More on the gas tax summer hiatus

Ezra Klein:

"Unanimity is rare. Except on this gas tax holiday. Just about no one thinks it a good idea. Conservative economists loathe it, liberal economists loathe it, energy experts loathe it...it's shameless pandering of the worst sort."

Thanks to Don in the comments of the Friedman article for the suggestion. I don't know of any conservative economists to read to see if Ezra Klein is right on this. Anyone know a conservative economist blogger or writer on this one? And then ...

From the NYT editorial board:

"Leave aside that suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon excise tax would cost the deficit-burdened federal government $9 billion and that turning a tax off in May and on in September would be an administrative nightmare.

Even leave aside that nixing the gas tax would increase demand for gasoline — exactly the wrong response to global warming and rising energy prices. So wrong, in fact, that both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain support policies that would cut carbon emissions and increase the price of energy. (Talk about voting for something before they voted against it.)

The fact is that drivers would, at best, see only the briefest reduction in prices at the pump. Gas prices rise during the summer season of heavy driving as rising demand pushes refiners to produce virtually at full capacity. If a suspension in the excise tax reduced the price at the pump, it would encourage even more driving. This would simply push prices back up. Oil companies would be grateful, drivers less so."

James Fallows is even offering a one year subscription to the Atlantic if someone can come up with an example of a more "foolishly destructive" bipartisan pandering. Man this one brought a lot of people out ...

Friedman's Back!

After getting a pie in the face, Thomas Friedman is back to writing regularly for the New York Times. I'm glad to see him back, especially since he's backing up a post I made yesterday:

"Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country."

This was disheartening, however:

" ... when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December."

Dang.

Yeah for the LID!

Very good news from Exit133 -- the Broadway LID just passed. That's good stuff for fans of the Theater District and Broadway. My window used to be on Broadway ... I sat in it and watched the tree lighting parade (I believe it was the last, actually).

I wonder how the view will change from there ...

Movie Wrapup

This weekend we did a double feature--Forgetting Sarah Marshall followed by Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay.

I enjoyed both, although H&K was a little disappointed because I'd been hoping for more. Forgetting Sarah Marshall I probably enjoyed more, but that was because I was not expecting to like it that much. Expectations are everything sometime.

But it felt really good to get into the movie theater again. And some good movies are coming soon ...

Kudos to Obama

I'd like to tip my hat to Obama (yeah, yeah, big surprise).

McCain and Clinton are both calling to drop the federal gas tax for the summer. That would take 18.4 cents off of each gallon of gas for the summer.

This is in the Times: "Mr. Obama derided the McCain-Clinton idea of a federal tax holiday as a “short-term, quick-fix” proposal that would do more harm than good, and said the money, which is earmarked for the federal highway trust fund, is badly needed to maintain the nation’s roads and bridges."

And then this: "Mr. Obama said lifting the gas tax for three months would save the average consumer no more than $30, a figure confirmed by Congressional analysts. ...“Half a tank of gas,” Mr. Obama told his audience. “That’s his big solution.”

I think this is a case where Obama rising above the obvious political move is a net gain for him. First, it allows the New York Times to write things like "McCain-Clinton idea," something Clinton probably doesn't like. And he gets back to his message that paints Clinton as "same old Washington." He's also taking the high road on an easy choice. If lifting the gas tax really only saves everyone $30 over the entire summer, then I think that's argument he can win. It would also likely cost 300,000 construction jobs (also according to the article).

Regardless of what you think of the gas tax, I'd venture that Clinton's position isn't consistent with her stated goal of weening the US off foreign oil, where Obama's position is consistent with his energy policy.

Short Week

We're heading to New York for a long weekend, which is going to be awesome! Activities will include watching the Mariners play the Yankees at Yankee Stadium (it's the last season for Yankee stadium) and seeing Avenue Q (the musical, not the Avenue).

Plus lots of walking. We leave Thursday. I'll probably Twitter from there when I can with blog posts every so often. That said, I can take pictures with my iPhone and post them directly to my blog, so I might do that from the road, too. I do like travel blogging.

Link Blog

I've been reading Scott Karp on his Publishing 2.0 blog. It's an interesting read with a lot of ideas about where the web may be going.

