Seattle news

• Obama wants more icebreakers

  01-09-2015 23:33
  
  President Obama is using this week’s Alaska trip to urge action on what’s been a low U.S. priority, building or acquiring new heavy duty U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers capable of year-round operations in the high Arctic. “The growth of human activity in the Arctic region will require highly engaged stewardship to maintain the open seas necessary for global commerce and scientific research, allow for search and rescue activities and provide for regional peace and stability,”
  
  Read more

• Another One Bites the Dust: RIP Shorty's Pinball

  01-09-2015 23:25
  
  Condo-condo-condo… blah-blah, blaaaaaah. Fill the comments with "you asked for density!" cracks. I AM STILL SO FUCKING SAD. Almighty apartment developers say, "Kelly—who care$ what you think, anyway." RIP, SHORTY'S [ Comment on this story ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
  
  Read more

• Obama's Trip to Alaska Puts Him on Thin Ice with Environmental Activists

  01-09-2015 23:14
  
  Have a nice trip, Mr. President! Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com
  Obama's off to Alaska! He will be the first sitting president to visit Arctic Alaska and therefore the first president probably to use melting glaciers, ocean-swallowed islands, and (fingers crossed, sort of?) sad polar bears as photo opps. And rightfully so. Shit is getting real meltly in Alaska. Permafrost is thawing, wildlife is being threatened, and—if we don't do anything to stop slow global warming—the state
  
  Read more

• Cafe Flora Manager Killed While Hiking in Alaska's Denali National Park

  01-09-2015 22:45
  
  KC Boehly Cafe Flora
  The Seattle Times reports the heartbreaking news that KC Boehly, a manager at Madison Valley's Cafe Flora, died last week while hiking in Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve. According to the Times, Boehly and a co-worker were returning from two days of backpacking in the park, but "bloated waterways from several days of rain in the area made crossings a treacherous affair." They made three attempts to cross a creek, but "on the third try Boehly fell and was swept dow
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Stranger (Than Usual) Things To Do This Week

  01-09-2015 21:59
  
  The Center for Sex Positive Culture will present a class on "Honored Objects" on Friday. Amy Red
  "Brogrammers," Bertha, bush fires... Not to mention the artistic exodus brought about by rising rents. Does it seem like the funky, free-wheeling Seattle of yore is being replaced by an unrecognizably corporate, condo-ridden hellscape?Don't despair—yet. There are still things to do in this city that fall outside your average dinner and a movie paradigm (although we have plenty of those, too). W
  
  Read more

• DIY Venue the Josephine Surpasses Its Fundraising Goal, Hopes to Open Record Store in December

  01-09-2015 21:59
  
  Success! PS You can still chip in.
  Ballard DIY venue the Josephine surpassed its fundraising goal of $9,000 yesterday. As of September 1, lease-holders/talent-bookers Malaki Stahl and Olivia Mendez's music/arts performance space had garnered $9,165 in 13 days. As reported on Slog last month, the Josephine plans to become a legitimate all-ages venue as well as host a recording studio, electronics repair shop, and a record store (Jigsaw Records).
  chip in.In an email interview, Stahl says that the
  
  Read more

• Ding-dong, Belltown’s dead: Shorty’s to be demolished for housing units

  01-09-2015 21:46
  
  One of the last vestiges of real Belltown is slated for destruction, the Puget Sound Business Journal reports. Shorty’s, the Coney Island-themed bar where pinball enthusiasts get a beer and hot dog with their silver ball, will reportedly be replaced by a 124-unit housing development. The popular Belltown pinball bar Shorty’s is slated to be replaced with housing, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. (Google Street View) With the death of Shorty’s also comes the demise
  
  Read more

• And Now I Have to Say Something About Kim Davis

  01-09-2015 21:43
  
  I've pretty much ignored Kim Davis—save the odd tweet or RT—since she first made the news for refusing to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. Davis is the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, an elected position, and everyone from the governor to the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Davis to comply with the post-Obergefell law-of-the-land and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis has refused because she's a Christian, you see, and as a Christian she believes same-sex ma
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Keeping Up with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

  01-09-2015 21:35
  
  Not pictured: Eddie Izzard.
  A healthy lizard will shed its skin two to four times a year, sometimes more. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard keep roughly the same pace, changing their approach, sound, and instrumentation at a dizzying clip. The Australian group was formed by seven close mates in 2010 as a party band with a deliberately silly name, and they've released roughly two albums a year since 2012's 12 Bar Bruise. Their latest, Quarters, is a mellow, zoned-out follow-up to last year's spa
  
  Read more

• Rep. Adam Smith, senior Democrat on Armed Services, backs Iran nuclear deal

  01-09-2015 20:22
  
  U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday he will support the “historic deal” negotiated by the United States and five other powers that will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon for at least the next 15 years. Smith joins U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and Reps. Denny Heck and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., in support for the Iran accord.  The agreement has been denounced by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., a member of
  
  Read more

• Traveling Through Eastern Washington with Big John

  01-09-2015 19:39
  
  Eastern Washington: Dry, beautiful, hazy, and, at times, harrowingly smoky.AG
  Last week, my husband and I took a road trip to Montana, which included a couple of days in the dry, beautiful—and, at times, harrowingly smoky—landscape of eastern Washington. I was struck, as I always am, by the magnitude of our state’s agriculture business. Long stretches of rolling hills in infinite shades of dusty beige gave way to seemingly endless green miles of vineyards, orchards, cornstalks,
  
