A Cheap Solution to the Viaduct?

Courtesy of [Price Tags]

Seattle Stencils

Seattle's intellectualism manifested in street art.

(Queen Anne Ave. between Aloha and Highland)

Seattle's Neglected Past

The picture above is of the Historic Hotel Seattle. Built in 1890, directly after the Great Fire, the triangular-shaped building stood in the heart of Pioneer Square until 1961. In that year the hotel, possibly the oldest building in Seattle, was razed for a parking garage in the name of Urban Renewal.

Now, I don't want to dwell in the past here, and I will acknowledge that, in fact, the demolition of the Hotel Seattle did have its benefits. It initiated the development of the Pioneer Square Historic District. It also, arguably, helped motivate Victor Stienbrueck and others to stand up against a simlar "urban renewal" of the Pike Place Market, now Seattle's biggest tourist attraction. In addition, the constructed parking lot is probably as close to architectural beauty as you can get with a resting place for cars. It even has a nickname, The Sinking Ship.


What I do want to quibble over is the poor state of Pioneer State today. In the past half-century Pioneer Square seems to have remained stagnant as the rest of Seattle has bustled on. It is as if the Historic designation of the area has utterly baffled developers and property owners, who would rather leave the land as is and look to less permanent neighborhood properties for their far flung ambitions (ie. Belltown, Cascade).

Take, for example, Occidental Park.

Looking West this is probably one of the most beautiful areas of the city. The ivy-infested brick building hints at a classic European city, while the native Totem Poles to the left prominently say Cascadia.

But facing East the picture is starkly contrasted. The noses of parked cars creep uncomfortably close to the pedestrian's space and the uninspired buildings have their backs turned, as if the street, rather than the Park, is a better place to attract clientele (and unfortunately this is quite possible).


Why has nobody had the adventurous desire to take advantage of this amazing spot, to seamlessly integrate the square with the rest of the space? Perhaps adding some arched brick structures while removing the cars, refacing shops and cafes to pour out onto an extended square, and renovating or adding loft apartments, with balconies peering down into the contained activity.

This same problem of neglected beautfy typifies most of the Historic Pioneer Square District. While appointment-oriented art galleries and game-day pubs have flourished with cheap rents, fine dining restaurants and luxury condos are rare to say the least. With a lack of solid pedestrian traffic the soft red-brick streets and plazas are only utilized by the homeless and others, too busy looking out for the law to enjoy the charm underfoot.

Perhaps the relative infancy of Seattle has given rise to a set of architects who have only learned to create something out of nothing. Perhaps these developers have never been taught the prudence of working within limits. Whatever the case may be, as we Seattlites continue to cry fowl against sprawl and the creation of new suburban communities it may help us to look back into the heart of our oldest neighborhood and challenge ourselves to provoke a true Urban Renewal.

Honoring Dr. King

Seattle Center Proposal courtesy of UW Libraries

From HistoryLink:

On November 8, 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), the great civil rights leader, arrived for his only visit to Seattle. He spoke at the University of Washington and at Temple de Hirsch on Thursday, November 9, and at Garfield High School and the Eagles Auditorium on Friday, November 10, 1961. A reception followed at Plymouth Congregational Church.

In his lectures, the civil rights leader stressed creative protest to break down racial segregation and discrimination, and called on President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) to use the executive order to declare all segregation unconstitutional. All of his talks were inspirational and promoted the concept of brotherhood.

After the last lecture, he requested that McKinney take him to a barbecue restaurant in the Central Area where they spent several hours eating and talking and reminiscing. He left on Saturday, November 11, impressed, according to McKinney, by the progressive attitude he saw in the city, especially in the African American community.

Cascadian MLK Events:
Poetry Reading and Open Mic in Bellingham
Workshops, March and Rally in Seattle
Unity Breakfast in Tacoma
Rally and March in Spokane
March and Rally in Boise
Rosa Parks Monologue in Vancouver
Rally and March in Portland
MLK Health Care Forum in Medford
Buddhist Peace Walk in Salem
Bowl for Beans Benefit in Arcata

Billionaires make Crappy Vids too

You just gotta love local multi-billionaires who makes goofy ameteurish (aside from the ridiculous amount of celeb cameos) videos like these.

For Paul

By Tom Paulson
Seattle P-I
May 20, 2005

Listen for the creaky voice, the strong "s" and the "low-back merger."

Most language experts believe the Pacific Northwest has no distinctive voice, no particular style or dialect. But some local linguists think that's wrong -- or at least a long-standing academic prejudice that deserves a good challenge.