I particularly enjoyed his recent "Web Conservation Movement" post. He writes, "Before blogging became a volume game of posting multiple full content items each day, it was about links — linking to interesting things on the web, helping to reduce the noise, not adding to it. Will you join the Web Content Conservation Movement? Make the web a more livable place. When you leave the room, turn off the light. Think twice before you post. Plant a tree. Link to something."

My blog has changed year to year. At the beginning it was all about Tacoma parks, with a few other things thrown in. Then it was a lot of small daily thoughts or questions. Then it got very Tacoma-focused.

If I had to define my blog right now I would say it is a few main things: some regular notes about going out in Tacoma; travel-blogging; movie and book reviews; a few big hot button issues; and lots and lots of links. In fact, ever since adding the sidebar feature of "What Erik's Reading," I have been very conscious of what I put there. Sometimes I want to highlight one of those links so much I'll write it up with more information.

Google Reader lets me see what I've shared in the last 30 days. With the exception of some local info from Exit133 and Spew, it's been almost entirely political coverage, although some friends, tech blogs, and even Get Fuzzy have showed up in the feed. I'll try to make it a little less politically charged in the coming months.

Do check the links out if they grab you. And if they don't, tell me what you'd like to see! Hopefully it will steer you toward interesting things and I can help make the web a more livable place.

Cradle to Cradle

I found a great article in the most recent "Vanity Fair" about William McDonough who believes in a "Cradle to Cradle" philosophy. He doesn't like that the legislation that has resulted from the environmental movement only seeks to make things "less bad" rather than actually good.

As an architect, one of his most important buildings was at Oberlin College. The building puts out more energy than it uses. It is also built so that the entire building can be disassembled (not destroyed) and its elements used again in more buildings.

Here's a better explanation of his ideal:

He wants to "make a five-year car that allows for industry to transform the technology at high speed toward the Cradle to Cradle concept. The five-year car is a car whose material are all coherent and tagged. In fact, all materials in the car have 'passports.' So we know where they come from, and we know where they're going--back to the automakers--after five years of utility, so the car could be recycled and updated with the latest in safety and efficiency ... They keep making cars out of the same stuff."

The "Cradle to Cradle" ideal promotes growth and jobs because it's goal is that each product has zero waste. Waste=Food is his mantra, because if you build it right, all waste can become the food for something else.

It's a very good kind of environmentalism.

Adopt A Seattlite Success!

It was an active 24 hours for us in Tacoma. Last night, friends from Seattle came down. We ventured out to The Hub and PSP with lots of good imbibing. They stayed the night and this morning we went out--again to PSP actually--for a good hearty breakfast.

From there we took a short walk to Suite133 where we showed off our cool office space. By the time our Seattlite friends left, they were pretty darn impressed with T-Town, not just with how far it had come, but with how it compared to their neighborhood in Seattle.

Sweet.

After that, Mary and I decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather. We took the 5 mile drive around Point Defiance, which was really packed. And we headed down to the Esplanade too, where we walked and looked at boats. We also ran into a friend having lunch on the deck at Woody's and joined them for a bite in the beautiful weather. It's gorgeous outside, people! Get out there!

Finally! Some movies I want to see!

Looking forward to Harold and Kumar 2 this weekend, possibly as part of a double feature with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And we may even try to sneak in a showing of Baby Mama while we're at it.

Speaking of movies ... I saw Shooter last week on DVD. It's ... not bad. It's well done for what it is, but as far as action movies go, there's many that are much better. I believe the critics would write it up as "competent" meaning, the filmmakers know how to make a movie and know the genre they are operating in. But that doesn't mean it stands out in any way.

So Brave, Young, and Handsome

I can't say exactly why the book "Peace Like a River" touched me as much as it did. But it was a really really good read. So when I saw that Leif Enger had another book out, "So Brave, Young, and Handsome," I was very excited.

And then I happened to see news that he'll be speaking at Carleton and doing a book-signing. The really big news, though--it's set in Northfield! Sweet. Amazon's sending it post-haste.

Kunstler's First Chapter

I started The Long Emergency last night and made it through the first chapter. He's frustrating because he has some good points, but also has a few passages that are so outlandish they are scoffable.

