A few weeks ago I received a King County special elections ballot in the mail. Curious, I opened it and discovered only one race on this ballot. Disgusted with this waste of tax payer dollars ($3million estimated spent on this alone), I tossed the ballot in the stack of mail designed “To Be Sorted Later” and promptly forgot about it. Well, that is until I read a recent article about this election essentially depicting the candidates as a group of nit-picking, name-calling, dirty-trick-pulling children.

To summarize:

• Sherril Huff: the reluctant incumbent. Denies misleading anyone. Heavily encouraged by Ron Sims to run for the seat, rented a house in the county limits the day before registration ended though didn’t move in until the week afterward. Due to Clifford’s allegations, there is a lawsuit pending over whether Huff is eligible to run or not.
• Julie Kempf: running because someone left a nasty note on her car. “It’s a really, really bad day when people don’t run for office when some scum is running around leaving notes on windshields.” Arrested in an investigation of forgery, theft, criminal impersonation and assault, fired from her job as elections superintendent in 2003 (article). Kempf declares that she was never charged with forgery, theft, et al.
• Chris Clifford: declares Kempf to be a liar and the other 4 candidates gutless.
• David Irons: apparently hit his mother, though he dismisses this as routine family squabbling. He has put nearly $100,000 of his own money into the race.
• Pam Roach: reprimanded in 2003 by a Senate committee over the resignations of two of her legislative aides; it also was reported that she had pulled a gun on an aide, though she claims that the event was different than what was claimed by others. She sponsored the “top two” primary bill.
• Bill Anderson: first time running for office.

I think I will still throw my ballot out. This race is a joke.

the walkmen, at bumbershoot this summer (photo by josh [flickr])

• There’s cause to arrive early and stay late tonight at Neumo’s: the lush and gauzy dreampop seance soundtrack of Beach House falls between Johnny and the Moon (Dante DeCaro’s band that isn’t Wolf Parade) and the gravely raw intimacy of the Walkmen. [neumos]
• Day two of the weekend-long post-rock Cumulus Festival floats into King Cobra tonight with Hypatia Lake at the top of the bill before closing out with an afternoon show at the Vera Project tomorrow [cumulusmusicfestival]
• For those on this side of history, the result seems like a foregone conclusion, but tonight the dancers decide as DJs Dave Paul and Indica Jones play out an epic battle between Michael and Prince at Nectar.. [reigncity]

I’m a big fan of the Broadway Across America theater series which gives me the chance to see some of the best shows from the Great White Way without having to go to all the trouble of flying cross-country. This coming season at the Paramount looks to be a great one with Frost/Nixon in May, Wicked in September, August: Osage County in October and the indefatigable Fiddler on the Roof in November and December. Series ticketholders get the obvious advantage of having a selected seat for all four shows, plus they get first shot at buying tickets for Broadway extra shows Cats (playing April 15 – 19) and Rent (June 16 – 21).

The Parmount is hosting a party this Sunday, January 25 from noon to 3 pm to give potential subscribers a chance to meet one on one with box office staff to select the right seat for them and is throwing in savings of up to 20 percent as an additional inducement. In addition to checking out their ticket packages, guests at the free (well, except for the price of the tickets you buy) event get a chance to take backstage tours of the historic Paramount theater, listen to Dennis James play the Wurlitzer organ and indulge in some light refreshments provided by Il Fornaio.

Series and single show tickets will still be available after the one day event but the discount deal is up for grabs Sunday only.

There’s a suspicious package in front of The Cuff (13th and Pine) that is currently being investigated by the SWAT team. The street is currently closed, apparently, but I am unsure yet if that means the 10 and 11 buses have been rerouted. Stay tuned.

EDIT: 13th is closed. No bus reroutes.

Photo via Joleen

Last Edit: Suspicious package was “nothing” according to police. Nothing to see here, move along.

The office of the Seattle City Council has announced that a special meeting of the Energy and Technology committee will be held on Thursday, January 29th at 2:00 PM [AGENDA]. Two items on the agenda are of particular interest:

Item 6. Winter Storm Response: The Council will discuss purchasing snowplow equipment to mount on existing City Light trucks, after a briefing. There is no public debate scheduled for this item, but I’ve no doubt there is plenty of public interest, after the fiascos of this winter.

Item 11. Digital Television Transition: After a briefing, the council will discuss their policy on the transition, as well as their plan for informing the public about the transition. (more…)

For anyone who is Vietnamese, American-Vietnamese or human, check out the totally free Tet Festival happening this weekend at the Seattle Center. I haven’t been to this one, but if it’s like the Year of the Rat festival that happened last year at the King County train station (which was pretty intriguing) then I suggest that you go.

Thanks to a measurable increase in high speed Internet users, Seattle managed to pull off an upset victory over Atlanta (2-time champion) for the top spot in Forbes annual look at America’s most wired cities.  With a slap to the face from our anti-static gloves, the ATL has been put in their place… for now.

Sadly, our neighbors to the south got booted from the top 10 by Minneapolis of all places.  I can just see Nelson popping out from behind a corner, his stubby finger pointed at Portland with a “Ha-ha!” sure to follow.

