Under My Bum-ber-ella

I'm gonna say it again, hell, I'm gonna make that joke all weekend. Yes, I'm referring to the Rihanna song "Umbrella," on the Daily Weekly, and I'm also hoping this post won't be bumped by more reports of sketchy politico behavior...at least not until a few of you are inspired to check out the visual/performance art exhibits at Bumbershoot tomorrow (and Sunday, and Monday). Jiminy!

This morning at the 2007 Mayor's Arts Awards, which preceded the official opening of the Bshoot art exhibits in the Northwest Rooms, many upstanding community members got their comeuppance. Please read about them here. I'd most like to relate to you the joke made by emcee Nancy Guppy (of the Seattle Channel) when she announced the award for Massive Monkees breakdance crew. "They just got back from the Vans Warped Tour, which I think you were at, weren't you Mayor?" Chuckles all around.

Rather than bum-rush the 1 p.m. open bar (christ!), I beelined for the NW Rooms post-ceremony. First up, there's art of and inspired by mopy crooner (and Belle & Sebastian forebear) Nick Drake, much of it intriguing.

Next, read Adriana's piece on the Instant Coffee installation "Nooks," then try and find a space in one of them between bands if you can. The room that houses the nooks also has a few twin mattresses with crochet bedspreads, a disco ball adorned with knitta-style cast-off's, and cute things in each nook like a basket of strawberries, deck of cards, play-doh. When I thought of the nooks along with the white beanbag chairs in a video room of the Drake exhibit, there was a cumulative sense of this year's Bshoot having calm, cozy havens where you could even potentially make out.

Onward, to the Portable Confessional Units by PDL (which/whom you can read about via the P-I's Regina Hackett here). I stepped inside one of the three boxes with the intention of not revealing anything remarkable, and ended up having a 30-minute conversation about art, respect, pretension, and expectation. And he managed to pull one confession out of me. Poor guy has to sit in the box for 11-8 for the next three days. But, I bet he'll get to hear a lot of secrets.

Claimin' Space, curated by BLVD Gallery's and KutCulture's Damion Hayes, was full of eye-popping work by urban artists like Darvin Vita, and the Seattle-Havana poster show was full of excellent work by folks like Jeff Kleinsmith and Andrio Abero (who did our Bshoot cover)- a Flatstock teaser of sorts, with its own theme.

And finally, Learning to Love You More, an installation curated by Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. It's based on a web site begun years ago, where mini-art and observation assignments are replicated by people who snail-mail them in. For Bumbershoot, a Redmond-based family called the Olivers have documented all 63 of the assignments, and the results are truly touching and hilarious. I liked wondering how the family reached a consensus on who would do which assignment, since the results would be so different each time. The amount of thought put into them (see #30) and the beauty (#9) and humourous humanity of it all (#35) was moving.

In the words of Rihanna, "Now that it's raining more than ever/Know that we'll still have each other/You can stand under my um-ber-ella/You can stand under my um-ber-ella."

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Why No Military Discounts for Bumbershoot?

Everyone from Seafair to the Deja Vu strip club downtown gives discounts for active-duty military personnel. But not One Reel, as one platoon leader at Fort Lewis writes in to the Weekly to point out.

I was raised in the Seattle area, and have lived here for over 20 years [the correspondent writes]. I remember when Bumbershoot cost much less than $35 per day. Now I am a platoon leader at Fort Lewis, leading a group of soldiers who expect to deploy to Iraq next year. I would love to recommend Bumbershoot to them as a terrific way to get to know the Seattle area and enjoy themselves over the long weekend. I e-mailed One Reel to see if maybe there was a discount that wasn't on their website – no dice, but they apologized for "any inconvenience this may cause."

Surging Backward

The results of the Bush surge in Iraq are pouring in:

Willard M. Powell-Kerchief, 21, Shawn D. Hensel, 20, Jacob M. Thompson, 26, Nicholas A. Gummersall, 23, Juan M. Alcantara, 22, Kareem R. Khan, 20, Fernando Santos, 29, Cristian Rojas-Gallego, 24, Eric D. Salinas, 25, Zachariah J. Gonzalez, 23, Charles T. Heinlein, Jr., 23, Alfred H. Jairala, 29, Jason M. Kessler, 29, and Michael Baloga, 21.

All are troops with Washington connections, and are included in our latest monthly War Dead update. It was published Thursday, yet already waiting to be added in the next update are Adrian M. Elizalde, 30, Michael J. Tully, 33, Corry P. Tyler, 29, Paul J. Flynn, 28, Matthew L. Tallman, 30, and Rickey L. Bell, 21. 

They are, as of this hour, among the 3,737 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and bring to 240 the number of state-connected troops to die there, 93 this year. That's three times the 2006 toll. That's also an annual record with four months still to go. 

