late at night and under the stars. "Welcome to the Monkey House" was one of our favorite books for this.

I wasn't such a fan of some of the others, especially his more recent "Timequake". Until the last page, that is. I love the last page.

So long, KV. You wrote some good stuff.

The Shed gets replaced

Good news for completing the Pacific Ave block. The UWT shed is going to come down and a whole new campus center will be put together. Cool news!

Done for the night?

The Bridge's GPS unit has stopped sending information as of 4:33 this afternoon. Is it broke? Did they turn it off?

Did they find a place to nap just easy of Ritzville? Or are they planning on stopping until later this evening so they can get through Bellevue in the wee small hours of the morning?

Only time will tell ...

A hint for tracking the bridge across the state ...

If you go to the DOT page with the Google Map / GPS tracker, leave the window open and let it run.

The GPS unit updates the map every 5 minutes. This means that every 5 minutes a new waypoint is put onto the map, but the old ones stay behind. You see what kind of progress it makes in each 5 minute interval.

Also, the points are clickable. Click on one and you'll see the time it was taken as well as the bearing and speed of the truck (Bearing is pretty easy to figure out on your own).

Speed is interesting. At 1:51 pm, it was doing 24 miles an hour on I-90. Ouch.

As far as I can tell, it only works if you leave the page running, so don't navigate away! It's pretty cool to follow.

It's on the move!

Check out the bridge expansion piece's progress via Google Maps on the Wash DOT site. It's going through Spokane right now.

Find every random thing I've ever written

You might notice erikemery.com has a new feature at the top: a Blogger search bar.

Most blogger-based blogs with their own domain usually do away with this search bar (it's one of the perks of having your own domain). But the more I looked at it and played around with it, I saw that it's search function was actually very strong. So I've put it at the top of my site and I'll see how it works out.

I've also put to use the Google Reader service to share some of the interesting things I find out on the web. My Reader has 54 site feeds from a whole bunch of blogs--from Tacoma blogs to friend's blogs to tech blogs--and when I find cool sites I add them to the mix. Reader has been great, and I'm now excited to use it this way too.

You might also notice that there is a place for Google ads on the side of my page. I've sold out and soon hope to have some ads there. I expect to get rich off my blog the next time Boing Boing decides to link to me. Maybe I'll earn enough some month to splurge and get a vanilla latte instead of drip coffee.

Ah, the life of luxury.....

Smile, Red Light Cameras Are Coming

Let me just register a note of complaint about the red light traffic cameras that are likely going to be put in place.

I had a few words against the proposal when it was first suggested last month. And I'll reiterate now that I'm just tired of more and more cameras coming into our lives. Cell phone cams are one thing. Government cams another.

Here's the Trib's update about the cameras that were going to be put in front of the Council at tonight's meeting. From the update:

The company is to get $4,850 per camera per month. Fines generated will finance the cost of the program, according to material provided to the council.

"At $101 per ticket, it would take less than two tickets per day to pay the costs associated with this contract," according to a memo to the council from Tacoma Police Lt. Mike Cribbin and Assistant City Attorney Michael Smith.

I'm going to fill in the blanks and assume that the memo means that it will take two tickets per day per camera. Otherwise the math doesn't pencil.

That said, the article goes on to note that Tacoma expects to catch thousands of red light runners. Councilman Lonergan says, "We expect to stop red-light running in Tacoma."

This is where we get to an inherent contradiction of the system. The goal is to stop red-light running, but red-light runners pay for the system. Therefore the method cannot be too successful or else the City will have to start paying for the system.

Thus, my prediction:

1. Cameras will stop red light running at monitored intersections, thus dropping the revenue potential from the cameras.
2. The Council will claim "they work!" and this will be justification for adding more red light cameras at other intersections, which will further boost revenue again.
3. Most major intersections will get cameras but placing them at smaller intersections will become less attractive.
4. As revenue from the cameras fall, we will hear that some drivers continue to run the intersections, and we need a stiffer, harsher penalty to provide a bigger incentive. ie, a higher fine.
5. Fines will rise substantially, and revenue will increase once more before falling off slightly.
6. Eventually, Tacoma will level itself off at a lower level of red light runners (if I were a betting man, I'd guess 2 - 3 violations / day / camera, just based on the cost of the system).
7. Anyone who later questions the wisdom of renewing the cameras will be told that it would only risk lives and be shown a horrific video of a T-Bone car crash.
8. Thus Tacoma can never get rid of the cameras and the company putting them in will continue to make at least $4,850 / camera / month forever.
   

I'm not saying that those on the Council are looking for the money. Actually, I believe those who support it do so because they want to save the lives of Tacoma citizens.

My cynicism comes from the company, who has brilliantly figured out how to get life-time clients in municipalities around the country without any serious opposition except from the National Motorist Association (which is not exactly "serious" opposition anyway). They have manipulated the political game to, what seems to me, a very strong profit.

Because once a city starts on the road we are on, the eight steps I put forward above seem inevitable.

Hannah Heights Looking Good

I can watch Hannah Heights out my window and it's really been coming along. I must confess that I am actually surprised that I like the building. I have been wary of newly constructed condos but Hannah Heights actually looks really good (I must confess that I am surprised I like the Mercato too).

But the sidewalks are coming together and it's really starting to look good. I saw the rooms awhile ago and was very impressed with the rooms as well.

All in all, welcome to the neighborhood, Hannah Heights!

'Planet Terror' and 'Death Proof'

Saturday night I saw "Grindhouse," a double feature assembled by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

The first film is Planet Terror, and it's a pretty straight zombie movie. Actually it's a little different from zombie movies I've seen before because these zombies get big and splochy, not all hollowed out and gaunt.