Jennifer Ingle, a 27-year-old Ballard native and student of language at the University of Washington, is one of them.

"Language is part of our identity," said Ingle. Just as the Scandinavian heritage of Ballard distinguishes it from the rest of Seattle, she said, the evolution of language in the Northwest has progressed to the point where it can be distinguished from the rest of the country.

The question for the experts now appears to be whether our version of the English language has evolved enough to be considered a separate dialect.

"Linguists have generally assumed that the West is one dialect region," said Alicia Beckford Wassink, a UW professor of linguistics and mentor to Ingle.

"That may have been the case in the 1800s, when the West was being settled and there was a mixing of dialects among all the immigrants," said Wassink. But there's plenty of evidence now, she said, to suggest this region could have its own distinctive dialect.

Northwest speak.

Ingle decided a year ago to study her own neighborhood for evidence of local dialect. To some extent, she said, growing up in Ballard contributed to her interest in language.

"I used to hear people in my neighborhood speaking Norwegian," said Ingle, noting that despite her family's Scottish heritage, one of her favorite foodstuffs is lefse -- a Nordic flatbread made from potatoes.

But Ingle's study of language in Ballard was not aimed at identifying any of the neighborhood's Nordic influences. Participants were not asked to say, "Yah, sure, ya betcha." Rather, Ballard was selected as representative of the region because it is one of the oldest communities in the state, with a well-established population of native speakers.

"All the participants were born in Seattle and grew up in Ballard," said Ingle. She focused just on variation in vowel sounds because that is what most determines the different pronunciations in spoken American English.

Still, it should be noted that when Ingle presented her findings this week, it happened to be on the same day Ballard was celebrating Norwegian Constitution Day, May 17. Her study of Northwest speech in Ballard was presented in Vancouver, B.C., at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

Among the findings: Many locals, especially women, speak in what experts call "creaky voice"; we've done away with a particular vowel used by Easterners; we really like to emphasize the "s" in words; we're not Californian and we're not Canadian.

Other determinants of dialect include differences in vocabulary and grammar, added Wassink, which are also being looked at in other linguistic studies at the UW.

"The Northwest is especially interesting because we have had almost nothing but immigration," Wassink said. "And there hasn't been as much racial or ethnic segregation as in the East. For a linguist, it's a very interesting place."

So, why do so many women talk creaky here? What's that mean anyway?

"Bill Clinton is a good example of creaky," said Ingle. Clinton's folksy speech, in which his voice sounds both scratchy and relaxed, is the opposite of "breathy" voicing, she said.

In the Northwest, Ingle's study indicates creaky voicing is popular -- especially among women. Breathy voicing, which in extreme form sounds like Marilyn Monroe's birthday song for JFK, is not big in the Northwest.

Wassink said the local popularity of creaky voicing could be how we compensate for another feature of our speech style. We've stopped using one vowel. Linguists work with 15 vowel sounds to describe spoken American English and we only use 14 of them.

Say "caught" and "cot" out loud. If you're a true Northwest speaker, the words will sound identical. Linguists call this the "low-back merger" because we've merged these two vowel sounds. On much of the East Coast, these same words will sound different. "Creaking is a way of making those distinctions that are being lost," Wassink said. Just as Bostonians tend to compensate in their speech for removing the "r" from many words, she said, we might speak creaky to compensate for refusing to use both vowels.

Another piece of evidence has to do with how Californians do something known as "fronting the vowel," Ingle said. This is considered standard to Western dialect and occurs when a speaker pronounces "rude" as "ri-ood" or "move" as "mi-oove."

"It's pretty funny sounding, actually," said Ingle, perhaps betraying a slight Northwest bias against all things Californian.

Full Article at the PIMC

God's Country

Mt. Baker is famous for three things. The largest snow accumulation ever recorded, The Legendary Banked Slalom, and the idolized Craig Kelly. Snowboarders outnumber skiiers on the mountain by at least 5 to 1 and I have a sneaking suspicion that the grooming machine is simply for show. Needless to say, Baker is a hot bed for snowboarding culture. In fact, Mt. Baker is to snowboarding culture, what ancient Greece is to Western culture. Craig Kelly and the rest of the MBHC founded a philosophy of sport and nature as one, a community that fostered the love of much more than capital gain (FYI: Baker's nearest town, Glacier, has the lowest per capita income in Washington State). That is not to say that Baker culture was an extension of the peace/love hippie era. In many respects it's a reaction to that as well. It is a much more fuck you kind of mentality that thrives on free spirit, but mocks the politically correct kind. Nonetheless while the ever popular Xtreme era continues to turn snowboarding into a show of ridiculous stunts and expensive gear, Baker retains the essence of what is and what will always be snowboarding; it is not about money, or style, or even skill, but rather the feeling of gliding over deep, pure, untouched snow.

