Boeing and its union have made nice, and agreed to a sweeping 4-year contract. Observers are calling the sudden move a "surprise deal," and perhaps most surprising is that both sides seem satisfied. more ›

A dispute between longshoremen and a grain terminal operator at the Port of Longview went old school, and handed labor a rare win. more ›

Workers' rights seem to be under attack around the country, but they may be on the march in Seattle, as the City Council prepares to consider a plan for universal, earned paid sick leave. more ›

Taxpayers may not be the only ones seeing extra digits. King County assessor Scott Noble is being investigated for a possible DUI. The Dawgs are no longer in the doghouse with labor activists, now that UW is canceling its apparel contract with Russell. And January's earthquake shook the viaduct "harder, longer" than anyone knew. Which is whole lot more fun than a boring tunnel, right? more ›

• The Beacon Hill Blog, the new kid on the blog block, is full of interesting posts today. But this one stood out: "Free Acupuncture For Veterans 11/11/08." Local acupuncturists hope to offer free full-time acupuncture to soldiers returning from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq; they are kicking off their program, fittingly, on Veteran's Day.
• In labor news, Crosscut Seattle discusses the Boeing strike's impact on the local economy and announces the favorable terms of a new union contract at the Seattle Times. Is it time to break out Norma Rae on the ol' dvd player again?
• Rainier Valley Post regular the "Bus Bitch" offers her his, excuse us, informative take on "WTF happened to my bus?!" Here's his pocket guide to the proposed changes to SE Seattle bus service.

The Washington State Department of Corrections wants local companies to know that the prisons are open for business. The DOC has contacted local Chambers of Commerce to say that the real way to cut costs is to use workers who have no right or say in what they do...prisoners are the perfect captive workers! While inmate labor had been previously shut down by the State Supreme Court, Washington voters opted to re-open prisons to private companies for business last November. We're wondering: when did liberal Washington decide that slavery needed a new and improved modern counterpart? more ›

Longshoremen at the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma are conducting a walk-out today to protest U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite warnings from a Union arbitrator that all longshoremen must report to work on Thursday, reports from the Port of Seattle say that only a handful of workers showed up for their scheduled shifts. Officials from the Port of Tacoma say that virtually all of their workers failed to report to work this morning. more ›

This legendary folksinger needs your help: more ›

That sure didn't last long, did it? Barely nine months. more ›

Seattlest wanders. more ›

Economist and NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman was speaking at Town Hall last night. We were going to do this thing where we pretended to mistake him for Jack Klugman and then complained the whole post about him never mentioning acting with Tony Randall or Quincy. Luckily, we thought better of it. more ›

Kurt Cobain’s widow and his hometown have a lot in common. Both Courtney Love and Aberdeen have battled substance abuse. Both are scorned for their blighted appearance. And both had a lot of wood running through them in their heyday. more ›

Seattlest lives close to what is easily the weirdest Safeway ever. The Wedgwood Safeway, any of the store's employees will be happy to tell you, has been serving the neighborhood since 1951 and is as small-town America as a branch of a major chain can get. more ›

The food news may seem depressing, but there's hope. Bear with us. more ›

How easy it is to poke mean-spirited fun at Silverman Festivals, aka Bite of Seattle. The family-owned commercial enterprise, enabled by the City of Seattle in the guise of a community festival, symbolizes so much of what's wrong with America today: greed, exploitation, overweening appetite and tons of just plain crappy food. A cheap and easy target for the smug and self-satisfied. (For one such potshot, see Cornichon's "Blah of Seattle" post a year ago.) more ›

We’re only going to be in our twenties for the next three weeks, so lately we’ve been trying to feel younger--and there is no better place to accomplish this than at a local district Democrat meeting. Once again we were one of the youngest people in the room. We love you sweet, sweet democracy. more ›

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 Vietnam or Korea or the Falklands started...but in ten years, when your students ask you, 'Why did we invade Iraq?', what are you going to say? What's the explanation going to be?" Her despairing response: "They already are asking. And I don't know what to tell them." more ›

This Adbusters piece about liberalism and its current state of crisis isn't exactly new--looks like it's from their May/June issue--but it should be required reading in Seattle. The author talks about how liberals are rich white guys who don't really have anything to complain about, but don't seem to do much besides complain. They need to man up and start acting like the born and bred civic rulers they are and blah blah blah. You should read it. more ›