There's a lot of humor along the way, and the movie goes back and forth between trying to be a good zombie movie and making fun of them. It, far more than Death Proof, is filled with scratches, frames out of focus, bad splices, and a single missing reel.

It's catch is, of course, Rose McGowan with a machine gun for a leg. But that doesn't get attached until the climactic scene. Before that she's got a chair leg instead, although that brings with it some good scenes as well.

It was a fun hour and a half, but when the previews rolled in between the films, I wasn't sure I had another movie in me.

But it's a good thing I did, because Tarantino's Death Proof really grabbed me. It's got a few bad cuts and such at the beginning but it doesn't take long just to become a straight film that's good good good.

Kurt Russell is awesome, but the true star is Zoe Bell, a Kiwi stunt woman (she doubled for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bills) who plays herself. Let's just say that during a high speed car chase along the two lane backroads in Texas ... Zoe Bell is the one on the hood. And the movie leaves no doubt whatsoever that Zoe Bell is truly on the hood.

It's one of the most frightening and intense car chases I've seen. But man is it fun.

Duke's Chowderhouse

One of the other reasons we didn't go to waterfront last night was because Thursday night, Mary and I took a (long) stroll from my place to Duke's Chowderhouse on Ruston. Supposedly that's about 2.6 miles according to Google Maps.

Anyway, the promenade was crowded, and outside of the Ram, which was packed, we ran into a few friends who had just come from Duke's. They delivered some of the best news: the Duke's balcony was open. This is great to know for the summer because the Ram treats their deck as something that should be looked at rather than sat on. If it's cloudy at noon, if it rains at 10, if it's before Memorial Day ... it takes 80 degree temps for two weeks for the Ram to open up their deck. But on a random and nice Thursday night, Duke's had theirs open, complete with outdoor heaters.

It was my first time there and the food was expensive. A couple of chowder was way way too much, but when we got our meals they were very big. And the mahi mahi fish taco was absolutely incredible. I say "taco" instead of "tacos" because they were so good and so big Mary and I each ended up taking one and we just boxed her dinner up to go.

Of course after that we had a long walk back up through Old Town, past Annie Wright, and to Stadium before we were even within 10 minutes of my place.

But it felt good to make the trek, and now there is a great chowderhouse with a big deck at the half-way point, which will help if Mary needs to convince me to make the hike again.

Summer Lovin' ...

Nicole and Mary and I decided that rather than risk the waterfront and the chaos of Ruston Way we decided to walk downtown and get drinks.

We ended up at one of truly undiscovered places ... at least for locals. The Vertigo Lounge on the 26th floor of the Sheraton Hotel ... enjoy the view courtesy of the Motorola cell phone cam.

Horatio News

The good folks over at the Weekly Volcano noticed that there is a For Lease sign up at 708 Opera Alley, what I had hoped to be the Horatio's home.

I gave a quick synopsis there of what's going on, but I'll further it here.

The very cool, very edge, very hip space on Opera Alley was just not going to work. As I moved forward in the renovation of the space and jumped over obstacles and began getting it ready, one hurdle suddenly loomed at the end that it became apparent I just wasn't going to be able to clear: ventilation.

708 Opera Alley, while I thought it was going to make a great theater, was going to cost a small fortune to ventilate and heat.

It was this ventilation problem that put all work on hold and meant the transition of Molly Sweeney to Commencement Bay Coffee and the creation of a theater in their event space. A few weeks later, when it became clear that the problem wasn't going to be an easy fix, I was left with no option but to try to get out of the space.

The landlords who had been helpful getting me into the space were also kind and forgiving when I asked to get out of the space later.

I'm out of the space; hence the for lease sign.

It was very sad, since I love the space, and Opera Alley, but I'm still very committed to producing theater. Stones in His Pockets will still go on in June, but now at Commencement Bay Coffee, since the space worked out so well for Molly Sweeney. Topdog/Underdog will be in the fall, location still TBD. I'm also working with a great group on producing some shows of Hedwig and the Angry Inch in Tacoma this summer too.

So that's pretty much the story of the Horatio and where we stand so far.

How big is T-Town

The Volcano Spew has an interview with Marty Campbell's campaign manager, Catherine Ushka-Hall, that reads in part:

All of our 204,136 citizens deserve a voice.

Anyone know where that number came from? The most recent estimates I can find puts us at about 199,600, which is a number cited on the City's site, Wikipedia, and elsewhere.

204,136 seems awfully specific to be a guess on Ushka-Hall's part. Or maybe the specific number is for effect like: "And I mean to find it, even if I have to go through all 268 places it could be."

Those are my best guesses. Anyone know when Tacoma crosses the 200K mark? Or are we still 400 short?

Faster than a speeding Bullet

The Tribune's editorial on the incredibly fast bullet train is right on. The US should be looking to create some of these trains. I'm thinking Seattle - Portland non-stop. San Fran - LA? Minneapolis - Chicago. New York - Philly. Honolulu ... hmmmm.

Anyway, some high speed bullet trains would be awesome to have shooting around regionally.

Follow that bird! Oops. I mean bridge. Follow that bridge!

Found this at GritCity and thought I would pass it along.

WSDOT is attaching a GPS unit to the piece of the Narrows as it comes along from Idaho. Cole is taking bets as to how long the bridge stops at restaurants and rest stops along the way.

Check it out to avoid traffic if you're goign to be driving on its proposed route. This was a good idea on the DOT's part. Take something that people have been making fun of and turn it into a fun thing.

Weirdest Quote Ever

"I snorted my dad."

So Keith Richards mixed his dad's ashes with his cocaine and snorted it. Apparently the mixture "went down pretty well."

Eww. Eww eww eww eww eww.

I'm all for spending time with the family, but playing board games with my dad does us just fine.