When I was a child, growing up in Bellingham, Mt. Baker was simply where we went every Saturday between December and March. I didn't realize its place in the snowboarding world, I just went up, hung out with friends, loaded up on free breadsticks (oh man, those were the days...) and played king of the mountain with the girls before riding down 542 blasting Bohemian Rhapsody. Since moving to Seattle I only get up to Baker a couple times a year. But I have that distant perspective now. The understanding of how incredibly unique the Baker scene really is. Granted I don't ride many other ski areas very often (who the hell would when you got Baker?!?) but when you're waiting in line for Chair 7 to open its clear that the original community and spirit are alive and kickin'.

Going to Mt. Baker after a heavy snowfall is like a throwback to the days of the Gold Rush. With a report of "8 new inches with 12 new inches in the last 24 hours" most people simply leave everything (work, school, family, bong tokes) to get up here. Eyeing the crowd's gear, one finds a mish mash of hand-me-downs and dumpster finds. Mostly old, jackets that are too small, gloves with holes, boards that are delaminating. Just like the Alaskan miners, the typical rider has long unkempt hair and a full, thick beard. Anything for added warmth (and a confirmation that sex and love are far from the mind's focus). The gold in this wilderness is the white powder falling from the skies (an addiction much stronger for Baker Bums than the other type of white powder) and once the lift opens it's a mad rush to find every pocket of this white gold.

In a typical search for powder (aka: freshies, pow-pow, deep shit, good stuff) no one holds their opinions to themselves. Sitting at the top one can hear fierce debate over which routes will yield the most benefits:

"Let's hit up Gabl's."

"No way man! Gabl's will be all tracked out! Let's skirt Gunner's Ridge and drop in from there."

"Perhaps we should hike out Blueberry."

"Naw, that's too much work, lets just head over to the Pea Garden."

If you ride anything under the lift you are sure to hear calls of admiration as well as ridicule. Anyone considering a drop can count on yells of encouragement and the yells and claps are only louder if you biff the landing and tumble head over heals (sometimes called a yardsale).

Within the first few hours of the day most of the best stuff has been mined by the boards and the soggy, smelly community heads back to the lodge to smoke a few cigarettes and swap stories. They are generally a bit exaggerated. Some individuals boast about five feet of fresh snow where there was actually two. Others brag about their secret reserve that they intend to ride in the afternoon, but probably doesn't exists. Some older veterans tell stories of old to wide-eyed youngsters as they both share a few pieces of beef jerky and a 40 of OE.

On a Relativist's globe Mt. Baker's simplicity is truly refreshing. There are no fights over religion because all revere the gods of the weather. Nobody debates the methods of wealth distribution because each new storm cloud brings a fresh blanket of opportunity. While difference may exist, the community is united through the love and pleasure of their place and that perhaps is something we can all learn from.

Art Eco

This painting of Sockeye Salmon was done by Cascadian artist, Julie Thompson. Her works are done on naturally-molted peacock wingfeathers. If that's not sustainable, I don't know what is!

The Uptight Seattlite

If anyone has not read the Seattle Weekly column, Ask An Uptight Seattlite, you're pretty much missing out on happiness. Every week he answers reader questions with smart, hilarious answers. This week was particularly full of hilarity, and so I could not help but post it, enjoy.

When my friend from D.C. visited in the summer, I was telling him about my participation in the "100-mile diet." That's where, for the good of the environment, you eat only things grown within a hundred miles of Seattle. Not only did he decline to join me, he thought the whole thing was laughable. In fact, he thought our city was full of hilarity. How we march earnestly around Green Lake clutching bottles of water. The way we always dress like we're going camping. The way we get so comically worked up about transportation issues. Now he's coming to visit for Christmas, and I'm worried that he'll think we're laughable in a whole new way: the way we suck all the fun out of the holidays with our superserious "sensitivity." What can I do to show him that we know how to have a good time?

