Seattle news

• Your Guide to Nerdy Things To Do During Emerald City Comicon Weekend

  06-04-2016 23:46 via thestranger.com
  
  by Stranger Things To Do StaffAre you ready for cosplayers to take over downtown this weekend? JACKIE CANCHOLA
  Tickets are officially sold out for Emerald City Comicon, which starts on April 7, but, whether you didn't get tickets and are feeling left out of all the geekiness that's going to be happening in town this weekend or you do have tickets and are looking to maximize your involvement in said geekiness, you're in luck. There are lots of nerdy, Comicon-related events happening that you can
  
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• Sarah Palin and Azealia Banks Collaborate on Exciting New Gibberish Project

  06-04-2016 23:41 via thestranger.com
  
  by Matt BaumePalin prepping for this week's flame war.Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
  It's always a delightful surprise when your favorite artists release an unexpected new work, and today we are celebrating a round-robin of nonsense courtesy of beat poet Sarah Palin and ineffable trickster goddess Azealia Banks.
  It's hard to imagine two women with less in common, aside from a mutually antagonistic attitude towards the gays. Also, they both support Donald Trump.
  But they share more than
  
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• Merle Haggard Died Today on His 79th Birthday

  06-04-2016 23:35 via thestranger.com
  
  by Ned LannamannMerle Haggard in 2013.
  Well, crap.
  From the Bakersfield Californian:Merle Haggard composed the soundtrack of a generation of displaced Okies, Arkies and Texans — the rootlessness, the poverty, the field work — but he did it with such towering artistry that the Oildale native, the son of a railroad man and God-fearing mother, belonged not just to Bakersfield but the world.
  The poet of the working man died Wednesday — his 79th birthday — at his home near Red
  
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• Guest Editorial: If You Must Know, I Happen to Have Good Reasons for Being "V" Batman

  06-04-2016 23:15 via thestranger.com
  
  by Superman
  In the weeks since the release of my newest movie, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I have been disturbed by the many Facebook messages I'm receiving asking why I am so "v" Batman. This makes no sense, people keep saying. He is a fellow superhero. Why is it necessary for me to be "v" him? Actually, I have several reasons why I'm "v" Batman.
  Reason one: Friends don't backstab friends. Every Tuesday, I have lunch with Martian Manhunter. We go to Chipotle. Batman knows this, and yet
  
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• Prisoner Rights Advocates Ask Seattle to Block Youth Detention Center Permit Over Toxic Contamination Concerns

  06-04-2016 22:52 via thestranger.com
  
  by Sydney BrownstoneThe site of the current (and future) youth detention center on 12th Avenue and Alder Street sits on top of contaminated groundwater. King County
  Opponents of the Central District's new youth detention center have protested the project for years on the grounds of steep racial disparities in the juvenile justice system and lasting damage from the school-to-prison pipeline. But now, human rights advocates are making a new argument against the juvie: the presence of toxic chemica
  
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• Calvin Trillin's Nostalgia for a White Planet

  06-04-2016 22:45 via thestranger.com
  
  by Rich SmithIn this issue of the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin feels overwhelmed by Chinese food trends in the U.S. and longs for the "simpler days of chow mein but no stress." The New Yorker
  The food writer/poet/long-time contributor to the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin, has a poem in the April 4th issue of New Yorker called, "Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?" The poem is a series of rhyming couplets wherein the speaker seems beguiled and overwhelmed by the apparent onslaught ("too many to name,"
  
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• Judge Rules Against Kesha, Declares "Every Rape Is Not a Gender-Motivated Hate Crime."

  06-04-2016 22:18 via thestranger.com
  
  by Sean NelsonAll claims denied.Jaguar PS/Shutterstock
  About an hour ago, TMZ reported that a judge has rejected Kesha's legal appealto a judge's decision in February not to grant an emergency injunction to free her from her contract. According to AP, NY Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich, ruled today that "Kesha's claims against Dr. Luke (real name: Lukasz Gottwald) can't go forward because the alleged incidents happened outside New York and beyond the legal time limit."The legal ac
  
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• How Does Jay Inslee's Republican Challenger Feel About Donald Trump?

