HOW-TO BOOK: You may have run into Reza Aslan, author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, while watching the Daily Show. Now you can see the professor of creative writing (at the University of California, Riverside) in person, talking about his newest book, How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror. Sounding a bit like John Gottman, Aslan says the best cosmic war is one that isn't fought; he says need to strip conflicts of their religious connotations and address the more earth-bound grievances that generate the cosmic mindset. more ›

Five years later, it still feels strange and distant; Iraq is still mired in violence--though we argue about whether it's on the wane or the rise--and yet the degree to which it touches on our daily lives seems to have to do more with politics than with the real world consequences of war. Most Americans are so safely distanced from the fighting that we can't wrap our heads around what it's actually like for those of our countrymen whose loved ones are patrolling the streets of Baghdad in body armor as we sit here, comfortably reading about it on a computer screen, let alone what it must be like to be there, as a soldier, or even worse, as an Iraqi. more ›

The last film we caught at the festival was The Visitor, written and directed by Tom McCarthy, best known for his 2003 Sundance darling The Station Agent. Like the previous film, McCarthy's sophomore piece is a well-crafted work about how people from disparate backgrounds can come together and form an unconventional family. Walter Vale, an uptight widower and bored college econ professor, has totally shut down and withdrawn from everything in his life, but when he heads to NYC for a conference, he finds a young Muslim couple, Tarek and Zaineb, living in his usually-empty apartment. He takes pity on them and lets them stay, and a friendship develops--until Tarek becomes a victim of racial profiling and is sent to an immigrant detention center, and Walter decides to take responsibility for his new friends. The Visitor is such a quintessential indie picture: the cast, led by Richard Jenkins, is strong, the writing is elegant, and the cinematography is simple yet effective. Most importantly, the film doesn't beat you over the head with immigration issues or over-the-top commentary on the war on terror. The messages here are nuanced, and conveyed more through subtle camerawork than bloviated speechifying. Thank god. more ›

The first thing to know about Devra Davis is that she's not speaking from the sidelines: she's director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, is an environmental health expert, professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. more ›

For those of you just tuning in, yesterday we wrote a little piece about the steam pipe that burst in New York. Apparently it pissed a bunch of people off, and we have to concur that actual true (non-sensationalist) details have been slow to trickle in over here. Everything we've read the last couple of days focuses on a "geyser of steam and debris," which seemed like an overblown fearmongering catchphrase at first, but is now starting to sound like that may be exactly what it is. more ›

reports on his blog that state Sen. Joe Zarelli recently hosted right-wing Israeli politicians and others at a two-day conference down in Vancouver, to fan the flames of Islamophobia. more ›

Once the dust had subsided, after we'd sawed through a concrete wall and brushed the rat droppings from our heads that rained down on us as we demolished our basement bathroom, we began to find unusual things. Old toys stashed behind sheetrocked walls, left there to mourn their solitary confinement at the hands of a former owner who was too lazy or cheap to free them amidst the detritus of the dump. more ›

SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror. more ›

Ok, it's not funny when someone's house gets invaded by the cops. The continued erosion of our rights in the name of the war on terror isn't funny in the least. Perpetrating obscene phone calls isn't funny. The police making an error and therefore not apprehending the person making the obscene phone calls isn't funny, either. Multiple squad cars driving up onto someone's lawn in search of porn is, well, kind of funny. And this article from the Spokesman-Review that contains all of the above is completely hilarious. more ›

SIFF enters its second full week with a slew of great documentaries, including the final screening of fair trade coffee doc Black Gold (Tuesday, 9:30pm @ the Egyptian). The directors, Marc and Nick Francis, will be in attendance, as will Tadesse Meskela, an Ethiopian Farm Cooperative Organizer featured in the film. The SIFF screenings mark the first time the directors and subject have been together since the making of the film---and the first time Meskela has seen the film on the big screen. more ›

The release of Pearl Jam's new album came and went without so much as a single flannel appearing in Belltown and nary a Rolling Stone cover story devoted to the Seattle Scene. Oh well, it's ok stuff and heartfelt, but hardly the life-altering event previous PJ albums may have been. The band released a video last week, though, which is something they haven't done since 1998. We barely remember '98: Y2K was approaching, the War on Terror was a gleam in Rumsfeld's eye, Pearl Jam was relevant. more ›

Torontoist throws down the gauntlet and challenges all comers: pillow fight, bitch. They also stand up for a fellow blogger taking heat from the TTC and welcome city-wide WiFi. more ›

Rod Stewart is performing at the Key Arena tomorrow evening. This is Rod Stewart, people. Sure he may be old and might not have released an interesting album since the early Reagan years, but talk about sex appeal! His walker alone could attract more models than all of the Strokes combined. He's touring in support of his latest collection of standards that we think is dreamy. more ›