"Bring 'em on," and on, and on...

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Adam Smith Makes it Official

The Obama campaign announced this afternoon that Rep. Adam Smith will serve as its Washington state chairman and will advise the presidential hopeful on foreign and economic policy issues. Smith, who's expressed his support for Obama in the past, was the state lead for John Kerry's 2004 bid.

Says Obama: "Congressman Smith is a strong Democratic voice on foreign policy and works in Congress to help our nation fight the spread of terrorism."

Says Smith: "We need a change from the divisive politics of the past few years. Barack Obama is the right man for the job."

Sounds like the perfect couple. In other couplings from your Washington delegation, Rep. David Reichert has thrown his allegiance behind Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Jay Inslee is in it for Hillary Clinton. In fact, he's spent part of his August recess in Iowa talking up her energy plan, according to Inslee's spokeswoman.

Last time I checked, Rep. Jim McDermott was still holding out for Al Gore. 

Topics: Campaign 2008

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This Just In: College Students Don't Know Everything About Everything

Wait! Before you send your child off proudly to the University of Washington this fall, there’s something you should know. Only half of University of Washington seniors could correctly answer obscure questions about American history and economics when asked by a survey that they had no impetus for doing well on. Central Washington University Professor Matthew Manweller blames “left-leaning academics spend[ing] so much time teaching a self-loathing of American culture and institutions that their students know less about their country than when they came in as freshmen.” Well that is certainly one opinion, another being just another example of poor use of polling data.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute surveyed 14,000 freshman and seniors at 25 randomly selected colleges and universities and 25 of what it deems “elite” American institutions, on questions from specific points of American history and the wording of the Declaration of Independence. This conservatively bent group considers a failure only based on the difference in scores between the two classes.

The study deems UC Berkeley, MIT, Yale and Johns Hopkins among the top “failure” schools because of their seniors scoring less on the survey than their freshman, a trend they call “negative learning.” The study fails to recognize, however, that these “elite” schools all have overall the top averages in scores of anywhere from 60-70% correct. Whereas the lesser known schools that ISI praises for increasing student knowledge by 6-10 percentage points, may have added those points to a school that only scored 24% correct in the first place. Instead of focusing on the “lack” of education learned in college on knowledge they consider “basic civic literacy,” why not look to the place where you are supposed to learn “the basics”?

Continue reading "This Just In: College Students Don't Know Everything About Everything"

Topics: Education

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Pope Floats

Richard Pope, the perennial candidate and perennial loser, figures he has a shot, so to speak, at winning in November. His King County Council opponent, incumbent Jane Hague (or as she's known in court, Miss Springman), is of course battling a DUI arrest. Hague's allegedly woozy drive homeward that June night was a trip of political ironies: She was first spotted unable to negotiate the eastbound double lanes of the Evergreen Point floating bridge whose lane expansion is one of her priorities, and she was tailed by a county deputy whose departmental budget she helped fashion as part of the council's Budget Leadeship Team. (At least she didn't cause a mishap, considering she has in the past proposed recovering emergency-response costs from any drunk driver involved in an accident). In this case, she did no damage except perhaps to her re-election campaign, elevating Pope's chances as she blew .13 and .14 on a WSP Datamaster breath-alcohol analyzer - though she may now have legally maneuvered around that in court (an audio record of the hearing indicates a county prosecutor didn't question an order that suppressed the test results until after the hearing had concluded). All of which leaves Pope in the catbird seat, he thinks. "I got 45 percent of the vote last year," when he ran for a judgeship in the county district court system - where Hague is now being tried - crusading against drunk drivers. "That's not a bad showing," he says proudly. A party quick-change artist, the sometimes-Republican Pope filed as a Democratic at the last minute this year, declaring Hague shouldn't run unopposed. The folks most upset by that were his fellow (for now, anyway) Dems, who put up a write-in candidate. "They had lots of money, 100 volunteers, and two months to campaign," says Pope, an Eastside attorney who had lost 10 assorted campaigns in a row, "and I beat them." A one-man bandwagon with expenses of $1,281, the "not qualified" "gadfly" Pope drew 8,588 primary votes and Demo opponent Brad Larssen got most of 3,607 write-in ballots. Hague, unopposed on the GOP side, got 10,962 (there were also 66 GOP write-in votes for various people or, as is often the case with write-ins, cartoon characters). If primary vote totals mean anything, that's 12,195 on the Democratic side and 11,028 on the GOP side. "I'm still trying to figure out why certain people in the Democratic Party hate me so much," says Pope. "I got all these votes and I haven't even started to campaign yet!"

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It's Time for Server Reboot Wednesday!