  Read more

• Rentboy and myRedBook Made Sex Work Safer

  01-09-2015 18:22
  
  An anonymous gay male sex worker—a man who started doing sex work after he was thrown out of the house as a teenager by his evangelical parents—explains how sites like Rentboy and myRedBook made sex work safer:
  The federal prosecution of third-party advertisers like Rentboy and myRedBook—and, looming on the horizon, that pesky people-peddler Backpage.com—will not result in a world-wide financial crisis in the formal economy. But it will destroy an informal economy that in
  
  Read more

• Tickets for Pop-Up Magazine Go on Sale Today

  01-09-2015 17:27
  
  This is gonna be good.
  What started as an intimate event in San Francisco's Mission District in 2009 has turned into a sells-out-in-seconds affair at the 2,600-seat Davies Symphony Hall. Now, Pop-Up Magazine is going on a national tour for the very the first time, and will stop in Seattle at Town Hall on October 21.The concept is simple: Writers, radio producers, photographers, filmmakers, and illustrators present new, mostly reported stories live on stage using a variety of media. The end resul
  
  Read more

• The Morning News: How Seattle Could Unionize Lyft and Uber, How Chehalis Is Criminalizing Poverty

  01-09-2015 17:15
  
  Could pairing drivers with non-profits allow them to collectively bargain in Seattle? City of Seattle
  Council Member Mike O'Brien Has a Plan to Help Lyft and Uber Drivers Unionize: Uber and Lyft drivers are independent contractors, which means that they're unprotected by federal and local labor laws. O'Brien's plan involves pairing drivers with non-profits that can bargain on their behalf, ensuring that drivers making less than the city's minimum wage can earn a fair living. Heidi has more here.
  
  Read more

• The Morning News: How Seattle Could Help Unionize Lyft and Uber, How Chehalis Is Criminalizing Poverty

  01-09-2015 17:15
  
  Could pairing drivers with non-profits allow them to collectively bargain in Seattle? City of Seattle
  Council Member Mike O'Brien Has a Plan to Help Lyft and Uber Drivers Unionize: Uber and Lyft drivers are independent contractors, which means that they're unprotected by federal and local labor laws. O'Brien's plan involves pairing drivers with non-profits that can bargain on their behalf, ensuring that drivers making less than the city's minimum wage can earn a fair living. Heidi has more here.
  
  Read more

• Some Uber and Lyft drivers want a union

  01-09-2015 05:57
  
  Some Uber and Lyft drivers want a union
  
  Read more

• Report out Tuesday on deadly Marysville-Pilchuck shooting

  01-09-2015 05:50
  
  Report out Tuesday on deadly Marysville-Pilchuck shooting
  
  Read more

• Pam Roach is often moved to run, from one house to another and now from one county to another

  01-09-2015 04:32
  
  State Sen. Pam Roach, R-31, has feuded with Republican colleagues, won election as Senate president pro tem with Democratic votes, and run for such offices as U.S. Congress and King County Council. She has been known to shift residences to run, and is now shifting counties.  Roach plans to run for the Pierce County Council in 2016, in the process shifting her legal residence from a South King County farm to a home she owns in Sumner. State Sen. Pam Roach, R-31:  She’s moved to ru
  
  Read more

• Irrational ideas that motivate people to move to Seattle

  01-09-2015 03:13
  
  Irrational (Wiki): Cognition, thinking, talking or acting without inclusion of rationality. Seattle is a great place, no doubt. The scenery. The culture. The economy. But it’s not an easy place to get by in, socially or otherwise.
  
  Read more

• Savage Love Letter of the Day: Say the Right Thing

  01-09-2015 03:05
  
  Background: an early-twenty-something cousin of mine came out to me over a meal a few months ago. The discomfort around the uncharted territory of coming out was apparent in both our behaviours. I think his exact words were, “Oh, so… I’m very gay.” It was all sort of nonchalant and in the same tone as, “Oh, so… I’m switching majors.” He gave me no time to sense what he might be about to share with me, Dan, so it completely blindsided me. So the f
  
  Read more

• Trump unleashes Willie Horton-style attack video on Jeb Bush

  01-09-2015 01:55
  
  Billionaire and reality TV show mogul Donald Trump has spent August playing with former Republican 2016 front runner Jeb Bush in the manner that a large, mean cat bats around a desperate mouse. “The Donald” first unearthed an old morning TV interview in which Barbara Bush, the wife and mother of presidents, initially discouraged a run by son Jeb, saying:  “We’ve had enough Bushes.” (The Silver Fox later changed her mind.) Trump has now released a video on Insta
  
  Read more

• Seattle City Council Member Mike O'Brien Wants to Give Uber and Lyft Drivers the Right to Unionize

  01-09-2015 01:22
  
  "There's nothing innovative about creating a whole new industry that is fueled on the backs of low-wage workers," said Seattle City Council member Mike O'Brien, who's introducing legislation allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to bargain over pay and working conditions. Dan Nolte, City of Seattle
  Less than $2.75. That's how much Takele Woldemariam, who drives for Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar, says he made per hour in 2014 once he accounted for the cost of driving. Woldemariam stood with other drivers, rep
  
  Read more

Follow @Seattle_news_ on Twitter!