On the first page, he writes, "It is my view, for instance, that in the decades to come the national government wil prove to be so impotent and ineffective in managing the enormous
vicissitudes we face that the United States may not survive as a nation in any meaningful sense but rather will devolve into a set of autonomous regions."

Uh huh.

Then there is this great bit on page 8: "How long might the Long Emergency last? A generation? Ten generations? A millennium? Ten millennia? Take your choice. Of course, after awhile, an emergency becomes the norm and is no longer an emergency."

SayWA? Ten millennia? So we'll still be wrestling with all this in 12008? We only have 5,000 years or so of recorded history, so suggesting we know anything about what we might face twice that length into the future is pretty funny. Even the single millennium guess is funny when you think about it.

As I said there are some good parts in here, but his more fanciful passages make it hard to take.

Howard James Kunstler in Tacoma

I struggle mightily with the central precept of Kunstler's The Long Emergency. I thought--before tonight, at least--that Kunstler really wants the Long Emergency to happen, that he wants to oil cripple the world economy, shrink the cities, transform agriculture, etc etc. I also seriously question the idea that the invisible hand of the market is incapable of handling the problem.

But the argument tonight had some interesting information--enough that I bought The Long Emergency as I left the event at the Theatre on the Square. I'm approaching it from a seriously skeptical perspective, so maybe that's the best way to go. I'll blog as I go through it.

That said, I greatly enjoyed Kunstler's presentation, even though I found much to disagree with. That the crowd at the Theatre on the Square was near capacity, if not sold out, was incredible. I saw so many recognizable faces--the most interesting would have to be Chip Vincent, manager of Advance Planning at Pierce County, and Professor Brian Coffey, Chair of the Urban Studies Department at UWT. There were lots of "regulars," as I might call them, in attendance but these two stood out.

I had Chip Vincent for a course at UWT a couple years ago--he toured the class around to cities and towns all over the Puget Sound and had us meet with planners in each of them. Very interesting stuff.

After the Kunstler event I went to Quiz Night at Doyle's, where my team won. I walked home wearing my prize: a Stella Artois bathrobe. I love bathrobes and I love Stella Artois. I was danged excited for this prize. Thanks, Russ!

The Long Primary

An interesting post on Andrew Sullivan today (which I shared in my sidebar) reminded me of that leaked spreadsheet back on February 6, in which the Obama campaign was projecting forward to the upcoming primaries. Their margins have been a little off here and there, and they guessed Clinton would take Maine, but other than that, their predictions were right on the money, including a loss in Pennsylvania.

The New Republic piece on Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, had this interesting tidbit: "Where most underdog campaigns bet everything on a quick upset in Iowa or New Hampshire, Plouffe constructed a meticulous plan to turn the race into a long, drawn-out delegate slog."

It reminded me that the Atlantic political reporter Marc Ambinder has called "not planning for and contesting the caucuses" the "major strategic error" of the Clinton campaign. The just didn't see it coming. Last night Clinton picked up 12 - 16 delegates ... less than what Obama picked up in Colorado (17 delegates) or Kansas (14). Plouffe was apparently the one who foresaw that the small mostly red states could be huge gains for the campaign because Clinton wouldn't think to compete there.

I recommend the TNR piece. It's interesting that Obama, with the help of Plouffe, were able to out-politic two of the best politicians ever. I made the point in February, but I'd like to make it again: Obama is a very canny politician. That's one of the things about him I really like.

Dang.

Obama lost. It was expected, but that's no excuse, since that was what Clinton tried to say after every primary and caucus she lost in February.

By my count, Clinton has had two "must-win" scenarios so far: Ohio/Texas and Pennsylvania and she won them both (I don't count New Hampshire as a must-win, I think she could have survived even after losing it and it's worth noting she lost the delegate count in Texas). Obama, for his part, considered Iowa a must-win, and it probably was. At the very least he probably had to win Iowa or New Hampshire.

But since then it's hard to say he's had many "must-win" states. Super Tuesday ended with roughly the same number of delegates going to both of them and he certainly couldn't afford to get blown out of the water ... but there wasn't a single state that day that was a must-win for him (save perhaps Illinois).

My point is that Clinton is now on to another "must-win" state: Indiana. Polling is spotty. No one's really sure who has a strategic advantage going in.