  06-04-2016 21:33 via thestranger.com
  
  by Sydney BrownstoneBill Bryant: Uhhhhhh. *runs away* Don Wilson/Port of Seattle
  This is funny.P.S. Democrats can be evasive, too. See Governor Jay Inslee on charter schools.UPDATE: Heidi Groover has brought my attention to this very important gif as well. [ Comment on this story ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
  
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• Family of youngest Ride the Ducks victim files suit

  06-04-2016 21:18
  
  The family blames the outdated bridge, Ride the Ducks negligence for 17-year-old's death.
  
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• Exclusive: Watch Draemhouse's Swoonsome, Chill New Single, "Mr. Kerosone"

  06-04-2016 21:00 via thestranger.com
  
  by Dave Segal
  After Rose Windows' rather abrupt 2015 demise, main songwriter Chris Cheveyo regrouped with RW drummer Pat Schowe, Red Ribbons' Emma Danner, and Our Mother the Mountain's Brock Carless and formed Dræmhouse. The Seattle group's latest release, the Only Friends EP, hones a mellow, feel-good vibe and exquisite melodic development, topped by Cheveyo and Danner's complementary, understated vocals. It's all very hushed and unruffled compared to Rose Windows at their most turbulent
  
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• A Decade of Burial, the Genius Geist of Dubstep

  06-04-2016 20:58 via thestranger.com
  
  by Charles MudedeThis is the greatest album of the previous decade. Hyperdub
  This is what happened exactly 10 years ago: It is around noon, it is sunny outside (like it is today), and an email from Steven Shaviro (one of the most influential American philosophers of our times) appears on my computer screen. I open it and find a link to a BBC radio program, Breezeblock, that's the epicenter of a new movement of music called dubstep. The show's host is Mary Anne Hobbs, and her featured artist is a
  
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• Bigots Blow Up KOMO News Facebook Page

  06-04-2016 20:57 via thestranger.com
  
  by Dan SavageYesterday KOMO News ground out a quick story about Seattle Mayor Ed Murray's decision to ban official travel to Mississippi—which Murray did after the governor of that state signed a bill that legalized discrimination against LGBT people (and straight cohabitors and single parents and non-married sexually-active straight people, etc.)—and all hell broke loose after KOMO News tossed it up on their Facebook page...There's a lot more where that came from. So, yeah, if you e
  
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• Research: Vibrant vocabulary rife with swearing means you're smart

  06-04-2016 20:52
  
  Don't worry, we're not going to use this research as a chance to cuss in this story. In fact, you can read it out loud to your children. So, go ahead, gather up the youngins. We'll wait.
  
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• Woman Yells at Florida Governor in a Starbucks: "You're An Asshole"

  06-04-2016 20:49 via thestranger.com
  
  by Ansel HerzEverything about this is perfect. Via the Huffington Post:✊🏽👏🏼👌[ Comment on this story ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
  
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• Margaret the First Is Danielle Dutton’s Ode to Female Literary Ambition

  06-04-2016 20:46 via thestranger.com
  
  by Megan Burbank
  "I am not Covetous,” wrote Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish in her 1668 book The Blazing World, “but as Ambitious as ever any of my Sex was, is, or can be; which is the cause, That though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavour to be, Margaret the First.”
  Danielle Dutton takes the title for her new novel, Margaret the First, from this declaration, indicative as it is of author’s ambition. Cavendish wasn’t fuc
  
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• Peter Murphy's Existential State. A Long Interview with the ex-Bauhaus Singer and Solo Artist

  06-04-2016 20:33 via thestranger.com
  
  by Sean NelsonPeter Murphy plays two shows TONIGHT at the Triple Door! Cihan Unalan
  Even if the name Peter Murphy isn't familiar, you're certain to have heard his voice booming through the echoes of his old band Bauhaus's statement of purpose, "Bela Lugosi's Dead." You may also know "Cuts You Up," the hit from his fantastic 1990 solo album, Deep. The former is guaranteed a certain immortality because it's the definitive goth gateway drug, but the latter is a better song, and both are just the tw
  
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• Kent won’t sell Pine Tree Park after all; mistake costs taxpayers $760,000

  06-04-2016 20:01
  
  The City of Kent’s decision to sell a public park to a developer without telling the public turned out to be a pricey one.
  