Every Wednesday, SW staffers are treated to the inspired instructions of Mr. Paul Jensen (above), master of all things IT, and famed crooner of all things swank and swinging in his night job with the Dudley Manlove Quartet. The rules of Server Reboot Wednesday are simple. But the execution requires considerable finesse. We invite you to play along as we inaugurate our new weekly feature with a classic from the archives:

Server Reboot Wednesday: the Summer Blockbuster Edition.

VO: “In a world….where man is controlled by machine…”
*shot of an old man beaten up by a color copier* 
VO: “…and all hope is gone…”
*A flat-screen monitor laughs maniacally as it whips a group of young street urchins* 
VO: “…one man dares to stand up...and take a stand!”
*shot of a System Admin wearing a bullet belt, chomping on a cigar and holding a full cup of coffee*
System Admin (addressing a rag-tag team of humans): “This is our time! This is our destiny! For today we fight back! Today, we rise up and say ‘no more!’ For today…is…WEDNESDAY!” (Humans cheer, waving torches in the air)
VO: “Action has a new name…”
System Admin (to a menacing mob of computer hardware): “Hey, computers…reboot THIS!”
*Slow-motion montage of System Admin blowing up PCs with hand grenades, rocket launchers and plastic explosives – flaming computer parts fly across the screen.* 
VO: “Anthony Michael Hall IS System Admin in…”

SERVER REBOOT WEDNESDAY
Also Starring: Ashley Judd — Abe Vigoda — and Dame Judi Dench as “Madam Linux.”
Directed by Michael Bay. Music by Henry Mancini. Based on a true story.

Showtime starts at 7pm tonight. Please close all your computer programs before leaving the office. This film is rated R due to adult language, graphic computer violence and even more adult language.

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Nickels' Son Planning to Plead Guilty, says AP

Jacob Nickels is going to plead guilty tomorrow, according to the AP.

For background on the case, read the brilliant feature by John Metcalfe. 

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Ol' Blue Eyes

Idaho Sen. Larry Craig peered long enough through the crack in the men's room stall "that Sergeant Karsnia was able to observe that the Defendant had blue eyes." This is from the police report on the arrest of Craig for disorderly conduct, attempting to solicit sex in a Minnesota airport restroom. For those who are wondering (as they have been on the Fox News Channel) how you can get arrested for "simply" touching your shoe to the man's shoe in the next stall, they ought to read the details of the arrest: it was a little more than a shoe tap, which Craig, laughably, explains was due to his "wide stance." Craig says he pleaded to the charge just to put it behind him, and now wants to argue it in the public's court; the legal documents are handy if you want to hear from the other side. A man who has been a lawmaker for three decades, Craig now says it didn't occur to him to consult a lawyer before admitting guilt. It did occur to him, however, after he was arrested for lewd conduct, to hand a Senate business card to the arresting officer, and ask "What do you think about that?" Just guessing, but the cop probably thought of the good he could do by getting another elected official off the streets.

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See Ya

David Heurtel, who has worked for Seattle Center as a marketing and deputy director since 2005, plans to leave his post sometime this fall. The move comes during a tumultuous time at the center when plans for its revival by the Century 21 Committee have raised concerns about open space and a proposal to raze Memorial Stadium has raised the ire of Bumbershoot promoters. But Heurtel says simply that it is time for him to move on.

"There's a lot of things going on at the center. I wouldn't pinpoint my decision to one event or one thing," he says. "I started the process a few weeks ago. Thought it was a good time for me to move on." 

Heurtel is credited with helping to bring the Vera Project and the Seattle International Film Festival to the aging center and often in the news as its spokesman. Fuze Music owner Dave Meinert, who served on the board for the Vera Project says his exit is a big loss for the center. "He's a visionary and an entrepreneur, but probably not a good bureaucrat," he says. "Seattle Center is a city-run thing with rules and processes. Visionary people who want to move things forward get frustrated with the slow pace of the bureaucracy." Meinert says he hopes Heurtel stays in Seattle and stays involved in a non-profit, arts-type organization.

Heurtel says he's not sure what's next. He'll stay at Seattle Center at least through September. 

Topics: City of Seattle

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In Boise Idaho? Jiminy!

The quote that will follow Idaho (and in some ways, this state's) Republican Sen. Larry Craig to his retirement if not his grave will be this one: "I've been in this business 27 years - in the public eye here. I don't go around anywhere hitting on men, and by God, if I did, I wouldn't do it in Boise, Idaho! Jiminy!" That's what he told the Idaho Statesman in an earlier interview as his hometown paper tried to piece together a story about Craig's rumored homosexuality, which he denied. The quote is finally reported in the paper today after Craig conveniently provided a fresh news hook for what had been a story without any apparent official confirmation: The senator, a gay-rights opponent, now admits he paid a fine and pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a Minneapolis airport men's room after, prosecutors say, he cruised in seeking sex from an undercover officer in the next stall; the Statesman now reveals he may have been a serial restroom cruiser. Unless Craig has a graceful mia culpa and closet-exit ready or plans to deny his way into another term next year (he first went to Congress in 1980), he's already rumored to be weighing a resignation. Besides the legislating Craig has done for the forest, power and fishing industries in the Northwest and his work with Washington's two senators and in particular Eastern Washington congressional members, his departure will leave some of the West's, and Washington state's, biggest corporations and businesses without a cheerleader in D.C. They include Washington Group International (one of the would-be builders of the now-scrapped Seattle monorail), Qwest Communications, Verizon, and Albertson's supermarkets. On the other hand, it will also leave us with one less family-values hypocrite in D.C.