Most know it as a cute green glob on the corner of the sushi platter, many from mistakenly putting a large first taste in their mouths without realizing it packs a potent punch. Unlike chili pepper, which burns the tongue, wasabi strikes the sinus cavity. But it’s actually protecting you, historically used as an anti-bacterial for the raw fish that often accompanies it. Some says it’s offensive to add more than the sushi chef smears on the fish, but we don’t let that stop us. Especially when we can get the fresh stuff – lots of labor in grinding it, but the taste, while hot, is also surprisingly sweet. more ›

Whitman College: Jeffrey Sachs, economist and author more ›

Later this month, the 5th Avenue Theater opens what they're calling a 50th-anniversary production of West Side Story, recreating the original Jerome Robbins choreography. This isn't a touring show starring some washed-up 70s sitcom star--the 5th Avenue is using local talent. Hoorah! more ›

Last year's immigrant rights protest was out of character with the well-publicized, poorly-attended quick hitter marches that seem to be de rigueur in Seattle currently. Thirty thousand people came out for that one and snaked through the streets of Downtown for hours. Yesterday afternoon we left the office a few minutes early to try and track down the 2007 version and after chasing 5th all the way back to Westlake Center and coming up empty we found exactly one dude in the square with some immigrant rights flyers. "Yeah, they're already back at Seattle Center. I stayed here." That was 5:15pm, when the picture to the left was taken across the street from Westlake Center. C'mon guys, can't you linger a little while you're Downtown. You got the permit, take advantage of it. Camp out in the street a little, double back, do something to let us know that a couple thousand immigrants were here looking for their rights. Don't fly down your route like Eastern Washington is a half-block behind simultaneously trying to deport you and employ you under the table. more ›

It's not often that Seattlest shows up early to a show to catch an entire bill, since we've learned that the extra time is often not worth the effort. Saturday was a thankful exception to the rule, with all three bands on the Parts & Labor/Erase Errata/ADULT. bill worth the price of admission on their own. It was the last night for that package, and it was obvious that all bands involved knew they were part of something pretty remarkable. Here we'll focus on Parts & Labor, but know that Erase Errata kept things uncompromising, as did ADULT., which kicked off an electro-artpunk dance party to close out the evening. more ›

Last month there were some reactionary-crats out there who claimed that the Viaduct advisory vote was a meaningless waste of money. Well it turns out that they were as wrong as a brown belt with black shoes after Labor Day. The vote killed the tunnel and literally threw a monkey wrench into any re-build plans. more ›

Charles Simonyi, the man who gave us Microsoft Word, has been sent into space by the Russian government as punishment for the development of "smart quotes." more ›

Our first taste of the 2007 Bumbershoot lineup leaves us hungry for so much more. more ›

Port of Seattle documents released Tuesday reveal a police chief fearful of a litigious union and overwhelmed by an e-mail scandal engulfing a third of his officers. more ›

That's how Mayor Ole Hanson described the beginning of the general strike that was held in Seattle February 1919, one of the few general strikes ever attempted in the U.S. The Bolsheviks had just won their revolution in Russia two years earlier and the Red Scare was coming into play in our country. Add 35,000 striking shipyard workers. Subtract the city's more moderate labor officials - They were in Chicago for a vote. Those left behind broached the subject of a general strike with other unions and the city was shut down on February, 6, while rumors of poisoned water, blasted dams and union heavies en route from Chicago kept everyone else either locked in their homes or fleeing for the country. In an effort to keep the peace, or kick a lot of union ass anyway if the peace got queered, the mayor brought in soldiers from Fort Lewis and deputized 2,400 frat guys and student organization members whom he armed with clubs and guns. The city teetered towards open war in the streets. more ›

LOCAL AUTHOR, LOCAL AUTHOR: Clear Cut Press presents two of its novelists: Matt Briggs' Shoot The Buffalo is about a boy growing up in Snoqualmie during the '70s. Stacey Levine's Frances Johnson, set in a small town in Florida, details the random choices made by the eponymous Ms. Johnson. more ›

On a recent visit to pastry chef Sue McCown’s new Capitol Hill dessert venue, Coco La Ti Da, we had the pleasure of tucking into Sue’s signature (and namesake) dessert, a multi-layered marriage of coconut and dark chocolate. Ever since, we’ve pondered more ways to showcase the ambrosial coconut/chocolate combination. more ›