Robert L. Jamieson has a big, big problem with the way things are down in Belltown and a pretty strong idea of who's to blame: If the fates had cast Greg Nickels as mayor of New York City when Times Square was the pits, overrun with crime and grime, the renaissance of the one-time eyesore would have stayed a dream. "One-time eyesore," huh? Apparently Robert Jamieson hasn't been to New York recently. Jamieson's been on......

At 3 a.m. last Sunday morning, Daniel Stoy, a Microsoft employee from Fargo, in town for a conference, was beaten by five or six men "outside a bar" in the "Belltown neighborhood." digg_url = 'http://digg.com/world_news/Belltown_in_Beatdown_Crisis'; That's the P-I, with their view-from-30,000-feet-style coverage. Stoy was in a coma, but emerged from intensive care on Tuesday. A more forthcoming commenter says the attack happened: ...on 1st Ave, between Bell and Blanchard, in front of Bell Tower (which......

We understand you're upset, Belltown. What, with all these drug deals going on right outside your high-rise condos. You've video-taped and photographed the deals going down, you've created a YouTube channel and taken your complaints to local blogs and newspapers...and still it doesn't stop. Maybe that's because the drug dealers and users in Belltown were there long, long before the condos and well before the neighborhood was given its trendy name. What you all......

At least, we think this picture counts as evidence. To recap, as Seattlest Jack pointed out a couple of days ago, there's some urban legends about the meaning of sneakers hanging from power lines. Obviously, as an urban legend, there's a lot of interpretations, as commenters on Jack's post pointed out: Some said it means drugs can be easily scored in the area, some think it's a gang thing, others heard it meant that......

It was only four days ago that a friend of ours mentioned that shoes hanging from a power line meant it was a "safe" area for dealing drugs, or that it had to do with gang territory. He couldn't remember exactly. We thought that was stupid. We've always thought it was simply the work of some shithead bully. Then we thought of the opening shot in the 1995 stoner-flick, Friday. There they were, a pair......

An armed man was forcibly subdued in the lobby of a downtown hotel this weekend after an alarmed ex-girlfriend alerted staff that the man had a gun and intended to use it. The altercation, which involved as many as four employees, escalated into a full-fledged wrestling match as the suspect became violent and refused to hand the firearm over. Seattle Police responded relatively quickly and relieved the hotel staff of the suspect, whom they......

As mentioned on Slog yesterday, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) has recommended that the City of Seattle remove the self-cleaning public toilets located in and around downtown Seattle. They argue that the public toilets are being misused and abused by drug dealers, drug users, and quickie acts of prostitution, and thus, should be removed. Our question for the City and for SPU is this: What the fuck did you think they were going to be used......

It's not so often you get to see a play as thoroughly pleasing as Reefer Madness: The Musical. Yes, we admit: we've bemoaned musical adaptations of movies in the past, and we could find plenty to complain about with this production (occasionally uneven cast, venue leaving something to be desired) if we tried, but really, that's all nitpicking. In sum total, this is the most recommendable and enjoyable piece of theater we've seen in Seattle......

We have to be honest: We were slightly annoyed when we read the email promoting Seattle School's (of Motel fame) latest event. Anything that calls an organization "insanely exuberant" and says that it is putting on one of the "craziest film events in the history of the city" is trying pretty hard to sound zany and exciting. But as we told Seattlest Audrey, we're a sucker for weird (you should have seen us in college)......

While out and about the other day, we ran across these items. Now, seeing shoes hanging from wires is nothing new, of course. Like you, gentle reader, we've been seeing them everywhere ever since we can remember. What is new, though, for us is seeing a pair of boots up there. We're kinda surprised we haven't seen this much sooner. Also, we are thankful that the utility crews hadn't gotten around to taking them......

In this corner, we have the accused, Amanda Knox, Seattle's girl-next-door and alleged participant in the murder of one. Google News hits: about 1,811. In the other corner, Risperdal aka risperidone, one of the most widely used anti-psychotics in the world, approved for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and marketed off-label for the "irritability" associated with autism, Asperger's, ADHD, and being teen-aged or elderly, and related to the deaths of at least 1,000 people (according the......

All mass transit is not created equal; here in Seattle, a city with buses and, well, nothing else, unless you're specifically talking with someone about monorail or lightrail or streetcars (you know, theoretical mass transit), when you're talking about supporting mass transit, you're talking about supporting buses. And buses suck. Last week, Erica C. Barnett had a column in The Stranger that spoke to our experience riding the bus to and from work daily: It's......

Towards the very end of last night's People Talking and Singing, as the clock ticked past 10:00 and John Roderick announced he'd play another song and take a few requests from the audience, our butts chimed in: "Hey, this is starting to go on a little long." Our brains, and most of the rest of us, were enjoying themselves thoroughly. But Town Hall started life as a Christian Science church, and the pew we sat......

In central Illinois in the 1990s Seattlest was a wee little college freshman exploring the twin wonders of new music and new drugs. Nirvana, for example, was making some music we got really into, so much so that we learned of Aberdeen, WA, even though we'd never been to the West Coast, much less the Pacific Northwest, or Washington, or Seattle. At nearly the same time we encountered our first vanity steroid users. Some guys......

A few weeks ago, Nobel Prize Laureate and co-discoverer of DNA Dr. James Watson blew through town, reflecting on how he's stayed away from stupid people, then delving into his now-customary slurry of sexist patois. Apparently he waited until he got across the pond to London to pull out the big guns:The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that......