Take this Stick From My Ass

Dear Stick From My Ass,

Is it really so restrictive and dreary to live here? If you really think so, you should take a holiday of an entirely different kind. You know how Amish young people are allowed, for a set period of time, to drink, smoke, and otherwise break the rules of their community? Well, you, too, should take your own little rumspringa from Seattle ways. Show your friend you can "loosen up" with the best of them. Stop recycling. Drink macrobrews and watch NASCAR. Drive everywhere. Don't wave when someone lets you change lanes. Kill spiders in your house rather than trapping and freeing them in a silently improvised ceremony of karmic self-blessing. Do all your holiday shopping at Wal-Mart and have them double-bag everything. Go to Sea-Tac and innocently ask where the Christmas tree is. Say, "There is no Christmas tree? Why ever not?" Walk around with a cell phone pressed to your ear at all times, even if no one's on the line, and say things like, "Yeah, that's one sales forecast I'd like to see, let me tell you what, you crazy bastard! You still in for tonight, you miserable cocksucker? Shooters at Hooters, my friend, shooters at Hooters!" Do this at every farmers market in town. Put down your phone only long enough to tell the Vietnamese farmer that his organic tomatoes are lumpy and not as red as the ones at Safeway. Ask Grease Monkey for all their used oil and pour it into the gutter in front of your house while glaring defiantly at your neighbors. Rent a Hummer and tailgate Vespas. Lean on the horn as you call out, "Get a car, Fancy Man!" Finally, go downtown and, in your loudest, heartiest voice, wish every stranger you see a merry Christmas. If you find that that kind of thing makes you feel good, I suggest you take yourself to Houston for a permanent rumspringa.

The Program

So I don't talk about music much but I had to throw this in there. Blue Scholars, a Seattle based hiphop duo, has recently gotten national recognition for their new album release, Bayani. If you've heard them you will know that they are not only incredibly talented but dedicated to promoting a Northwest style and a Northwest sound. And they are certainly succeeding (check out this song or this video)! Well, in an effort to bring about even more recognition for a NW sound Blue Scholars are hosting The Program. This 5-day set of shows has an all-NW lineup with artists from Vancouver down to Portland. It's events like these, building a cultural identity through regional art, which is really going to establish Cascadia in the hearts and minds of its citizens! Get your tickets soon!

Climate Change Strikes Cascadia

Cascadians have generally been lucky when it comes to disastrous weather. Although the '85 Helen's eruption has remained paramount in collective memory (not to mention the constant doomsday earthquake predictions) recent years have kept us safe from the calamities befalling other parts of the US (ie. forest fires, tornados, hurricanes, and snowstorms). Well, it seems our luck has finally run dry. This week devastating winds (up to 90 mph) and rain (up to 11in) wreaked havoc on Southern Washington and Northern Oregon. The storm has left 5 people dead, at least 150 stranded, many more homeless, and over 100,000 without power. To make matters worse a twenty-mile section of I-5 between Centralia and Chehalis, Washington was completely flooded, halting the main transportation route between Vancouver, BC and Porland, OR. It is estimated that $4 million are being lost to businesses every day due to the obstruction and to raise the highway could cost upwards of $400 million. Even optimists that usually look to storms like these for snow in the mountains were disappointed since the warm weather meant rain and winds destroyed the already limited snow-pack. Sadly, no matter what our future response to global climate change may be, our past irresponsibility means that this is probably not the last of these type of disasters.

See also:
[The Seattle P-I]
[The Oregonian]
[BBC News]

A Look into the Duwamish

This week the Seattle Post Intelligencer published a 'Special Report' on the Duwamish River in South Seattle. The articles look at the history of the Duwamish and how it came to be an industrial wasteland and critically analyzes the clean-up efforts that have been going on since it was designated a a national Superfund site in 2001. It is a very good report and certainly needed. The environmental raping of the Duwamish has continuously been put on the back shelf by policy makers for a host of reasons, including costs and its geographic location in the poorer South end of Seattle. As Seattle's only river, its sad that its natural beauty go completely unenjoyed by humans and wildlife alike. From the report:

The Duwamish is Seattle's river. Seattle's only real river.

And it is among the largest and most complicated toxic messes ever taken on by the federal government.

It's a Superfund site five miles long. How wide? That's yet to be decided, but theoretically it could extend from the crest of West Seattle to the top of Beacon Hill, a vast swath of Seattle, more than 10 square miles.

This is the heart of industrial South Seattle, where the meandering and shallow Duwamish River was straightened and deepened into an angular canal, mostly between 1913 and 1918. After that, industry moved in where Japanese- and Italian-American farmers had grown some of the first produce sold at Pike Place Market.