Both campaigns are in a tough spot right now, but I don't think it's too hard to say that given the two options, I would rather not be the candidate who keeps having "must-win" primaries.

Clearly there are going to be questions like, "Why can't Obama put this away?"--questions Clinton has already raised. As an Obama supporter, I have to say I don't have an easy answer to that question. It seems like after some of these contests the argument is "look how much he narrowed the margin ... if he only had more time." That's partially true, but at the same time, he can't say that come November if he loses to McCain.

On the other hand, it kind of is put away. Unless something major changes, she likely can't overtake his delegate lead, and I believe he's winning the popular vote (as much of it as we know; not all caucus states release the popular vote tallies). The question superdelegates have to ask is "If overturning the popular vote and pledged delegate lead is politically risky [as I think it would be] then what cover can Clinton give me for doing it?" Put another way, I'm just not sure I see the rationale yet for why the superdelegates would break for Clinton in the end.

Nationally, Obama is up 10 points on Clinton according to Gallup. That's after everything he went through over the last two weeks--the "bitter" thing, Wright, a bad debate performance. He still polls just as well against McCain as Clinton does, too.

I very much want Obama to win, so perhaps I'm being biased here. But without a blowout in Pennsylvania, the Clinton road to the nomination seems to be just as hard tonight as it was before the primary.

The Pennsylvania Primary

I'm watching MSNBC and CNN tonight but the best on-line resource is the New York Times' Pennsylvania page. Play around with it. There's interesting stuff in it.

Did you know?

Did you know that Book 7 of the Harry Potter will be split into 2 films? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1 comes out in 2010. Part 2 comes out May 2011. That means we'll finish Lost before we finish Harry Potter movies.

That means that from the time Philosopher's Stone was published in June of 1997, 14 years will have passed between the first book and the last movie. That seems like a remarkably short period of time ...

Fly me to the moon

Two years ago I linked to a story about Stephen Hawking who called for us to expand our manned space exploration. A moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars, followed by--in 300 to 500 years--interstellar travel. He says our very survival as a species is predicated on getting off Earth.

He still believes it. He wants us to have 10 times the NASA budget so that we can get our there and explore. And you know he must be serious about it because he quoted Star Trek ... "to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Jackson Ave is free and clear

When Jackson Ave became an HOV only exit back in the day, it caused considerable consternation among many Gig Harbor bound travelers. I hear that some used to park their car, walk around the overpass and peak under it to see whether there was a cop hiding there. Apparently it took less time to do that than to use the Pearl on-ramp.

The main reason that Jackson went HOV-only was that the gridlock caused by the bridge would spill out on to Jackson and cause horrendous gridlock all over West Tacoma. Jackson, 6th, and 12th on really bad days, would jam up with cars trying to get across the bridge. I recall hear that the DOT estimate was 70% of the bridge traffic either got on or got off at Jackson at the time. Crazy!

Now, with no bridge congestion, I'm guessing Jackson can go back to handling the traffic again. Here's the Tribune update.

While I'm at it ...

As it happens I also have a game update on the Tacoma Rainiers blog today. I went with a couple friends to see the Rainiers take on (and beat) the Colorado Sky Sox. It was my first baseball outing of the season and a good time at that.

Blog moderator Frinklin introduces my update and writes, "And if any other Rainier fans would like to file a guest wrap-up, just drop us a line!" If you're a Rainiers fan, here's your chance help keep people in the loop on what's going on. I know the next time I'm at a Rainiers game I'll keep my scorecard going so that I can send in updates.

Erik defends suburbia

As you likely know, I'm an urban dweller and a self-proclaimed champion of urban causes. But I do not believe that the suburbs are the root of all evil, either. I grew up in the Tacoma suburbs so they can't be all bad, right?

The Tacoma Sun offered me a chance to write a long article about something that doesn't get a lot of mention on the "blogosphere" or in print media, so I decided to defend the suburbs ... at least a little bit. I do believe that what happens in the suburbs has a lot to do with happens here in downtown Tacoma.

Thanks again to the Sun for the chance to write! Here's the article.