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• How the City of Seattle Trashes Homeless People's Belongings and Chases Them Around Town

  06-04-2016 19:28 via thestranger.com
  
  by Ansel HerzThe city dumps a lot of homeless people's stuff in the trash, including important personal items, and effectively chases them from place to place through its encampment sweeps. Lacounty.gov
  As is well known, the City of Seattle is experiencing an "emergency" on homelessness, with an estimated 2,813 people sleeping outside every night in Seattle and only 1,600 shelter beds funded by the city. At the same time, city government has controversially stepped up evictions of homeless peopl
  
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• Science News: Washington's Brown Bats Face Apocalypse, and What Genes of Pre-Columbian Mummies Tell Us About European Contact with Indigenous People

  06-04-2016 19:05 via thestranger.com
  
  by Ethan LinckOne way to respond to ocean acidification? Reduce the emission of carbon. NIKKOS DASKALAKIS/shutterstock.com
  A Plan Is Proposed to Counter Ocean Acidification: Ocean acidification is a familiar topic to regular news readers in Puget Sound, who may remember both the Seattle Times’ recent three part investigation of its impact on the Pacific and pointed criticism from familiar quarters (yes, Cliff Mass).The details of that debate notwithstanding, ocean acidification remains a m
  
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• Scientists blame El Nino, warming for ‘gruesome’ coral death

  06-04-2016 18:45
  
  The coral on the sea floor around the Pacific island of Kiritimati looked like a boneyard in November — stark, white and lifeless. But there was still some hope. This month, color returned with fuzzy reds and browns, but that’s not good news. Algae has overtaken the lifeless coral on what had been some of […]
  
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• What Will the Changes at the New Foundation Mean for the Future of Funding of Risky Art in Seattle?

  06-04-2016 18:07 via thestranger.com
  
  by Jen GravesThe New Foundation Gallery is closing next month
  Last Wednesday morning at 9:07 am, someone at a PR firm pressed send on an email that set the Seattle art world into a heated conversation about what it means and how to feel when private philanthropists suddenly change their minds and their plans.
  The email was an announcement that Shari Behnke, the prominent Seattle philanthropist who in 2012 founded The New Foundation Seattle to support local contemporary artists, which opened a Pi
  
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• The Morning News: Mayor and Governor Impose More Travel Bans, WSDOT Wonders Which Type of Anti-Homeless Fence Is Best

  06-04-2016 17:28 via thestranger.com
  
  by Heidi GrooverIs there such a thing as "essential" government travel to Mississippi? City of Seattle
  Ed Murray and Jay Inslee Ban Official Travel to Mississippi: Following a similar ban on travel to North Carolina, the governor and mayor have both banned non-essential publicly funded travel to Mississippi after that state passed a law legalizing discrimination against LGBT people.
  Protesters Take Over UW Meeting on Race Relations: "Saying the university isn’t moving fast enough to solve
  
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• Against Safe Injection Sites for Drug Users? A Self-Guided Walking Tour Through the Injection Sites We Already Have Just Might Change Your Mind!

