It ain't easy being Scott McClellan. He's considered a traitor, snitch, and turncoat by the right, while the left decries him for not blowing the whistle sooner—either way, he's not getting many Christmas cards this year. Last night, McClellan appeared at a sold-out Town Hall to discuss his memoir What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Barry Mitzman moderated, and thankfully, the Q&A was handled via notecard submission, thereby......

ART & TRAUMA: The Center on Contemporary Art in Ballard is kicking off its series of "After Dark" events with Slow Healing—a documentary/multi-media presentation about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned from the field with Traumatic Brian Injuri (TBI). There'll be a slideshow at 9 p.m., followed by Butoh dancing and SEA SHOW. 9 p.m. // CoCA Ballard // $10-15 suggested donation ROOTS NIGHT: When this Seattlest talks about "roots,"......

The Saturday night SIFF Cinema screening of the documentary Heavy Metal In Baghdad provided the best possible antidote we could have hoped for to the asinine and maudlin SIFF opener Battle in Seattle: Stuart Townsend's misfire was so bad it may have actually inflicted a deeper scar into our collective psyche than the actual WTO riots ever did. While both films aspire to show an up close and personal look at what it’s like when......

"yellow dragon on pole" by Seattlest Flickr Pool Contributor Seattle rainscreen. Thanks! It's not every day that the local news headlines look so....well....international. This morning, we've got Seattle money going to China to help out after the horrific earthquake; more information about the death of a museum director in town from Thailand who was in federal custody; Seattle-based federal prosecutors in Baghdad conducting a criminal investigation on a Seattlite paratrooper; and an incinerated tavern......

What else besides Bacon Salt could possibly lift your spirits after a long day of serving your country? So says the P-I:U.S. troops in Muslim nations where pig-eating is a religious no-no, have been requesting the local startup's product, dreamed up by two guys who stayed up late into the night brainstorming in 2006, to sprinkle on their MREs and anything else edible overseas.The result? Operation Bacon Salt—an organized effort by the makers of......

"Protesting out of the rain" by Espressobuzz We love our Flickr pool contributors because they contribute exceptional shots like this. Thanks for sharing!......

According to federal prosecutors, Washington State representative Jim McDermott's 2002 trip to Iraq was secretly financed by Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency. McDermott, a strong opponent of the war in Iraq, traveled to the country in October 2002 with two other democratic representatives. The trip occurred during the zenith of President Bush's push for the war, while McDermott and his fellow travelers urged for a diplomatic solution to be found. Yesterday, federal prosecutors outlined how......

Five years ago today, this Seattlest contributor was sitting in a coffeeshop in Eugene, Oregon, reading the paper about the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. There was something strange and distant about the whole thing, and not just the strangeness and dislocation that every civilian sipping coffee and reading about the scarier facets of the world has: it was also strangely misunderstood, a daring adventure undertaken for reasons no one fully understood. Five......

As war protest songs go, they don't come more pointed or authentic than Eddie Vedder's "No More," which the Pearl Jam frontman extrapolated from 26 year-old veteran Tomas Young's brief—and literally paralyzing—Army tour of Iraq. The song's video, poured into the tubes yesterday by "online political and social action community" Think MTV, is just as sincere and direct. "No More" is just one song on a double-disc soundtrack to the Phil Donahue/Ellen Spiro-produced documentary Body......

Last night at Benaroya Hall, author Richard Powers read from a new short story called "Modulation." It was classic Powers; a dense, far-reaching, and meticulously vivid tale of a computer virus that infects music player devices via filesharing sites. He weaves the story around four different individuals: a Japanese hacker recently released from prison and now employed by the RIAA to huntdown filesharers, a Brazilian journalist researching soldiers in Iraq who blast ear-crunching music from......

Unfortunately, the following story is not a plot-outline for next weeks Law & Order or CSI. Rather it's the gruesome fate a young army couple met this weekend in Parkland, WA. Randi and Timothy Miller were shot in their home this weekend and then doused in muriatic acid, in hopes that the evidence of their killing would be destroyed. The suspect, Spc. Ivette Gonzalez Davila, also kidnapped the couple's young child, Cassidy. Davila was......

We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they will discuss the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Seattlest-- How do you feel Senator Clinton's recent attacks on Senator Obama are shaping the upcoming Texas and Ohio primaries? Jeff (San Francisco Chronicle)-- I've got to come clean with my dirty secret-- I'm starting to get cold feet......

We haven't yet seen The Battle of Algiers -- we weren't alive in the '60s, we weren't working at the Pentagon in '03, and last time we checked the Criterion release out of the library we never got a chance to watch it. So we're happy to see it turn up on local screens again this Sunday, at the SIFF Cinema. We could point you to a bunch of reviews that mostly tell you......

Not that there's anything remarkably surprising about this. Most of us here in this hippy haven understand full well that the War in Iraq was forged under false pretense, and there have been plenty of news stories in the past five years to back up our suspicions. But, now there's a study showing that, in fact, it was the confluence of 935 lies the Bush administration told in order to set the stage for......

We caught War Made Easy at the Film Forum last night, but we weren't in the big hurry we thought because its run has been extended through Monday, the 21st. Despite being narrated by Sean Penn, it's fairly lo-fi -- a cool-headed interview with media critic Norman Solomon intercut with film and video footage to illustrate salient points on how gullible/acquiescent the American public is when it comes to run-ups to war and how supine......