George Will on the Fed

My second favorite conservative (after Andrew Sullivan) is George Will. Here he seems right on to me:

The Fed has no mandate to be the dealmaker for Wall Street socialism. The Fed's mission is to preserve the currency as a store of value by preventing inflation. Its duty is not to avoid a recession at all costs; the way to get a big recession is to engage in frenzied improvisations because a small recession, a.k.a. a correction, is deemed intolerable. The Fed should not try to produce this or that rate of economic growth or unemployment.

And then:

Republicans and Democrats promise cooperation, compromise and general niceness using other people's money. If Congress cannot suppress its itch to "do something" while markets are correcting the prices of housing and money, Congress could pass a law saying: No company benefiting from a substantial federal subvention (which would now include Morgan) may pay any executive more than the highest pay of a federal civil servant ($124,010). That would dampen Wall Street's enthusiasm for measures that socialize losses while keeping profits private.

I recommend the whole article.

Saturday Night's All Right

Spent the evening out at the Bellarmine auction at the Convention Center. The big gala was a lot of fun. Afterward six of us hit up Pacific Grill for happy hour with good drinks and some tasty morsels.

It was a good night out.

Maxwell's Silver Palate

I spent only a brief time at Maxwell's last night. The new restaurant going in just a few doors down from me was crazy packed on its opening night celebration. I saw many many familiar faces--bankers, urban dwellers, arts leaders, politicians, journalists. It was a "see and be seen" kind of event, but unfortunately I couldn't see any easy path to the bar. It really was crazy packed.

Its decorations seemed to fit the mood well. I think the big windows that look out onto the street will be a great place to sit and look out.

I can't say much yet about the place yet because I didn't sample any wares. But I do know that I am excited to go back when they actually open up. I'll also send you over to Spew, where Ron has posted a bunch of pictures from the night.

Looking forward to their their actually opening, which should be within the week ...

3 years later ...

Today is Parks Appreciation Day. That's a nice reminder for me of why I got back to blogging in April of 2005. That year Mary, my dad, and I visited every single MetroPark facility--from Northwest Trek to HQ to every ballfield in town. I blogged about a lot of them, although I never got to writing up all of them.

This may also be a good time to do what I do every April and look back over the last year of the blog. My posts were a little lighter this year, averaging just about one a day. I hope to at least continue that pace, or possibly even step it up a bit.

But I'm trying to do a lot more writing outside of this blog, too. This past year got me back into the creative writing habit a bit more. In the last year I wrote a short play, a very short film, and then a novel (which I'm still editing, but there's definitely progress).

I'm also going to try to focus more on writing short articles and "guest posts." I had a lot of fun writing for Andrew Fry's Living & Working in a Virtual World last month and I'd like to do more projects like that for web and for print. I'll be sure to link around to them when they show up. Actually, I should have a fairly long article coming out on a local online site Monday. Which one? ... Stay tuned!

PAYD Insurance

This is a very interesting idea. "Pay As You Drive" (PAYD) Insurance. Low-mileage drivers are less likely to get into an accident. Not because they are better drivers, but because they are on the road less. But low-mileage drivers pay as much as very high mileage drivers for the same insurance.

Apparently Progressive will start offering a PAYD option in six states to see how it works. I predict success. If Washington is one of the six states, I would certainly consider transferring from my current provider, as I am a very low mileage driver.

Coolest. Public Art. Ever.

Witness the Sunlight Poem Projector.

Depending on the day of the year, a different stanza shows up on the ground.

"Using a complex array of perforations, the pavilion's surface allows light to pass through creating shifting patterns, which-during specific times of the year-transform into the legible text of a poem. The specific arrangements of the perforations reveal different shadow-poems according to the solar calendar: a theme of new-life during the summer solstice, a reflection on the passing of time at the period of the winter solstice."

That's awesome.

Poker Q & A

I really like Texas Hold 'Em Poker. I wish I was a lot better at it, but that's OK ... maybe I'm just saying I'm bad on the off chance that one of my readers will challenge me and discover I'm really super-awesome and just hustling y'all. Gotta love the bluff.

Anyway ... over at the NYT's Freakonomics blog, they have a Q&A with Phil Gordon, who you may remember from such shows as Celebrity Poker Showdown (that was so 2003).

I really liked this one:

Q: What percent of your success would you say is attributable to randomness?