  06-04-2016 17:24 via thestranger.com
  
  by Stranger Staff ROBERT ULLMAN
  Attention, moralizing pearl-clutchers:
  Do you think allowing a safe consumption site for drug users will only "enable" people who use illegal drugs? Do you, like KIRO radio host Jason Rantz, think safe consumption sites represent "coddling behavior"? Do you agree with Magnolia resident Cindy Pierce, who thinks anyone using a safe consumption site should be required to get treatment? Do you fear, as seemingly every online commenter does, that this will only increas
  
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• Idaho governor vetoes bill to allow more use of Bible in schools

  06-04-2016 17:15
  
  The rejected legislation stated the Bible could be used for reference purposes in subjects such as literature, history, music and world geography. Idaho’s governor called the measure unconstitutional.
  
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• Seattle’s IB schools are national outliers in lack of support from district

  06-04-2016 15:06
  
  Across the country, thousands of schools offer the rigorous International Baccalaureate program. Seattle is the only large district in the Pacific Northwest that makes parents or individual schools pay for it.
  
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• Stunning photos capture the workers who built Space Needle

  06-04-2016 14:30
  
  Never-before displayed photos of the Space Needle construction show iron workers with no harnesses and steel, lots of steel.
  
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• Noel Fielding Does America

  06-04-2016 13:00 via thestranger.com
  
  Noel Fielding Does America. The Star of The Mighty Boosh Describes the Process of Touring His Theatrical Stand-Upby Sean Nelson"It was always niggling me," said Noel Fielding. "I've always wanted to do America."And he is. The costar and cocreator of The Mighty Boosh, a truly bizarre and inspired British sitcom that achieved cult status over here, is doing his first American tour. The show, An Evening with Noel Fielding, is part of a specific tradition that exists in the UK of popular TV shows go
  
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• Melissa McCarthy Saves The Boss

  06-04-2016 13:00 via thestranger.com
  
  Melissa McCarthy Saves The Bossby Wm. Steven HumphreyIf you're not already watching Melissa McCarthy on Gilmore Girls (currently streaming on Netflix and in heavy rotation at my house), you're doing yourself the worst of disservices. As Sookie, Lorelai Gilmore's best friend, McCarthy had a laser beam focus in every scene—practically stealing every one of them. These are the types of actors who get work, so it's little surprise she hopped from numerous TV series to co-starring in major film
  
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• Labor Is the Star of Adam Sekuler’s Work in Progress

  06-04-2016 13:00 via thestranger.com
  
  Labor Is the Star of Adam Sekuler’s Work in Progressby Julia RabanAdam Sekuler’s Work in Progress is a series of two-minute video clips, each depicting someone at work. That’s it. There’s no commentary, no introduction, and no conclusion, and yet the argument it conveys is powerful and precise. At its core, the film is an ode to labor—to the work that defines us, about the contribution we make to society that feeds us. But Work in Progress is cleverly in progress it
  
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• Demolition Has Oscarless Jake Gyllenhaal Playing a Normal Guy

  06-04-2016 13:00 via thestranger.com
  
  Demolition Has Oscarless Jake Gyllenhaal Playing a Normal Guyby Kathy FennessyOf the actors to transform themselves most dramatically this decade, from Christian Bale in The Fighter to Jared Leto in Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club, Jake Gyllenhaal is a master of the form, and yet he lacks the Oscar to show for it. He was buff and bald for Jarhead, bulky and scarred for Southpaw, and bug-eyed and skeletal for Nightcrawler. If he wasn’t such a skilled actor, you might conf
  
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• Rare Sumatran rhinoceros, captured on Borneo, dies

  06-04-2016 11:46
  
  JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A rare Sumatran rhinoceros has died just a month after being captured by Indonesian conservation experts on Borneo, where only of a few of the animals survive. Nyoman Iswarayoga, a spokesman for World Wildlife Fund Indonesia, said Wednesday that the female rhino, named Najaq, had a severe infection from wounds believed […]
  
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• Cambodia to repopulate forests with tigers from abroad

  06-04-2016 09:48
  
  PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia has unveiled a plan to reintroduce tigers from abroad into the dry forests of the country, where the big cat has become virtually extinct thanks to poaching, conservation officials said Wednesday. Between 20 and 50 tigers were believed to exist in Cambodia’s forests, but years of illegal poaching — […]
  
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• Police: 4-time arsonist charged in new blaze sought ‘release’

  06-04-2016 07:01
  
  Four times Constatin Deaconu has been caught setting homes on fire. Twice the Bellevue man has been sent to a state mental hospital after being acquitted due to insanity. As it turns out, Deaconu lights fires when he's not well. Any guesses as to what Deaconu, 53, is accused of now?
  