Starting tomorrow night, SIFF Cinema is showing Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, a documentary that examines Hollywood's relationship and depiction of one of the 20th Century's defining events. Growing up Jewish in New York City, we were introduced to The Diary of Anne Frank at age 9. We quickly became fascinated by her story (our copy of the book is in tatters we read it so often) and by the subject of the......

There are a lot of things we can see being seized at the border between Canada and the United States: handguns with the serial number filed off, bricks of heroin, briefcases with the radioactivity sign on the side. Hard drives we'd expect to make it through, but unfortunately we'd be wrong. The guy bringing the masters of the songs Chris Walla recorded in Vancouver back down to Seattle had the drive containing them yanked by......

The Hugo House Literary Series kicks off Friday night with "Lost in Translation," and the program features Seattlest-favorite and monologist Mike Daisey, novelist Randall Keenan and historian Lesley Hazleton. We don't know why Seattle ever lets Daisey leave, once we've got him here. He's ours! We should just band him or do that thing like with dogs where they are electronically forbidden to leave the yard. Daisey, et al, have each produced three new pieces......

Sketch Fest Seattle is into its second (and final) weekend. Last year we wrote that the world is a sad place so you might as well laugh while you can. Well over the past 365 days, the world hasn't gotten much un-sadder--despite our ass-kicking in Iraq. So you can either watch the news and cry, or watch Cory and Doug bring the worlds of sketch and improv together. If they can do that, well, maybe......

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......

Last night Richard Wiseman -- "Britain’s only chair in the Public Understanding of Psychology" -- spoke at Town Hall about his study of quirkology. Which, if you don't know, is the study of the offbeat in human behavior as a way of shining light on why we act the way we do. Here's a short recap of what we learned about: >>Speed dating: He didn't get into this in the talk, but it sounded interesting,......

Monday started even earlier than Sunday with the Coen Brothers' heavily-touted No Country for Old Men. The elegantly slow-moving picture (care of cinematographer Roger Deakins) lives up to the hype, so much so that we can take it as their formal cinematic apology for their abysmal duo Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers. Ethan, Joel, we forgive you. Especially if it means that you won't sic scary-as-hell psycho-killer Javier Bardem on us. Next up was Juno,......

The Central Library played host last night to a host of concerned citizens and Thomas E. Ricks, author of the best-selling Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. They put Ricks in the big auditorium for good reason. Fiasco was a #1 New York Times best-seller, finalist for the Pulitzer, winner of the Gelber Prize, etc., etc. Plus it plays to the liberal instincts of Seattle's finest. The room was crammed full of business suits......

As if Bart Sher weren't enough artistic ordnance, Intiman is also packing Craig Lucas in its Associate Artistic Director holster. (That's Craig Lucas, author of the book for The Light in the Piazza, author of the plays Prelude to a Kiss, The Dying Gaul, and The Singing Forest, and author of the screenplays for Longtime Companion and The Secret Lives of Dentists.) Following up on his terrific adaptation of Uncle Vanya, Intiman is staging the......

Local comic journalist (that's a journalist working in the medium of comics, not a journalist covering comics) Peter Bagge made the cover of Reason magazine this month. Bagge is on staff at the magazine and routinely does hilarious/horrifying cartoons about life in Seattle through Libertarian eyes (and if there's a ground zero for material for a Libertarian cartoonist it could very well be Seattle). The cover image is, of course, a self portrait. The Washington......

Our Southern California based Al Qaeda correspondent, Jeff Schell, is here with analysis on the new Intel report regarding Al Qaeda's desire to "use contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil." Every time the Mariners reach the American League Championship Series, a resurgent Al Qaeda shows up in the news. Coincidence? 1995 Mariners: ALCS. 1995 Al Qaeda: CIA began watching Osama Bin Laden. 2000 Mariners: ALCS. 2000 Al Qaeda: USS......

If kaboom-style fireworks aren't the bang you're looking for, stop in at ACT for the theatrical fireworks of David Hare's Stuff Happens, reviewed here. It's the play about Iraq and the rockets' red glare, the difference between the spark of liberty and the blinding torch of neocon ideology. (The title refers to Donald Rumsfeld's disingenuous retort to questions about U.S. forces' disregard of post-"liberation" lawlessness.) By all accounts, it's a thought-provoking (almost 3-hour) imagining of......

Holy poop, Barack Obama raised a record $31 million dollars over the last three months. That's what happens when your rival continually justifies her vote for the Iraq War, and chooses a terrible song as her campaign theme, "You, me, and Celine are gonna change this country." Among all of that money was a $100 dollar check from Auburn school teacher Angela Berg, which happened to be the 250,000th donation to Obama's campaign. David Postman......

Watching David Hare's dramatization of the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq last night at ACT, we were reminded of an email exchange we had that summer with an old college friend. Our friend, a Brit, was at the time starting her career as a history teacher, and if we recall correctly, we wrote her something to the effect of, "You know why World War I started, you know why World War II or......

Outside Key Arena last night, there were a few religious protesters with big signs urging passersby to repent of their evil ways, but inside the venue was a packed house eager to see The Police for their first tour in twenty years. The crowd definitely skewed older (and drunker), kinda like your parents at Oktoberfest, and the stage was sparsely set for the band's three solitary figures. As always, Sting was in one of......