We are voters in the 3rd Congressional District who were mistakenly under the impression that we were electing a representative. Brian Baird was that representative. Originally critical of the ongoing debacle in Iraq, something happened to him along the way. Something strange. Following his most recent trip to the Green Zone, he became surge happy. at Brian Baird Watch, we try to explore what happened to Brian, and how we can determine whether he's been replaced by a robot.

http://bairdwatch.blogspot.com/

I can't even find the words

http://boortz.com/slideshows/7656/9.html

When your friends

misunderstand your works

and your enemies understand

them all too well, when

waking up every morning

feels like a defeat rather than

a triumph, when the razor

blade or the cliff's edge

beckons, remember--he is not

pretty, death, only

well-advertised. Remember

what they did to

Michelangelo: they waited

until he was dead and then

painted over all the genitals in

his Sistine Chapel--just as

Nietsche's hated racist sister

presented him to the world as

a proto-fascist genius after he

lost his mind, just as Paul

used Jesus, and Plato

Socrates, and the

Communists Durrutti. Give

your enemies nothing. Let

your tears freeze to stones

we can hurl from catapults,

screaming. Write your own

epitaph and say it loud,

still alive. This life is a war we

are not yet winning for our

daughter's children. Don't do

your enemies' work for

them--finish your own."

-From a letter that didn't reach

Sylvia Plath in time.

Almost every week this is the "What's on the city council's plate this week" review. I don't cover everything, so if you want the full rundown, read the packet and agenda yourself.

This week, the city will discuss possibly paving over the artesian well downtown for a parking structure (ok, I'm not totally sure about that, but it looks like that from the map), building a sidewalk in my neighborhood (yeah!) and possibly buying the Safeway downtown. Seriously, they even wrote up a purchase/sale agreement.

1. The staff is approaching the city council with a request to narrow the locations for the mythical city-owned downtown parking structure to three sites:

• State Avenue, NE, between Adams and Franklin (Department of Transportation)
• 4th Avenue East, between Jefferson and Adams (Olympic Outfitters/Manium)
  
• Legion/Jefferson (Department of Personnel)
  

Here is a map of those locations:

Unless I'm mistaken, isn't the second location right on top of the artesian well downtown? I wonder how that's going to work out.

from KiroTV's website

A King County Councilman is working on a proposal to limit spray can sales to fight the growing problem of graffiti.

Councilman Pete von Reichbauer told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News that he sees a lot of graffiti in his south King County district, and he is tired of it.

“It’s bad for the community. It looks terrible,” said von Reichbauer.

The rest of the story can be found by clicking here.

It's interesting, I heard about this story from a very "conservative" co-worker who is aware of my graffiti-is-art leanings. Her take is that this is a horrible idea because it continues to characterize people as bad without trying to encourage their talents so that they may develop them into positive traits. On top of that she points to it being an unenforceable law that will most likely result in the escalation of break-ins to peoples houses, businesses and storage sheds where spray paint is often kept. I don't profess to know that will be the outcome, but I completely agree with her that generational differences and resistance to change are resulting in missed opportunities to encourage the development of talents that could actually benefit communities.

Must ... resist ... nnnggh! ... overwhelming compulsion ...