This Week in Blogs

The Real Radical Homosexual Agenda: It has nothing to do with equal marriage rights, employment non-discrimination, military service, adoption, public schoolteacher positions, or anything of this sort.

The real Radical Homosexual Agenda^TM is to tie up traffic with all these darn parades and shut down busing service. This is, to say the least, a pain in my derriere.

You go, boyfriend.

Matt Yglesias and the folks at Crooked Timber want Democrats to stop following the polls and instead try and move them (the polls, that is) in a direction more suited towards Democratic leadership. I wholeheartedly agree.

Neil the Ethical Werewolf goes on the list of people to read for his high quality work over at Ezra's.

Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon has some thoughts on Riot Girl (or Riot Grrl, if you prever) and its seeping into pop elements through avenues such as Avril Lavigne. As a sometimes unapologetic listener to pop in a non-ironic manner, including ... yes ... Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette, as well as more "authentic" acts like Sleater-Kinney, Northern State, and to a lesser extent, Bikini Kill and maybe Le Tigre on a good day, I think it may take several more generations before all the barriers of cultural norms are taken down. Apparently Will Smith isn't allowed to date a white woman on camera; nor, for that matter, is anyone who's African-American unless you're going to make an entire movie about interracial dating. Also, you're always going to have to go outside of mainstream culture to get ... well, cultural views that are outside the mainstream. On a similar note let me say that her thoughts on the stifling nature of the roles given to women in film are spot on [Curse you, David Simon! Now every time I hear those words I will think of Jimmy McNulty getting snogged by two Eastern European call girls! Ahh!]and detrimental to the cause of good art. Though, here again it's always the case that you can find unstifling roles, they just don't get as much funding from the major studios.

Kelo caused a lot of teeth-gnashing, but really Matt is right. This isn't even as bad as the Michigan case, where the city bulldozed an entire neighborhood to build a plant for GM. The mall will in theory benefit local consumers in addition to the net jobs gain it may provide. And the idea that the courts should start meddling in zoning laws is a bad idea -- pretty stoon they're stepping on rent control, regulations on affordable urban housing, and all other manner of nasty subjects. Having elected city council officials make these decisions, rather thaning unelected judges (working in hideosly overburdened courts) into zoning boards, is a more workable solution.

Goldy says we should go back to the drawing board on the Monorail again, and get both the funding and the plan right. In my book, the plan is close enough to what the voters really want -- commuter monorail connecting Ballard to West Seattle, opening four more neighborhoods to downtown access with a single no-transfer trip -- that the cost structure can be fixed later, either by not building a mile or two on each end, running trains slightly less frequently, or some other tweaks. We've had four votes on this infernal project, and there's just no need for a fifth. I should also say that the dwindling tax revenue is a reason to get behind the idea of rezoning large portions of Seattle for more multifamily housing with ... yes ... parking space for more than one car per housing unit. I'm not picky about where this happen -- it could be Sodo, South Lake Union, or Northgate, but there is plenty of land here that is ripe for infill, either Portland-style or a move to even more dense housing.

And I repeat, for the love of Lithuania, would you please bring back my summer!!

This Week in Blogs Now Playing: Arcade Fire / The Funeral / Neighborhood #4

This Week in Blogs
Now Playing: Arcade Fire / The Funeral / Neighborhood #4