A: That really depends on what you mean by randomness. Was it random that I was born in the U.S. to a caring family that was able to educate me instead of to a poor family in Zimbabwe? That was probably the biggest determining factor in my success, and one of the most random.

Randomness, otherwise known as “variance” at the poker table is much bigger and more important than most poker players realize. I have a simple theory: change 10 river cards in any poker player’s tournament career and I would bet that they would be a losing tournament player for their career.

Today in Tacoma

I'll be venturing out to Frost Park today at noon to watch the Chalk Off. Should be enlightening.

More at Exit133 and at the Tacoma Urbanist. Also RR Anderson's got some proposed rules. I think this may be one of the most odd events we've seen since ... since the Wayzgoose at least.

Dust it off

As I said in the comments to the last post, I'm not really that upset about the ABC interview because Obama's so danged good at turning the tables, and this played right into his hand in many ways.

Witness. About 2 minutes into the video he makes his supporters go wild.

ABC's Debate

If you're not a regular follower of political blogs, you may not know that a lot of people--and I do mean a lot of people--are pissed as hell at ABC for the debate they ran last night. Facile questions, no policy questions in the first half of the debate, attempted "gotcha" moments and apparently even George Stephanapolous taking notes from Sean Hannity to prepare for one question.

Visit some of my shared links in the sidebar if you want a sense of how upset people are. It will be interesting to see what happens.

It was also apparently one of the most watched debates to date. Alas, I didn't see, I was walking on Ruston.

Get happy

Want to be a little happier? Grow a little wealthier.

Some new information shows that it's possible money actually can buy happiness. Money can also buy Ford Mustangs, gourmet kitchens, and first class seats on international flights, or so I'm told.

(Actually, the article has some good counterpoints to the new study. It also has a very interesting graph.)

Maxwell on the Block

A half block down my street Maxwell's is opening soon. Judging by their logo, I'll get to play a lot of Monopoly there ...
I'll bring my iron token.

Seriously, though, I'm very excited. Maxwell's is going to become the closest restaurant to my place, and that is a very nice thing indeed.

An Irish brogue ... hardly

I watched Orson Welles' "The Lady From Shanghai" tonight. Weird. Crazy weird. First, Rita Hayworth is the Lady From Shanghai. That was a surprise. Second, she had short blond hair. Weird.

Third, what the f-bomb was Orson Welles thinking when he tried out this accent?



Jump forward to about a minute into the movie if you want to hear the worst Irishaccent and skip the scenes of Rita Hayworth in a swimsuit ...

Then, if you want to see the famous ending of the movie set in an abandoned funhouse, here's that for you to. It's got the slide, the hall of mirrors, all the good stuff ...

How is rail like a freeway system?

RBD over at 5views has an argument against rail as a way to save greenhouse gases. There are sound parts to the argument that are worth investigating like whether it's better to get 1% of commuters onto rail or into hybrid cars (assuming you get to choose) and the benefits of congestion pricing (probably not RBD's favorite part of the report). That said, I do want to make one point here that I made on his blog as well. Please allow me to cut and paste ...

I feel like a lot of anti-mass transit arguments are almost predicated on the belief that there is something natural about the freeway and getting people off the freeway is unnatural.

But the freeways were built for moving troops across the country, not for moving people between Tacoma and Seattle, or other shorter distances. (In fact, the official title of the Interstate system is the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.") It just happened to have that effect.

In total, if you adjust for inflation the cost of the Interstate and Defense Highways system is about $425 billion dollars. That is a crazy crazy amount of money. The only reason anyone was willing to pay for it was because it was considered necessary to national security.

In many ways, I believe the success of the highway system speaks to what could become of a well-developed and well-funded rail system. We pushed billions and billions of dollars of public money into an infrastructure that then spurred even more billions of dollars in private growth (would the automobile industry be what it is without the freeways? Of course not).

What I wouldn't give if last year's TGV rail speed record was broken in the US instead of France ... think of the products we could create and then sell ...

So how is rail different? Why not spend billions of dollars on a transportation infrastructure that will most likely eventually create more innovative technologies that will then end up generating more money back then we spent in the first place (not to mention providing better transit options in and between major cities? It's what happened with highways. Why shouldn't we expect the same thing with rail system too?