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• The Blazing World of Margaret the First

  06-04-2016 06:13 via thestranger.com
  
  Margaret the First Is Danielle Dutton’s Ode to Female Literary Ambitionby Megan Burbank"I am not Covetous,” wrote Duchess of Newcastle Margaret Cavendish in her 1668 book The Blazing World, “but as Ambitious as ever any of my Sex was, is, or can be; which is the cause, That though I cannot be Henry the Fifth, or Charles the Second; yet, I will endeavour to be, Margaret the First.”Danielle Dutton takes the title for her new novel, Margaret the First, from this declaration,
  
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• At least 200 protesters take over UW meeting on race relations

  06-04-2016 05:18
  
  What had been billed as a conversation about “micro aggressions” quickly turned into a series of emotional speeches about racial tensions on campus, punctuated by chants of “Black lives matter.”
  
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• State suspends license of Tri-City family doctor

  06-04-2016 05:05
  
  Dr. Victor O. Brooks isn’t allowed to practice in the state until the matter is resolved. He has 20 days to respond and request a hearing.
  
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• Microsoft, Amazon, others excel at offshore tax dance

  06-04-2016 05:00
  
  The invisible web of connections by which the rich get a sweeter deal is starting to be exposed. How America reacts is huge — especially for one of the top users of offshore tax havens, Microsoft.
  
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• We Saw You Walking Your Sheep, Walking Your Dog While Dressed as a Dog, and Riding a Skateboard While a Dog Walked You

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  We Saw You Walking Your Sheep, Walking Your Dog While Dressed as a Dog, and Riding a Skateboard While a Dog Walked Youby Stranger StaffWALKING YOUR SHEEP INCOLUMBIA CITYOn a sunny Friday morning in Columbia City, we saw you, a woman, walking westward up Oregon Street. You were not alone. You were accompanied by your dog (on a leash) and two old sheep. One sheep was dirty blond, and the other was black. The black sheep had large, curling horns. The sheep were not on leashes, but free to roam off
  
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• Under the Needle

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  Against Safe Injection Sites for Drug Users? A Self-Guided Walking Tour Through the Injection Sites We Already Have Just Might Change Your Mind!by Stranger StaffAttention, moralizing pearl-clutchers:Do you think allowing a safe consumption site for drug users will only "enable" people who use illegal drugs? Do you, like KIRO radio host Jason Rantz, think safe consumption sites represent "coddling behavior"? Do you agree with Magnolia resident Cindy Pierce, who thinks anyone using a safe consumpt
  
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• Killer Mike and Bernie Sanders Have Brought Politics Back to Hiphop and Vice Versa

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  Killer Mike and Bernie Sanders Have Brought Politics Back to Hiphop, and Vice Versaby Charles MudedeIn the beginning, hiphop was a thriving democracy of personalities, issues, sounds, and styles. There were rappers who were on the hippie tip (De La Soul), the trad B-boy tip (Main Source), the hardcore tip (Schoolly D), the feminist tip (Queen Latifah), the Afrocentric tip (X-Clan), the eccentric tip (Kwamé the Boy Genius), the Islamic tip (Poor Righteous Teachers), the cosmic tip (Jungle
  
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• Don't Sleep on A Good Day in the Ghetto

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  My Philosophy: Brighter Days Ahead (A Good Day in the Ghetto) and Behind (The Art of Organized Noize)by Larry Mizell Jr.Life, it's said, comes at you fast. One day you're a powerful politician or captain of industry hiding bajillions in offshore accounts, when all of a sudden the Guardian tags that ass in a new photo on IG. Yikes.Or you're gleefully dog-piling and supposed-slut-shaming singer Kehlani on social media, then the next day you're keeping quiet as she recovers from harming herself in
  
