Newly minted mayoral candidate Mike McGinn has already provoked an awkward situation. While McGinn didn't want to get into Nickels-bashing at his press conference, his campaign fired off an email critical of mayor Nickels' green credentials today, so Publicola's Josh Feit got Nickels' man on the horn for a response. Only thing is, Nickels' man is Publicola's Sandeep Kaushik. Kaushik responded, “Nickels has an excellent environmental record,” and “I’m surprised Mike McGinn is going negative so early in this race," and did not say, "This is an untenable position, and I can clearly have no comment." more ›

Publicola reports today on an ongoing conflict between the Democratic leadership in the state legislature and environmental groups trying to protect the provisions of I-937, which requires Washington utilities to acquire 15 percent of supply from renewable sources by 2020, from being watered down. "The amendments would allow efficiency improvements in hydro generation—not considered a renewable in I-937 because the voters wanted to encourage the production of new alternatives—to count toward the goal," writes editor Josh Feit. Another sign of exactly how useless our state Dems have become. more ›

With the return of the dreaded S-word juxtaposed with some of the most beautiful sunshine we've seen in months, the Northwest is feeling a bit punchy. In that spirit, Josh Feit at Publicola takes on Seattle's odd political climate ("green urbanists" vs. "economic populists"). It's a wonder we get any political dialogue accomplished at all, given how sore people are--still!--over the infamous Seahawks in the Superbowl referee fiasco. Pouring salt on the open wound, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers wrote a letter explaining precisely how fair that referee was. After reading the letter on the Daily Weekly, you might feel a little punchy yourself and need to scream about it. Just let it out, you'll feel better. If yelling doesn't help, have you considered turning to alcohol? Some tequila from Sammamish, perhaps? The Issaquah Reporter has the story (via GreenerGrad). more ›

In his Morning News post, The Stranger's managing editor Bradley Steinbacher lets slip near the end that after fourteen years, his end his near. No future plans, no reasons why. This continues a trend (two makes a trend!) of gnomic departures that began with news editor Josh Feit's abrupt "departure" (made somewhat less abrupt by his continued posting on Slog) earlier this summer. So we provide you instead with the fond memories elicited by Steinbacher's bio: "Some 13 years ago Bradley Steinbacher, was hired to be The Stranger’s first receptionist. After that debacle, he was bounced around to various departments—classifieds, distribution, marketing, etc.—until he was finally named both Managing Editor and Film Editor in 2003. Just how he reached such high posts at the paper remains a mystery." Perhaps more importantly, does this spell the end of The Stranger's anagrammatical public editor A. Birch Steen? more ›

More details. Please don't let the arts community down. One day in Olympia. It's fun down there! If you have a day job, maybe think about participating by sending an email with this handy form from WA State Arts Alliance. more ›

Conventional wisdom says these days ain't happy ones for pulp-and-print publications. Circulation's down. Ad revenues are down. Everyone wants to read online. So nearly every newspaper, magazine and television news program has a host of blogs these days, to compete with the millions of self-described experts, autodidacts, conspiracy theorists and Chuck Norris-aficionados who propagate the blogosphere with their own brand of citizen journalism (read: poor spelling and poorer grammar). more ›

So we'll begin, the guy at the podium said, the huge black blast door in the Microsoft Auditorium at the Downtown Library eased down its track, slowly cutting off our view of the lobby, and we shivered. more ›

A few days of awful publicity later, the website of Americans United to Preserve Marriage, the anti-gay-marriage organization bankrolled by Sonics owners, is now "under construction." more ›

Starbucks CEO and former Sonics owner Howard Schultz is memorandizing about "the watering down of the Starbucks experience." We'd like to hear what he has to say about the bigoting up of the Seattle experience. more ›

There are about 17 of us who really enjoy following local politics. We can name the members of the city council, know our state representatives, and generally aren’t that popular at parties. more ›

One sentence into the lead editorial of today's Seattle Times, we decided to cancel our subscription. Here's the assertion that broke this camel's back: more ›

The man who brought the Space Needle to Seattle is resigning his position as City Councilman. Jim Compton, who was elected to the City Council in 1999 because he used to be on the TV, is stepping down to teach in Egypt and Romania. Or maybe after a heartwarming montage, it will be his students who teach him---how to love again. more ›

The musical “Light in the Piazza,” which had its premiere at Seattle's Intiman Theatre in 2003, moved on to Chicago, then Broadway, and bagged six Tonys last night. The New York Times notes it was the biggest single winner of the evening: more ›

We at Seattlest aren’t ones to talk about times that we’ve left a hotel room early in the morning; I mean that information is personal. However, if we had left the Downtown Westin early last Wednesday we would have not only left our watch behind, but also run into Mayor Nickels and a room full of Seattle’s most influential check writers. more ›

Welcome to another week of the pitched battle between Old Seattle and New Seattle, playing out in high resolution in the alternative weeklies. We have to give both of them this: their editorial control is pitch perfect. Outside of a tip of the hat to the other side here and there, each publication follows true to their Seattle View in article after article. more ›