We have a message for 15-year-old us: "You are a fuckface." Because it was 15-year-old us who decided against going to see Dizzy Gillespie at Jazz Alley in February of '92. "I'll just catch him next time around," 15-year-old us thought. There was no next time around. That performance was Gillespie's last--not just in Seattle, but anywhere. Ever since, we're committed to enjoying the elderly legends before they pass. We saw Ray Charles and Cab......

When you become as popular on the local music scene as "Awesome", it’s good to give back to the community, and do a little something for the kids. Hence Here's What Happened, which the band describes as a children’s show with an adult brain. We asked to the band members to pass along some advice to the children-- who will always be our future. John Ackerman—"Keep playing no matter how old you get." "You......

The post we wrote yesterday about Rick Steves ("Rick Steves. The man lives in a pleasant world.") seems reasonable if you only know the man through his travel shows on PBS. He was on the Town Hall stage for all of about four seconds last night before destroying that illusion. Actually, he lives in a few different worlds; one here, in Edmonds, Washington, U.S.A., and another in Europe where he spends a third of every......

Yesterday the CDC released the news that one of the smallest subsets of people who kill themselves saw an 8% increase from 2003 to 2004.For all young people between ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent from 2003 to 2004 -- the biggest single-year bump in 15 years -- in what one official called "a dramatic and huge increase." ... The biggest increase -- about 76 percent -- was in the suicide......

So we woke up with no intention of getting all Gloria Steinem on you early on a Sunday morning, but after searching for the tie that bound together our first day of Bumbershoot, we couldn't help but gloat that the women of Bumbershoot were kicking ass/taking names. We started our day with Decadance Theater, an all-female dance troupe who popped, locked, flipped and B-Girled their way through a history of hip-hop, stomping all over a......

Alice in Chains’ former lead singer would be blowing out candles today had he not said yes, yes, yes to drugs. The Chains gang would likely still be making both crunchy (Dirt) and beautiful (Sap) music. Jerry Cantrell, who co-founded the band with Layne, probably would have written some lighter lyrics and cut his hair. Seattlest would have had the pleasure of seeing Alice in Chains—or the supergroup Mad Season—live. Even more importantly, had Layne......

The cholesterol in butter, whole milk and organ meats is good for you, nothing short of brain food, while industrial food makes you sick. That's Nina Planck talking. Modest, funny, spiritual godmother to farmers markets from New York to London, she came to Seattle to promote the paperback edition of her bestselling book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why and stayed an extra day to have dinner at the Volunteer Park Café with a......

You probably don't read ex-Seattle Weekly reporter Philip Dawdy's blog Furious Seasons. That's ok. That's why we're here: to read every blog in existence and let you know when something interesting happens (which turns out to be rarely). Philip writes about clinical depression and the little cottage industry of humongous corporations that have grown up around that illness. It's a well-written and well-researched blog by a guy who's been working that beat for several years,......

Here's what we found at Discovery Park's North Beach on Sunday. You can't see it in the photo, but there's probably a dozen or more of these structures that go all the way down the beach, even extending into the part you can't get to at high tide unless you're willing to get wet. Stacking rocks on the beach says "I recognize this natural setting and contrast it with a small display of unnatural order."......

This week the weather's cooperating a bit more. Nothing like escaping rainy days with a film festival (except if you get stuck in a downpour while waiting in line, so pack that umbrella). Once inside you'll be golden thanks to your perusal of Seattlest picks. Trust us. Golden! But first, we want to highlight some special events: · A Conversation with Julien Temple, with musician/critic Sean Nelson, will no doubt cover Temple's three music......

Seattlest has a talk with the photographer from last week's "Segway Mom" and then experiences some dissension in the ranks over the question of wine vs. beer. It's not West Side Story, but about as close as they'll get. They're also still waiting on some inbox relief after a spammer is arrested. As Chicagoist counts down the days to its third anniversary party, they found all-organic pizza to be underwhelming amidst the hoopla, tried......

As has already been mentioned everywhere else, the wind nearly destroyed Sasquatch on Sunday, taking out the Polyphonic Spree (all 90 of them) on the mainstage, delaying their show till after the Beastie Boys later that night, and delaying other acts who then had to reschedule for other stages. Right before the Polyphonic group had to reschedule (yet another rendition of that one song that enjoyed way too much rotation on KEXP back in......

That's how we'd put it. But the snorer terminology that University of Washingon researchers are using is mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP). Scientists do not know how to package things, that's all. The short story is that meditation is being studied as an alternative to Christian-based 12-step programs and their higher power, says the UW Daily: “We found that the number-one trigger for relapse for people who have been through treatment for alcohol and drugs......

Okay, it's not like we're going to upgrade to Vista in solidarity, but we did swell with a little hometown pride to read this about Bill Gates in this week's New Yorker: That afternoon, [Wolfowitz] took part in a panel on foreign aid with Bill Gates, whose philanthropic foundation has an endowment of $30.6 billion; William Easterly, an economist at New York University who is a well-known skeptic of development policy; and Ellen Johnson......

Monday THAT STARBUCKS "I WAS A CHILD SOLDIER" GUY: At twelve, Ishmael Beah found himself fleeing rebels, wandering from village to village. At thirteen, he was a soldier in Sierra Leone, hooked on drugs and capable of things he would never have imagined. Now, rehabilitated and living in the U.S., he tells his story in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, in an attempt to raise awareness of the child soldier......