Susan Ralston, ex-employee of Seattle's Preston Gates and Ellis law firm, has been summoned to appear before a Congressional committee next week to discuss her former boss, Jack Abramoff, and face questions about the Lobbygate figure's access to the White House. She's also likely to be asked about her other former boss, Karl Rove. Ralston, who was Abramoff's personal assistant at Preston Gates (now K&L Gates), left the law firm (as did Abramoff) in 2001 and became Rove's assistant. Now Rep. Henry Waxman wants to ask her about thousands of dollars in gifts she received during her White House days from Abramoff; Ralston resigned last Fall after that arrangement was disclosed publicly. Waxman's Oversight and Government Reform Committee says it wants to take Ralston's deposition as "part of the Committee's investigation, begun last spring, into lobbying contacts between lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the White House." More from TPMuckraker.

It turns out that by taking just a few "shockingly simple" measures--such as saving food scraps for composting, using water-saving toilets, and creating an organic garden--the Cedar Creek Corrections Center is going to be able to accomodate 100 more prisoners this year! That's according to a report this morning from KUOW correspondent Tom Banse. For a while it looked like maybe the prison was going to have to build an expensive new waste treatment plant because of all the food that, for some reason, keeps getting left on plates and then dumped into the sewer system. Not anymore! The inmates must get an awfully warm feeling to know that of the two pieces of furniture in their cells, one, at least, is conserving our precious natural resources--not to mention making it possible to accomodate more offenders. I just hope they'll be able to get a seagrass bed to match the low-flow toilet.

The slow go for open season on council member Peter Steinbrueck’s open seat continues— but we have another taker.

No, not a fresh new face. This is one you’ll recognize. John Manning’s already been on the council, resigned, tried again— and lost. Hope does spring eternal in the promise of an open seat. But even the most dogged of political cats must eventually realize when their nine lives are up.

First elected in 1995, Manning stepped down after less than a year on the council amid allegations of domestic violence. He resurfaced in 2003 to run for the seat that was then held by Jim Compton, one of the infamous Strippergate Three. Compton, who many thought should be out on his head, still managed to beat Manning.

Forget about questions of character, the real question will be whether he can raise the cash, something he had a hard time doing, even against Compton.

The other question: Where’s the new blood? The fresh face? The critical mass that’s going to battle it out for the coveted open seat?

June 8th awaits. 

Robert Jamieson's column today explores Central Area opposition to Latino day labor center CASA Latina's attempt to relocate from Belltown to 17th & Jackson. While the column is extremely well-timed and relevant, Jamieson's rush to chalk the whole imbroglio up to anti-Latino bigotry is, in my opinion, a bit simple-minded (and the insinuation that it's roughly tantamount to Japanese internment is absolutely ludicrous). At its core, CASA Latina is a wonderful program that seeks to put Latino immigrants to work in an above-board, humane manner. But as someone who walks by the current CASA Latina location on Western Avenue near the Viaduct virtually every day, the place is an unwitting magnet for the narcotics trade. I get offered crack or weed at least one out of every two times I walk within a two-block radius of the laborers -- not by the laborers, but by opportunistic small-time dealers looking to prey upon the workers' presumably delicate stations in life. All things considered, the area surrounding CASA Latina is an absolute freak show that most pedestrians avoid like the plague.

Is this CASA Latina's fault? No, but the reality of what occurs around the current CASA Latina outpost provides evidence that opposition to Central Area relocation is not as simple and bigoted as the portrait Jamieson paints in his column. Bottom line: CASA Latina needs to evolve from its double-wide, flag 'em down approach into a permanent facility more along the lines of what the Millionair's Club has got down the street on Western. There's no reason that can't happen - at 17th & Jackson or virtually any other location in the city.

Seattle's newest online journalism venture, crosscut.com, launches this Monday, a kind of alternative to this alt-weekly - and it, too, is being birthed by former Seattle Weekly founder David Brewster. Ex-Weekly managing editor Chuck Taylor is Crosscut's editor and former Weekly executive editor Skip Berger, a.k.a. Mossback, will be writing a Crosscut column under the same name. In a recent e-mail, Brewster said "Crosscut will be all local news and commentary, pointing readers to the best local reporting from a wide variety of sources-think tanks, blogs, mainstream media, and citizen-specialists," updated through the day.  

A second online venture is also in the works, with more Weekly alums involved - former columnist Geov Parrish and freelancer Michael Hood. Says Hood in an e-mail today: "We're a small group of journalists, politicos, writers, editors, and IT people creating a major multimedia news and community-building site- as yet unnamed- but coming soon." They'll have a 24/7 news desk and "original reporting on politics, sports, business, weather, arts & entertainment," and more, Hood says.  "Think of us as the Seattle Times- except with energy, integrity, and edge."

Others involved include Dave Neiwert, Darcy Burner, David Goldstein, Lynn Allen, Clark Humphrey, and Ben Krokower. The Site With No Name is having a small gathering for potential writers and other interested parties from 5:30-7:30 p.m., April 17, 2007, at the Fountain Court, 2400 4th Avenue in Belltown.  

What the most literate city in America reads on the bus

Reader:  Zoanna Jones
Age:  24
Occupation:  Recruiter
Residence:  Interbay
Bus:  Route 18 to North Beach, 7:30 p.m.

Book:  Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis: Advice from Twentysomethings Who Have Been There and Survived, by Alexandra Robbins
State of completion:  Page 40 of 368

Plot summary according to back cover:  The groundbreaking book Quarterlife Crisis addressed the unique and unsettling trials of entering modern adulthood.  For the first time, it identified how twentysomethings were lost and confused, and lamented the absence of a guide...Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis is that guide.

