Brian Keith Brown, the man accused of killing a Rainier Beach gardener with a single punch, pled not guilty today to second-degree murder charges. The hearing was brief, reportedly taking only five minutes, but it's just the beginning of what is sure to be a long and emotional case. Brown will be tried later this year, where we imagine an objective jury could be difficult to find. Until trial, he'll remain in jail. He's been......

Brian Keith Brown, the man suspected of killing a Rainier Beach gardener with a single punch, turned himself into the Seattle Police this morning. Police charged Brown on Monday and released his photo and name to the public. He's been placed under arrest and is facing charges of second-degree murder. His first arraignment is scheduled for July 28th. Considering the mob-style outrage regarding this senseless story, jail is probably the safest place for Brown right......

Seattle police have filed second-degree murder charges against 28-year-old Brian Keith Brown in the beating death of James Paroline. Brown delivered a single punch that killed Paroline, who was tending a traffic circle garden last Wednesday in Rainier Beach. Police are searching for the suspect who is still at large and a $500,000 warrant has been issued. Brown has a history of violence and has been previously convicted for third-degree assault, after nearly choking an......

(Or their caretakers.) What to do when someone is impeding the flow of evening traffic so he can water some flowers in a traffic circle? Take care of it Rainier Beach-style: Punch him! Lessons learned: 1) Let the traffic circle garden die, because your fellow citizens obviously don't give a shit. 2) Don't squirt people with your hose, even if they're moving traffic cones. 3) Don't send 60-year-old men to the hospital just for blocking......

We love lists. Which is why we're a little sad that we didn't know about Amazon.com's UnSpun until we read The Paper Noose's post on Georgetown's place in the Top "Hip" Neighborhoods to Live in Seattle, WA. There's nothing we love better than completely arbitrary lists with no discernible criteria beyond kneejerk personal opinion -- except maybe passing them along. According to UnSpun users, the top 10 "hip" neighborhoods are: 1. Capitol Hill (surprise,......

... in a couple of years, anyway. "After two years, it's definitely moving," writes invaluable neighborhood blogger Captain Columbia City. He talked to the market's coordinator, Karen, on Wednesday, the last day the Columbia City Farmers Market will be open this year. Of course, Columbia City Plaza was sold to a development firm on the east coast recently, and so when the Plaza owners lease expires early next year, they'll sign a new one......

Last night, in the middle of the movie round, Seattlest officially became old. "What Canadian actor, who died in Mexico, appeared in seven movies directed by John Hughes, more than any other performer?" we asked. "Who's John Hughes?" we heard some people ask in response. The rebellious voice of your parent's youth, said our head. Occasionally we figure Seattlest Trivia should have some Seattle trivia in it, so we did a Seattle round. The......

The article doesn't say exactly when this incident happened, but only that the five teens had just left a football game at Rainier Beach. We'll infer that it was after their home loss to Hale last Friday. Five teens started harrassing some guy on the bus, eventually trying to take his glasses. He retaliated with a knife. Four kids were treated for stab wounds and one had a dislocated shoulder. There's some video of the......

We want to know where's the scariest place to live or hang out within Seattle city limits. (Sorry, Skyway and White Center. Check again after annexation.) Recent news stories have pushed several neighborhoods into contention: Rainier Beach: The Safeway parking lot is "plagued by thugs", disgruntled patrons firebomb a video store, and gangs patronize the library. Broadway: From Slog today: "Broadway has turned into a 1st Class GHETTO. Why is nothing being done about it?......

When Amazon.com announced Amazon Fresh last week, it piqued some bloggers' curiosity, but we didn't spend much time thinking about it. Grocery delivery? Interesting, but we weren't going to dive in. Then this weekend we read about the "thug"-infested Safeway -- in Rainier Beach! Crap, we thought to ourselves. That's our Safeway, literally just a few blocks from our house. Apparently we're risking random parking lot beatdowns every time we visit. (It's not the closest......