Excerpt from the story at Forbes.com:

…Seattle’s increased use of broadband that powered it up Forbes’ annual list of the 30 most broadband-connected cities in the U.S. High marks in two other wired city categories–broadband access and wi-fi hot spots–helped Seattle clinch the top spot.

Since 2007, Forbes has measured cities’ wired quotient by computing the percentage of Internet users with high-speed connections and the number of companies providing high-speed Internet. Since many urban residents access the Internet by wi-fi, we also measure the number of public wireless Internet hot spots in a particular city

Now if only my dreams of a (functioning) citywide wi-fi ever come to fruition, I can die a happy geek.

The Children’s Film Festival kicks off at Northwest Film Forum on Friday and runs through February 1 featuring live music and jump roping at the Saturday morning pancake breakfast that precedes the short films smorgasbord, Sunday’s presentation of The Adventures of Prince Achmed (the oldest surviving animated film) with a CD release party for the film’s brand new score by Miles and Karina, and a wonderful variety of shorts, features, documentaries, and animated films from all over the world.

Speaking of children’s films, SIFF continues their Films4Families Saturday morning series with a screening of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the exciting adventure film that features legendary special effects creator Ray Harryhausen’s still stunning stop motion animation. When I was a kid way back in the 1970s I went to every revival screening of this film I could; all these decades later as an adult I still find the story enthralling and the creatures impressively believable. Since contemporary kids routinely see more technologically advanced fx than even Harryhausen himself could have imagined you could take yours to see The 7th Voyage of Sinbad as an entertaining lesson in movie making history but don’t be surprised when they forget about the lesson part and focus on the entertainment.

Also continuing at SIFF: their French Crime Wave series which features this week gangster flick Bob Le Flambeur, twisted thriller Diabolique, darkly comic Coup de Torchon. (Series continues through Thursday, see SIFF’s site for schedule and details.)

ITVS Community Cinema presents a free screening at SIFF Cinema on Saturday the 24th at 3:15 pm of the new documentary Tulia, Texax, a thoughtful examination of the injustice wrought on the people of the titular town when narcotics agent Tom Coleman was hired to work undercover in a drug sting. In an eerie paralell to the infamous “Wenatchee Sex Ring” troubles in our own state, questions were raised about the lawman and his methodology involving in making cases against 46 accused drug dealers–39 of whom were African American–and citizens of Tulia were forced to confront the prejudice and hysteria in their community as lawyers fought to clear the names of the unfairly victimized. Harry Williams of ACLU of Washington was one of those lawyers; he will be on hand at the screening to talk about the issues raised in the film along with ACLU of Washington’s Drug Policy Director Alison Holcomb and Jacque Larrainzair, Policy & Outreach Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights.

One of the most beautiful stories ever put on film, Jean Cocteau’s 1946 retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale is a lavish romance in which beautiful Belle’s pure heart triumphs over greed, treachery, and deceit to transform a fearsome Beast into a magnificent prince all through the power of true love. At the Grand Illusion.

Late night at the Grand Illusion: Stunt Rock, the invented adventures of real life Australian stuntman Grant Paige intercutting intense stunt montages with stage shows by a band called Sorcery in a ” bizarre spectacle of pyrotechnics, wizards, impalements, magic and metal.”

The late Eartha Kitt was sultry, sexy and sensational both on-screen and off. Central Cinema pays tribute to Ms. Kitt by screening one of her hottest films, Anna Lucasta in which she burns up the screen as a girl whose family rejects her for taking her pleasure in dancing and drinking but then try to reel her back in to marry her off to a rich man.

Midnight at the Egyptian: The Matrix starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, a whole ton of CGI and a complicated technological conspiracy plot that’s more than a little difficult to fully comprehend.

This week only at the Varsity: Wendy and Lucy, about a woman (Michelle Williams) whose car and life both break down on the road in Oregon. Also notable at the Varsity is the hold-over of the “roadshow” presentation of Steven Soderbergh’s Che — a two film, four-plus hour account of Che Guevara’s time in Cuba and Bolivia. Benicio Del Toro portrays the revolutionary, and while the first half is a little bit more fun to watch (whether you agree with his motivations or tactics, watching a hardscrabble success is more palatable than the slow slog toward execution and failure), enduring both films in sequence adds something to the experience. There are no credits or trailers and a fifteen minute intervention, so arrive on time and plan accordingly.

On Monday: The Paramount and Trader Joe’s conclude their current highly-excellent Silent Movie Monday series with The Golem, actor and director Paul Wegener’s 1920 film based upon ancient Jewish legend. Here the man-made creature is brought to life by a medieval rabbi in Prague hoping to save his congregation after the emperor orders all Jews to leave the city. The movie’s live soundtrack is provided by Mark Goldstein along with Dennis James on the Wurlitzer and follows a pre-film lecture by Town Hall’s Spider Kedelsky and AJC Seattle Jewish Film Festival director Pamela Lavitt.