Ebert off the air, but still writing

I really enjoyed this A.O. Scott article about Roger Ebert in the New York Times. In 2006, Ebert had to give up writing reviews after a difficult surgery and to this day still can't speak. He's had to step down from the show but he will be writing full time again, which is great for those of us who love great writing and reading his reviews.

AO Scott writes:

His criticism shows a nearly unequaled grasp of film history and technique, and formidable intellectual range, but he rarely seems to be showing off. He’s just trying to tell you what he thinks, and to provoke some thought on your part about how movies work and what they can do.

He is rarely a scold, and more frequently (perhaps too frequently) an enthusiast, and nearly always enlightening, in particular when he has brought calm good sense and moral conviction to overwrought debates about hot-button movies like Oliver Stone’s “JFK” and Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing.”

I'm very glad he's back.

SIFF Birthday Party

Mary and I will celebrating my birthday in style this year--at the SIFF opening night! We'll be seeing Battle in Seattle about the WTO riots in 1999. And how could we not go see the movie, after we learned that ZestyJenny is in it? Not only that, but she has a cameo in the trailer (or her hat and scarf do ... )

Looking forward to a fun night in Seattle.

Note: my birthday is also the day Indiana Jones opens. Perhaps we'll have to make it a double feature ...

On Leatherheads

Leatherheads, it turns out, is surprisingly and unfortunately boring. It tries to capture the feel of an old-time classic Hollywood movie, but old-time classic Hollywood movies aren't boring. They are also not self-consciously trying to capture their feel. The music is retro-sounding rather than authentic, the shots linger a little too long ... it's just not that good of a movie.

Part of me also groaned a few times at George Clooney's airbrush of the past. Could Renee Zellweger really be an ace reporter in 1925 for the Chicago Tribune? Would the Duluth Bulldogs really be an integrated team in 1925? The answer to both these questions may very well be yes, but I doubt it.

It was a disappointing movie. Clooney did so well with Good Night and Good Luck, which actually felt authentic rather than retro, and his Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is really fun. This ... not so much.

Even so, Clooney really knows how to make a movie look great and he milks certain shots and scenes for all they are worth. But when there's not much there to start with, you're just as likely to get blood from a turnip.

Chabon on Obama

Michael Chabon compares Obama to Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente:

I saw grace, the grace of Robinson and Clemente, in the way Mr. Obama balanced a steadfast refusal to surrender to anger with an equally staunch refusal to deny or repudiate its enduring legacy, for good and ill, in the history of race in America. There was grace in the intelligence and abandon of Robinson running the bases, in the fatal arc of a Clemente throw to home from deep right field, in the steadiness and candor that Mr. Obama brought to bear in making his difficult speech on race in America.

I recommend the whole article. If you've read Summerland, you know Chabon's love of baseball, so it's a natural his mind would go there.

Urban Ice Skating

Of all the suggestions Dan Voelpel has in his column today on events that will help bring people to Tollefson Plaza, I think I'd most like to see the ice rink in December.

When I was in high school, the Lakewood Mall put an ice rink in their parking lot over the winter.
Why not have one downtown this year? Some hot cocoa sponsored by the DMG? Shops along Pacific near UWT open till 7? Thanksgiving 'til New Years.

Count me and my triple axle in.

Passport Needed

This weekend we'll be up in the great Woodinville Wine country for Passport Weekend. Thinking ahead, 11 of us have rented a van which will shuttle us from winery to winery while we get our fill of wine and cheese.

We did passport weekend the same way last year and had a blast. And now with the sun predicted for today ... it's going to be a great Saturday.

"Call Me" by Blondie

David Pogue's blog had a link to a site that will show you what the #1 song was on any day, as recorded by Billboard magazine. It's a perfect way to find out what your special "birth song" is.

For me ... it's "Call Me" by Blondie. Ouch.

Mary's birth song is "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" by Johnny Mathis & Deniece Williams.

My dad's is "The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)" by Percy Faith.

My mom's is "You Belong to Me" by Jo Stafford.

My sister's is "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder.

What's your birth song?

Putting "Tacoma" back into the TNT

David Zeeck, the editor over at the Tribune, posted an interesting item today. A reader asked a) why did the Tribune go from the Tacoma News Tribune to The News Tribune and b) would they ever consider changing back.

