Yesterday on the Seattle Times site, attention was brought to the recent proposition expanding our state’s domestic partnership law. Described as “everything but marriage“, the expansion is being sponsored by Senator Ed Murray and Representative Jamie Pederson.

“Murray and Pedersen, two of the Legislature’s five openly gay lawmakers, said they had the support of Democratic leadership for the measure. And while Gov. Christine Gregoire hasn’t yet seen the bill, she is supportive of expanding the domestic-partnership law, spokesman Aaron Toso said.”

A related story on the Times site summarizes the rights bestowed by current domestic partnership legislature, passed in 2007 and also sponsored by Senator Ed Murray, as well as what would be gained by the proposed bill including “property and guardianship rights”.

“The overriding theme for this package is the financial security of domestic partners and their families,” Pedersen said. “A lot of this is tied to letting people organize their affairs so they are secure financially.”

Equal Rights Washington will be hosting an Equality Day on March 12th in Olympia advocating “anti-discrimination legislature and marriage equality”. Visit their website for more details. Click here to send a message to your district representative.

I suppose the announcement of Gregoire’s budget cuts and the elimination of GAU and ADATSA happened a little while ago, but why can’t I find any news on it?

After a little bit of Googling, I came up with this article from the News Tribune blog.

“The governor’s budget office says the state can save nearly $415 million over the next two years by making such a move, although Gregoire would boost spending on homeless shelters by $20 million and for community health clinics by $40 million to offset some of the impacts of ending the two assistance programs.”

Gregoire has everything mixed up. Cutting GAU and ADATSA and moving funding to shelters and health clinics does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to address the problem of chemical dependency rates and homelessness within our city. Without these two programs or Drug Court (which has the potential to be cut in June), hundreds of addicts will remain active on the streets committing crimes, in shelters taking up space, in hospitals racking up bills, in jails costing state money, and unfortuantely, dying a drug or alchohol induced death. Contrast that with the success rate of ADATSA and drug court of transitioning addicts to healthy members of society who then get jobs, buy houses, start businesses, and spend money. Not only is enabling the recovery of addicts good for economy, it’s also saving the lives of countless of otherwise hopeless individuals whose only chance to escape from their disease is to be forced by our legal system

House Speaker Frank Chopp (despite his lack of rational viaduct planning) still has the ability to empathize.

“We’re looking to make some changes (to GAU) in a logical way . . . otherwise some people could die.”

Budget cuts leading to death may seem slightly dramatic, but it is in no way unrealistic. Chemical dependency is a life-threatening disease, leading to death and undoubtedly the destruction of one’s livelihood.

It’s even more frustrating that I could barely find an article on the topic.

7:00 PM: The U-District UW Bookstore hosts Ronald White, author of A. Lincoln: A Biography, to read and sign the first of what will indubitably be a slew of Lincoln books released this year. That’s what happens when you turn 200. White is an actual historian, so A. Lincoln relies heavily on period documents to present a nuanced portrait of the American icon.
White has also written two other Lincoln themed books, both available at SPL: Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (Thorndike Press, 2002) and The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln through his Words (Random House, 2005).
[LINK]

* 7:30 PM: Elliott Bay Book Co. has three Northwest poets reading tonight: Carol Guess reads from Tinderbox Lawn; Jen Currin reads from Hagiography; Kim Minkus reads from 9 Freight.
[LINK]

* 7:30 PM: More poetry at Richard Hugo House: Cody Walker, former writer-in-residence, has successfully gotten published. Woot! Help him celebrate the release of Shuffle and Breakdown in the Cabaret.
[LINK]

* 7:30 PM: And yet more poetry! Emily Warn reads from her third collection of poems, The Shadow Architect, at Open Books in Wallingford.
[LINK]

* 7:30 PM: If poetry is not your bag, Matt Miller, host of NPR’s “Left, Right, & Center” visits Town Hall Seattle to say, “Told ya so! Told ya! Dude, I called it! Who’s your Daddy, huh?” His book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting Go of the Old Ways of Thinking to Unleash a New Prosperity, and yes, he totally called it. Sort of. Downstairs, $5.
[LINK]

Canadians, the Washington State Ferry System would like you to get the rest of the way off their lawn. Starting on February 25th, Canadian currency will no longer be accepted for payment. Checks, too, are going away. (People pay to get on the ferries with checks? Apparently, not many of them do–”Checks accounted for less than 4.5 percent of all forms of payment collected by WSF in 2008. Eliminating checks will save as much as $50,000 annually in processing fees.”)

As it stand, the Anacortes ferry terminal is the only one that accepts Canadian currency these days anyhow, but no more of that. You also won’t be able to buy senior, disabled, or youth fares at the kiosks or online anymore. Starting February 25th, you’ll have to go to the tollbooth and show some sort of senior, disabled, or youth ID, to make sure that the discounts are only going to the people who deserve them.

photo by Castañuelas [flickr] via our group pool [#].

• Calling out for a sea of outrage concerning a container ship blocking the views of diners at Bell Street. [seattlest]
• Take the Wallingfordiest photo and win a gift certificate to get it (or something else) framed. [wallyhood]
• Nick Licata is holding a hearing on Wednesday to talk about “Is it Curtains for Daily Newspapers in the Culture of Democracy and Citizen Discourse?” [dailyweekly]
• The JPMorganChase takeover of WaMu means that SAM is looking at a $5.8 million hole in their operating budget. [slog]
• The single issue mail-election might be a bit infuriating, but at least you can track you ballot from start to finish. [myballard]

It’s officially Chinese New Year (the year of the Ox). So get trashed with Dick Clark (or really cool looking dragons), shop at Uwajimaya for fruits you could never find at Safeway and head down to the ID this Saturday for the Lunar Celebration down at Hing Hay Park. It’s free!

photo by amelia bauer via department of eagles [myspace].

As Andrea mentioned last week [mb], Department of Eagles provides a perfect soundtrack for walking along the waterfront sidewalk beneath Olympic Sculpture Park in this permafoggy weather that has descended on Seattle in between bouts of snow showers. A lot less mystical than Grizzly Bear (Daniel Rossen’s slightly more enfamed band), this duo (the other half is Fred Nicolaus), which sprung from a dorm synth project now still errs on the side of pastoral chamber pop. Touring behind last year’s In Ear Park , they’ll team up with the Cave Singers (Seattleites who work a folksy washboard a whole lot better than you’d expect from Pretty Girls Make Graves or Cobra High alums) for a show at Neumo’s on Wednesday night.

We’ve got a pair of tickets so that one of you charming readers can experience this firsthand. Send a note to seattle.metblogs at gmail.com with “department of eagles” in the subject for a chance to win.

// Department of Eagles, Cave Singers. 8 pm, $13 adv, 28 february. [neumos]