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• At Lionhead, Jerry Traunfeld Goes in a New Direction—Sichuan Peppercorns, Doubanjiang, and Other Chinese Ingredients

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  At Lionhead, Jerry Traunfeld Goes in a New Direction—Sichuan Peppercorns, Doubanjiang, and Other Chinese Ingredientsby Angela GarbesA few weeks ago, on the opening day of the University Linklight rail extension, I walked a mile and a half from my
  house to the Beacon Hill light rail station. As the sun set, Idescended into a tunnel and boarded a train. While facing backward, I traveled forward and, 20 minutes later, emerged—magically it seemed—onto a busy corner of Capitol Hill.
  
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• Weed Businesses in Sodo Do Their Part for the Neighborhood

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  Weed Businesses in Sodo Do Their Part for the Neighborhoodby Tobias Coughlin-BogueLast Sunday, instead of going skateboarding in the surprisingly sunny April weather we've been having, I grabbed a trash bag and some rubber gloves and set out into Sodo. I know what you're thinking, and no, it wasn't court-appointed community service.I went down to join the Sodo Green Team, a bunch of cannabis industry do-gooders who get together to pick up trash in the area around their facilities. The group is o
  
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• Terminal Dread Got You Down? Let the Drone Cinema Film Festival Soothe Your Fear of Death

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  Terminal Dread Got You Down? Let the Drone Cinema Film Festival Soothe Your Fear of Deathby Dave SegalLast July, I finally came to terms with dying, after decades of being terrified of it. I have the overwhelming piano music of Ukrainian composer Lubomyr Melnyk, which I experienced in Chapel Performance Space during Substrata 1.5 festival, to thank.For much of my life, I have sought refuge from thoughts of mortality in drone music and its seemingly infinite sustenance. I've come to think of this
  
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• Have an Opinion About Bernie Sanders? Or Hillary Clinton? Or Donald Trump? Just Shut Up.

  06-04-2016 02:25 via thestranger.com
  
  Have an Opinion About Bernie Sanders? Or Hillary Clinton? Or Donald Trump? Just Shut Up.by Neal PollackThirteen years ago, in this tawdry and marginally readable newspaper that recently issued a noncommittal and moronic "double endorsement" in the state Democratic caucuses, I published an award-winning essay called "Just Shut Up." At the time, America found itself embroiled in a "debate" over invading Iraq. I put the word debate in quotes because it was obvious then, and it's even more obvious n
  
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• Seattle one of the world's most 'future-ready' cities

  06-04-2016 02:05
  
  Seattle is ready for the future, at least according to a new ranking by Dell.
  
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• On TV Tonight: The Season Finale of The People v O.J. Simpson

  06-04-2016 02:02 via thestranger.com
  
  by Wm. Steven HumphreyIf you haven't heard me yelping about the best new show of this season, The People v O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, then hear me now! The season finale for this absolutely excellent, funny, smart, and most of all, politically relevant show is TONIGHT (April 5) on FX at 10 pm. Sarah Paulson is a goddamn revelation as prosecutor Marcia Clark, and though wildly improbable, the creators havemanaged to imbue a sense of humanity into practically every single character in the
  
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• Enter to win a pair of tickets to Sigur Ros!

  06-04-2016 01:18 via thestranger.com
  
  by Taffy MarlerEntries accepted until 2:59pm (PT) on Friday, September 9thThree lucky winners will each receive a pair of tickets to see Sigur Ros at The Paramount Theatre on Tuesday, September 20th.
  Enter HERE.[ Comment on this story ][ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]
  
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• Seattle Central College interim president in running for president’s job

  06-04-2016 00:47
  
  Sheila Edwards Lange has been interim president since late last year.
  
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