Back when Seattlest lived in Wallingford, we went to the Fremont branch of the library once a week. We got to know the staff there very well -- hi, Carl! Hi, Joan! Hi, Betty! We served as one of two citizens on the committee that picked the architectural firm that handled the branch's remodel. While Fremont was closed for construction, we switched our regular patronage to the University branch. It's bigger than Fremont, and worked......

One Saturday a few weeks ago, we went to the Rainier Beach library with Little Miss Seattlest. After picking out several books, we were making our way to the circulation desk when one of the librarians behind the public service desk spoke. "Excuse me," she said. "Have you heard about the summer reading program?" We were, of course, familiar with the concept of a summer reading program, but we hadn't really thought about enrolling our......

You may recall that Seattlest recently moved to Rainier Beach. The house we're renting came complete with a mystery: a newspaper box posted next to our mailbox. We haven't subscribed to a newspaper for over a decade but, we know what a newspaper box is for. What we don't know is anything about the newspaper advertising on our delivery receptacle: the Western Sun. Google? Nothing. Wikipedia? Nothing, unless it's an unmentioned alternate name for......

"What's left with character in this city is the Pike Place Market and a couple of stores, and that's it." More classic Seattle grit is closing up shop. Central Loan & Gun Exchange downtown? Exit, stage gentrification. Seattlest expects another round of the ever-fascinating debate on Seattle identity: Greater Seattle vs. Lesser Seattle, mossback vs. booster, REI vs. Macy's, McQ vs. Singles. Lusty Lady vs. Four Seasons (oh wait -- they struck a balance).......

Unopened moving boxes. Furniture in temporary locations. No clue where the closest pizza, Thai, or Indian delivery places are. All signs that even though we've moved all of our possessions from Wedgwood to Rainier Beach, Seattlest is still in the liminal period between our North Seattleite and South Seattleite identities. One of the many things long-time Rainier Valley residents have dealt with that we're learning: the MLK Way light rail construction. In the abstract, when......

Pretend for a moment that you work the circulation desk at a Seattle branch library. A patron asks you to change the information on his account. He's moving, so you change the address. And he asks you to change his default pickup branch to a new, rather distant location. From, say, North East to Rainier Beach. While you're doing this, you notice that he's got 18 hold requests already placed in the system. Pop quiz:......

Neighborhood-centric blog aggregator Outside.in released its list of "America's Top 10 Bloggiest Neighborhoods". Seattle, tech-centric 2.0tropolis that it is, must've cracked the top 10 with at least one neighborhood (cough Capitol Hill cough cough), right? Nope. There's nary a Capitol Hill, West Seattle, Belltown, or Rainier Beach to be seen. What neighborhoods beat us? Clinton Hill, Brooklyn; Shaw, DC; Downtown LA; Newton, Mass.; Rogers Park/North Howard, Chicago; Pearl District, Portland; Watertown, Mass.; Harlem, NY;......

Shortly before our car exploded, we were looking for a new place to rent. After our car exploded, our apartment search took a back seat to car shopping. But in the last few weeks, once our new car was settled, we returned to scanning Craigslist and strolling through neighborhoods. After spending all of our time in Seattle living above the cut (Wallingford, Wedgwood), we were hoping to move to the Rainier Valley (better work commute)......

No, we can't root for the Huskies, but there are plenty of former kids who a few short years ago were playing in front of sparse crowds at some smelly high school gym, but in the next two days will play ball on a national stage: Thursday --Mitch Johnson (O'Dea) of Stanford, vs. Terrance Williams (Rainier Beach) of Louisville, 9:40am --Micah Downs (Juanita) of Gonzaga vs. Indiana, 6:45pm Friday --Marcelus Kemp (Garfield) and Lyndale Burleson......

The funniest moment was when a ref blew his whistle to stop play and shouted, "My timeout, my timeout...I've got a wet spot." He meant a wet spot on the Hec Ed floor, which saw heavy action Wednesday when the state 3A tourney kicked off. Washington's state tournaments are 4-day, 16-team affairs, and the first day is the best--eight games in a row, beginning at 9am, with only 15 minutes in between games. We were......