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Thanks Dave: Darcy

Rep. Dave Reichert's good news and bad news is that President Bush is visiting him in Bellevue today. The worst of the modern presidents will raise money and pat Sheriff Dave on the back for being a good Bush Republican. Add to that the resignation of Alberto Gonzales announced today and you have a good campaign Monday for Democrat Darcy Burner. Bush is here to raise money for her as well, it seems. According to Burner spokesperson Sandeep Kaushik, in the past three days the Burner for Congress campaign has received 2,113 individual online contributions totaling $75,600. Kaushik says the money is intended by its donors to "send a message" to Bush and Reichert to seek a speedy, responsible ending to the war in Iraq (though that's not going to happen, even if Democrats come to power). Burner also opportunistically set aside an hour for media interviews from Bellevue this afternoon and then will hold a "virtual town hall" on Iraq, live-steamed on the darcyburner.com Web site, featuring retired senior military officers. Around the same time, George Bush will be doing his best for the Burner camp, blocking off the roadways. His motorcade will require local, state and federal officers to stop and snarl commuter traffic from Seattle and downtown Bellevue at rush hour, putting those recent I-5 backups to shame, all in the name of political fundraising. Marvelous. The Reichert re-election effort is the best campaign Burner has run yet. 

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Kong on Sunday

If you haven't yet seen The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, Sunday night would be a great opportunity. Locally raised director Seth Gordon will appear at the 7 and 9:10 p.m. shows at the Varsity, and conduct Q&A sessions after the screenings. We first told you about the film at SIFF, and it's since earned very nice reviews. And after the movie, you can play your own game of fantasy casting for the feature version of Kong (also to be directed by Gordon). Try to decide who should play mild-mannered Redmond schoolteacher Steve Wiebe and his nefarious Florida rival, Billy Mitchell. My current choices, respectively, are John Krasinski and a slimmed-down Jack Black.

Topics: Film

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Bubbles, Loops & Spheres

Image Courtesy of Greg Kucera.

In the middle of Greg Kucera's front gallery sits a messy, spilling, sharp-edged tangle: Tara Donovan's Toothpicks. On opening night, a small child asked what would happen if you pulled one toothpick out, wondering if the whole piece might disintegrate. A few loose picks scatter on the floor, though this rectangular sculpture, with toothpicks poking out of it in all directions, has a feeling of solidity, something necessarily lacking in Donovan's prints, also on display. Combining etching chemicals and liquid soap, Donovan used a straw to blow bubbles into the liquid, and captured individual bubbles to place them on treated plates. These works are literally bubble prints, ethereal and delicate, and yet very finely detailed, double-printed in blue and black to give a sense of the bubbles floating off the plane of the page. Visit the back space for Always a Pleasure, a sound shard installation by Angela White: pieces of porcelain and sea glass rigged to an interconnected system of strings (and an old fashioned record player) move to self-created music.

On view until Saturday, August 25.

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An Ab-Norm-al Race

Primary election results are a little like exhibition football games, you can't tell much by the final score. That nevertheless was an impressive vote total by Democrat Bill Sherman in his bid to become King County Prosecutor. He pulled in 55,000 votes Tuesday, while Republican interim Prosecutor Dan Satterberg tallied 49,000. They'll face off in November. Satterberg was unopposed in the primary and it's difficult to guess how many additional Republican voters might support him. But there were 32,000 more from Sherman's party - those who voted for his losing Demo challenger Keith Scully Tuesday - who arguably would support Sherman in November. The final exhibition score is thus 49,000 Republican votes and 87,000 Democratic votes, theoretically leaving Satterberg to overcome a 38,000-vote gap here in Leftyland. The figures may be meaningless: general elections can bring out ten times the voters - the man Satterberg and Sherman hope to replace, the late Norm Maleng, unchallenged, won the 2006 general with 418,000 votes. And positions will be better defined - Sherman will make his case for changing the system, while Satterberg, Maleng's longtime chief of staff, will argue he's less likely to politicize the office. But, after Maleng was opposed only twice in eight campaigns over 28 years, the prosecutor's race at least has runners again.

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