Along the Duwamish an army of industry took over: shipbuilding, manufacturing, oil tanks, metalworking shops, rendering plants, cement companies, a steel foundry, on and on.

Much of today's pollution had its roots in World War II, when Boeing cranked out nearly 7,000 "Flying Fortress" bombers. At the height of the war, a plane rolled off the assembly line about every two hours.

It helped save our country, but today that plant is arguably the river's most noxious toxic dump. PCBs leaked out of the bottom of the main plant, without anyone noticing, for decades.

Other riverside plants produced parts for the Liberty Ships that delivered vital supplies to Allied troops -- often food and materiel loaded at Seattle piers.

By the war's end, the price paid was becoming clear: More than 20 pollutants were being dumped into or alongside the river, including muriatic acid, sulfuric acid, cyanide, arsenic, copper sulfate salts, copper ammoniate and chromic acid. Plus the raw or minimally treated sewage of 48,000 people.

Wrote investigator Richard F. Foster of the newly created Washington Pollution Control Commission in December 1945: "The expansion of existing factories and the addition of several new industries since the outbreak of war has increased the pollution load. ... The extensive and continued spilling of oil ... does not seem justified."

But substances much worse than oil were being quietly unleashed, and their volumes would grow.

A River Lost?

Part 1
- The Duwamish helped Seattle prosper. But along the way it became one of the nation's largest and most toxic urban sites.

Part 2
- Critics say the clean up plan doesn't do enough to protect local residents, wildlife, and the environment.

Part 3
- A cautionary tale about a whitleblower who paid the a steep price for his actions.

Check out the full report for photos and other mulitmedia.

Rainy day, dream away
Let the sun take a holiday
Flowers bathe and I see the children play
Lay back and groove on a rainy day

Johnny Allen "Jimi" Hendrix
November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970

Happy Birthday Jimi.

Seattle, a Vancouver Perspective

"The amazing thing about Seattle and Vancouver is how different we are, considering our near-identical climates and bioregions, similar hybrid ethnicities and parallel histories. Look at a satellite photo of Puget Sound to Howe Sound, and it’s clear that there is now a border-straddling megalopolis from Lions Bay to Tacoma: seven million people in one virtual city, with the insufferable anomaly of an international border down the middle. With two heads but one conjoined body, Vancouver and Seattle are Siamese twins. Yet we are fused not at the head, but at the back—forever looking in different directions. We may share the same flesh, but our outlooks are, in many ways, starkly different." - From the Seattle Series

The April 2007 edition of Vancouver Magazine had a special series examining Seattle. You can learn a lot from an outsider's perspective, so check it out.

The Seattle Series

• 36 Hours in Seattle: Where to eat, shop, sightsee, and take five.

• Bed Check: A look into 3 different hotels

• Culture Crawl: Vancouver's selected music, books, and independent coffee.

• The New Seattle: What Vancouver can learn from its Pacific Sister

• A Tale of Two Cities: A Column Comparison

Thanks to [Rain City Guide] for the find.

International Representation

I would like to direct your attention to a recent article posted in the BBC:

A US man has injured himself in both legs after attempting to loosen a stiff wheel-nut by blasting it with his gun.

The 66-year-old man from Washington state was repairing his car outside his home when the accident took place.

Shooting at the wheel from arm's length with his 12-gauge shotgun, he was peppered with buckshot and debris.

The man - whom police say was on his own and not intoxicated - was taken to hospital with severe, but not life-threatening, injuries.

The man, from South Kitsap, 10 miles (16km) southwest of Seattle, had been repairing his Lincoln Continental for two weeks, according to the police, and had removed all but one of the nuts on the right rear wheel.

Frustrated by the one remaining nut which refused to budge, he resorted to fire power in an effort to shift it.

He sustained injuries from his feet to the middle of his abdomen, with some pellets reaching as high as his chin.

Now, after you have a nice chuckle at this poor dumb bastard, think about this shit again, this is serious. BBC is the most popular news site in the entire world. This article, was the most popular article on BBC's website. Thus, today, more people learned about this bumbling (sober!?!) Cascadian hick, than about parlimentary elections in Denmark or the IMF's decisions on Liberia.

It's not that I'm upset, just disappointed. The goal of this blog is to help present Cascadia to the world as a progressive, caring, and intelligent pseudo-nation. But its idiots like Kitsap Karl over here that fuck this mission up. Thanks buddy, thanks a lot.