Zeeck, even though he wasn’t at the Tribune when the name changed, lays out why it was a good idea before saying that it’s doubtful the name will change back to the Tacoma News Tribune. He writes:

The paper’s choice was to stay Tacoma-centric and confine its ambitions and future to a smaller area, or to grow and expand as the population and residential geography of the area boomed. They made the right choice – to grow.

What it would take to change it is a publisher and company ownership that saw returning to the name Tacoma as both true geographically and advantageous from a business/marketing perspective. I don’t think either condition is likely.

Dave, I'd like to make my case for putting Tacoma back in your name.

First, I would not disagree that the Tribune made the right choice back in 1987 when they changed the name. Back then, the need was to get the Tribune onto as many doorsteps as possible, which meant that an expansion into a larger coverage area was a good idea.

But a lot has changed since. So let me try to convince you on the terms you suggest: geography and business/marketing.

Geographically, Tacoma is still the county seat of Pierce County. Tacoma may only be 25% of your readership, but I'd wager that they are a plurality of readers, too. We likely also have the plurality of jobs and the plurality of arts and culture too. To put it another way, Tacoma is the "capital" of the South Sound, so it's not unreasonable that its major paper is Tacoma-centric, even if your market has expanded to Federal Way and North Thurston.

Also, geographically speaking, you're competing with you're own company when you expand your coverage and market outside of the county. 49.5% of the Seattle Times is owned by your parent company. And The Olympian is also owned by them. (I'm not going to count the Hearst-owned PI here since it's supported by a Joint Operating Agreement with the Times.) I think there is a good case to be made that Tribune should pull back from Thurston and some of South King County and invest those resources into a Pierce County focus--Tacoma, Gig Harbor, and all of East Pierce County.

On to the Business/Marketing argument.

The trends for consumers to get our national and world news has recently gone to just a handful of major online sources: The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, MSNBC.com, etc.

Newspapers have responded with a variety of strategies to compete in the new online world, but the most obvious is that they have gone very very local. You made that case last year that newspapers can stay relevant and continue to compete because they have "boots on the ground" and can focus on their local coverage. Limiting your coverage area to Pierce County would pull some of your reporters back from the fringes of your market and increase your hyper-local coverage here, which would hopefully boost local readership to make up for any you lost in South King or North Thurston county (note: lost to another McClatchy paper). You would also save on your marketing in those areas, or be able to reinvest those dollars in Pierce County marketing.

I would also like to point out that online, names are everything, thanks to Google. In seven years we are going to have the US Open here, and millions of people are going to type in "US Open Tacoma" into Google. Same goes for any disaster or breaking news coverage. Nowadays you are marketing your paper to more than just local residents, you are marketing it to anyone who is trying to find out what's happening in Tacoma no matter where they are.

I typed in "Tacoma Foundry Explosion" into Google and the Tribune came up 8th (after the Times, KOMO, and CBS). That's not that bad, but consider this. If I'm in Kentucky, why would I click on a link to thenewstribune.com, when I don't know what city you're in? You could have just gotten lucky on a Google search for all I know. If you used tacomanewstribune.com as your primary domain, not only would you possibly be higher on the page, but you would be more readily identifable to a random searcher as a Tacoma-based paper, something I can't tell from your current name. There might be hundreds of thousands (millions even!) of page views annually that the Tribune could see with a name change.

As I always try to point out when talking about the Tribune, I'm not a hater. I really like the Trib and read it all the time. But I think there's compelling evidence that enough has changed since 1987 to consider going back to Tacoma News Tribune.

UPDATE: Mark Briggs, the on-line editor at the Tribune, has some additional thoughts on the question.

New York vs. New York

The congestion pricing plan for New York City that would have helped reform the City's and the region's transportation is basically dead now that the New York State legislature has said there's no way they will do it. Apparently one of the state senators even said it was "morally unconscionable."

Congestion pricing has worked well in London and other cities that have implemented it. Over at The Atlantic, Reihan Salam argues that this battle is grounds to once again start fighting for New York to consider secession from the state. Apparently, secession from the state has been considered for years, dating back to the civil war.

Maybe when DC becomes a state New York City will too ...