Plot summary by Zoanna:  "It's a bunch of people in careers they're not sure they want to be in."  

The hook:  "A friend of mine has this fear of turning 30 and she's looking at all these books and it got me thinking about it, so I put it on my Amazon.com wish list.  My brother got it for me for my 24th birthday."

Critique:  "It's a lot of testamonials from real life experience.  I think that's the point, to let people know they're not alone."

Afterward:  "Another book on my wish list is 101 Things to Do Before You Die."

By Roger Downey 

Since 1994, Belltown-based Speakeasy Networks has been the Internet service provider of choice for tech-savvy Seattleites. In a business in which customer support usually comes last in corporate priorities, Speakeasy earned raves for its speedy response times and dedication to solving customer problems, helping it to become a national presence in providing broadband and voice-over-internet service for demanding customers, and, increasingly, small business.

The deal, announced Tuesday morning, means that henceforward Speakeasy CEO Bruce Chatterly will be reporting to Best Buy HQ in Minneapolis suburb Richfield, Minnesota. On the upside, the op will continue to be based here; again on the upside, Best Buy, which also owns Magnolia Hi-Fi and Video and Geek Squad, has been running against the corporatization trend in the hi-tech business: a development chronicled in a Business Week cover story last December.

“Workers pulling into the company's amenity-packed headquarters at 2 p.m. aren't considered late,” noted the anonymous author(s) wonderingly; “Nor are those pulling out at 2 p.m. seen as leaving early. There are no schedules. No mandatory meetings. No impression-management hustles. Work is no longer a place where you go, but something you do. It's O.K. to take conference calls while you hunt, collaborate from your lakeside cabin, or log on after dinner so you can spend the afternoon with your kid.”

The downside? It was surely Chatterley’s success in building up the small-business side of the operation that motivated Best Buy to cough up $97 million and change for Speakeasy. Chatterley’s boss at Best Buy is head of of the company’s business-services division, so it’s likely that faithful individual customers willing to pay Speakeasy’s rather stiff monthly rates in exchange for superb support services are likely to get less attention in the future.

In much the same way good ideas often die for no good reason, every once in awhile they're revived just as mysteriously-- as is the case with condo conversion legislation our state capitol.

The bill suffered an untimely death a few weeks back when it failed to move from the House floor before the session deadline. In a surprising turn (cue Yogi Berra), House and Senate leaders have revived the part of the bill that requires landlords to give tenants three months' notice and up to three months' rent before kicking them out to convert apartments to condominiums. They've attached this language to a procedural bill, HB 1187, which codifies and reorganizes a couple statutes related to affordable housing.

Though the reincarnation of the condo conversion bill doesn't include the guts-- a provision that would allow cities to cap the practice-- housing advocates are happy for second life at this late date. They're holding their breath for tomorrow's hearing in the Senate Consumer Protection and Housing Committee where the measure is expected to pass.

Once again, time is of the essence. To stay alive, bills must be voted out of committee by March 30 and gain floor approval (in the opposite chamber from where they originated) by April 13.

 

Now I love K-horror, and I love the somewhat threadbare charm of the maritime-themed Neptune theater in the U District, and I don’t really care if people spill their popcorn on the floor. For me, ringing cell phones or talking during the show rank as bigger transgressions than litter. Still, when I recently went to see a creature feature in which pollution gives rise to an avenging beast, the balcony was brazenly patrolled by one of those extremely healthy, middleweight seven-inch rats (nose to tail, per NYC measuring standards). In The Host, deservedly well-reviewed and which I strongly recommend you see, toxic waste discharged into the Han River by the U.S. military causes a mutant tadpole to grow to the size of a carnivorous school bus. And naturally it develops a taste for Korean flesh. So, I wondered of this case of life-following-art, how large might a rodent get on a diet of errant Junior Mints, puddles of Diet Coke, stale popcorn (with real butter!), and Red Vines? What else might it like to nibble during the show? And might it not learn something from being exposed to The Host four times daily? It's like a perfect laboratory experiment in behavior modification, as if designed to turn a timid scavenger into an aggressive, under-seat marauder. Rats are smart, after all, capable of learning from what they see. So here's my advice for moviegoers: don't wear flip-flops or open-toed shoes to the Neptune; don't let your fingers dangle too close to that half-empty popcorn bag you set on the floor; and if you feel an unspeakable sense of tingling terror that something monstrous is about to pounce and devour you, you're probably right.

 

These days, you can buy a big-ass flat panel HDTV for under a grand, but if you still need an excuse to drop the money, I give you Discovery Channel's "Planet Earth" series, airing Sundays at 8 p.m.  It's been compared to Jacques Perrin's "Winged Migration," which is apt in terms of their cinematography, but the comparision doesn't do justice to "Planet Earth's" grandiosity and sheer visual awesomeness.  I watched the first episode last night, and while it's not perfect (the narration is pedestrian; the film sacrifices depth in favor of breadth--we're talking the entire planet Earth, after all; and the directors are a little too quick to toot their own horns), I was transfixed for two straight hours (the infrequent commercials also helped).  It would take me thousands upon thousands of words to try and describe some of the scenes, but just about every shot was amazing, and I was left with a sense of wonder, marvelling at the fact that I actually inhabit the same world depicted on television.  Anyway, I can't imagine watching "Planet Earth" without high-def, but it doesn't mean you should skip it if you've got regular TV.