The worst thing about not being in school anymore is that you no longer have an excuse to take field trips. Even the most boring museum or lamest play becomes awesome when it's an interruption from the tedious life of a middle school student. Want an excuse to take an educational and democratic break from the tedious life of an adult? Head on down to Film Day. more ›

Today is the deadline to mail in your ballot for the King County special election this month. Unless you live in Fall City or Enumclaw, all you'll be voting on is the new county director of elections. Seattlest will be sending ours today, since we didn't bother to look up the candidates until this morning. We're voting for Sherril Huff, the incumbent, who is endorsed by such illustrious organizations as the 43rd District Democrats and the Stranger (she is "competent, sane, and qualified" compared to our other options, says the Stranger Election Control Board). Huff was also one of two candidates recommended as "outstanding" by the Municipal League. It may be ridiculous that we have yet another expensive election to vote on just one position--doesn't it take millions of dollars to send out ballots?--but vote anyway. Just do it. more ›

Sadly, outside of the families and friends who have lost people to the tragedy—and maybe a few New Yorkers in general—the unfortunate majority of those who invoke <reverb>9/11</reverb> employ it as frothy, rhetorical masturbation to punctuate their own grandstanding, demagoguery, and ideologies. Partisan journalists on all sides of the biased media lap up the secretions in their attempts to snowball you, dear media consumer. more ›

We asked our fellow Seattlests: What's the last good book you read? And what's coming up on your summer reading list? more ›

Scott Kennedy (at right, with the guv) is trying to get $20 pledges out of 100 Seattleites to buy a $2000 MacBook Pro for the syndicated ultra-lefty radio and tv show "Democracy Now." more ›

SEATTLEST BOOK CLUB PICK: For March, we're reading Jonathan Raban's Surveillance, set in a not-so-distant future, when everyone's actions are highly monitored. Get a head start on the conversation by hearing from Raban himself. (We'll know if you went or not.) more ›

A NADER REMEMBERS: Recalling his childhood in Winstead, Connecticut, former presidential candidate and longtime political and social activist Ralph Nader offers 17 values a child should learn to become a conscientious adult. Not helping elect neo-fascists was, unfortunately, #18. more ›

PUBLIC TALK: Do you get guns? We don't, not really, but Wazzu's own Joan Burbank, professor of English and American Studies, thinks she does. She wrote a book on the subject, and she's going to talk about Gun Culture and American Democracy tonight at Town Hall. more ›

Jagshemash! more ›

--Go for it, dude. more ›

Amy Goodman, host of independent news program Democracy Now!, spoke at a benefit for KAOS and Thurston Community Television last night in Olympia. Seattlest got stuck on the I-5 but got there five minutes before the scheduled event time; Goodman, coming from SeaTac, was not so lucky, and arrived about half an hour late. more ›

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They're talking; are you listening? Here's the round-up on speakers of note. more ›

Electronic voting machines. Depending on what side of the political fence wall you sit you think that they're either responsible for election frauds in Florida and Ohio and handed GW the presidency illigitamately, or you think that their use in King county would allow us to have a fair election for once. To obliterate any illusions of objectivity here, Seattlest thinks they're the devil and that not only are Diebold devices responsible for our current president, but they also are more than likely the source of the faulty intelligence that lead us into war AND we've been tracking several websites that are of the opinion that one rogue Diebold machine spontaneously developed conciousness and released Valerie Plame's name to the media. more ›

Seattlest started the day today confronting an email from a mystery man known only as "Shamus Whitepants" bearing a link to a story too obvious to bother replying to so we just deleted it. Later, we found the same link on the stranger blog. Seattlest tries to ignore stories like these in so much as we generally try to avoid confronting the horror that is our existance in the post-Dot.com/President Dubya era, instead choosing to focus on more productive efforts, like crying alone in to our ever-present coffee mugs of watered down Jim Beam and Pabst, mixed together. more ›

What is the newcomer visitor's impression of our fair city? To get an idealistic, naive, oddly balanced, yet sentimentally contemplative exposition on what and how Seattle impresses the self aware and unrushed foreign visitor, you've got to read the opening section of this piece** in the Atlantic Monthly (June 2005). more ›

Last week we guessed that this was going to be a big week for papal comment in the weeklies, and we're glad to see we weren't wrong. We were hoping for some fresh perspectives, or maybe some Seattle angle to the commentary, but maybe that was expecting a lot. Knute Berger in "Mossback" was the first to weigh in on the Catholic boss and the whole "the Vatican isn't a Democracy so why don't we go invade it" joke is tired and not funny, but we were surprised and delighted when he called out the secular right at the end of the column. Thanks, Knute! We forgot there was a secular right! For more comment on Dregs Benedict in this week's Seattle Weekly see "Glory Days" in the arts section. more ›