Seattle Prep, which never made the state tourney with current and future NBAers Martell Webster and Spencer Hawes anchoring the squad, has clinched a 2007 berth with slightly-less-touted players Jack Hanley and Jordan Hamilton leading the way. They beat #2 Rainier Beach 61-59 in a Sea-King district winner-to-state game Thursday night. Beach, which won the Metro championship Friday, must now win two loser-out games to make a state tournament they'd be one of the favorites......

Rainier Beach (public school): Black fans. O'Dea (private school): White fans. That's the stereotype. So, tonight, as we bounded across Henderson Street toward our car after Rainier Beach's Metro league semifinals 52-46 win, and a black teenage girl asked "Do you know who won the game?," we smiled. We were about to deliver good news to this Beach partisan, we thought. "Rainier Beach won," we reported. "Awwww, DAMN!" she said, scrunching her face up in......

CASTING CALL: Local director Garrett Bennett is looking for extras to cast in his independent film The Spy & the Sparrow. 3-8pm // First Church of Christ Scientist [1519 E. Denny Way] // $Whatever minuscule remnants remain of your dreams of an acting career BOOKS: Don't wear sweatpants to this event. Erotica writer Jennifer Munro reads from her award-winning work, as does the winner of Hugo House's erotica writing competition. Keep your fingers crossed for......

THEATER: You have only five more chances to catch WET’s latest offering, In Disdress Now: Redux. Marya Sea Kaminski’s one-woman show was originally developed as as part of On the Boards' Northwest New Works Festival in June 2006. Now the “story of a girl wrestling meaning out of love, porn, and the folds of an enormous red hoop dress” has been expanded into a full-fledged tour de force. 8pm // Washington Ensemble Theatre // 608......

--Husky QB Johnny DuRocher won't play football again after an examination following his concussion in the Stanford game revealed he has a brain tumor. --A naked Steve Ballmer has been spotted at Pro Sports Club Gym in Bellevue. --Ryan Anderson, star of last year's terrific Rainier Beach team, is now a freshman at the University of Nebraska, and led all Husker scorers in an upset of #25 Creighton on Saturday. Seattle ballers represent. --The......

Former Rainier Beach basketball star C.J. Giles is now also a former Kansas basketball star after he re-envisioned a Three's Company episode in his own inimitable way. Giles was entertaining a young woman in his apartment when he received a phone call from his girlfriend. He then asked his guest to leave, because his girlfriend was coming over. She refused. The police report, via Deadspin, explains what happened next. The 20-year-old woman told police Giles......

The Seattle Times alerts us that high-school football is starting soon. Let's roll! Here's the WashingtonPreps.com top 25 (regardless of classification). Seattle's Rainier Beach is ranked #3 in the state--they reached the 3A semifinals next year and bring practically everybody back. So we could see another city football champion in 2006, a pretty rare occurence in a sport dominated by suburban players whose daddys can pay for summer camps and personal coaches. We're not bitter,......

Once upon a time, we'd spend August devouring Husky football coverage in anticipation of a run at the Pac-10 title. Now, we spend August searching for info on the Husky basketball team. From Scout.com, photos of the Dawgs playing pickup in Hec Ed. And Bob Condotta of the Times, in his terrific Husky hoops blog, writes up his observations during these games, including this about incoming freshman Spencer Hawes, who's maybe the Huskies' best recruit......

Who opens against the Sonics at the Key? Why it's the only locally-owned NBA franchise! Also the only one that: Features two players who attended Seattle high schools Is coached by one of the city's most beloved sports figures We decided to back even before Howard Schultz took a shit on the city that made him rich That team, the Portland Trail Blazers, kickoff their 2006-07 regular season here in Seattle on November 1st. That's......

Someone in Rainier Beach took aim at the world's most popular sport last night, firing several shots that whizzed though a partido de futbol on this field. According to the P-I story, "witnesses said they could literally hear the bullets whizzing past as they dived for the ground." The cops don't know who did it, though a witness claimed to see someone firing from a green SUV. The game was suspended. No makeup date......