Slumberland

In the Max vents his spleen blogroll, Max describes Slumberland thus: “Wendi rambles left-leaningly.” I don’t particularly ramble much, really. In fact, lately, I’ve been on summer schedule — not posting much at all. But I really should make up for this, so I guess I will try to ramble after all, about a variety of things I’ve been thinking about over the last month. It’s old news, sorry.

Jason recently returned from nearly a month working overseas, and it was remarkable how many things seemed to fall apart while he was gone. No, not things around the house, but things around the city. For example, the Seattle Sun and Star went under after only two issues. In the Times article about the paper’s demise, publisher Wallis Bolz said “People don’t want to hear it, but Central and Southeast Seattle cannot support its own newspaper.” This quote is published immediately under a paragraph describing the Sun and Star‘s competition, the Beacon Hill News, which has been publishing since 1924 and still seems to be operating OK — thus watering down Bolz’s point considerably. (For what it’s worth, I liked the paper when it was the South Seattle Star, but was continually disappointed at how Columbia City-centric it tended to be.) I noticed that the Beacon Hill News improved considerably during the Star‘s life, so I hope the new lack of competition doesn’t cause the News to backslide.

While the Sun and Star was imploding, so was the Seattle Monorail Project, which is rapidly falling apart. I talked to Jason in London to tell him what was going on and he could hardly believe it, but it has become more and more apparent that the SMP folks are killing the project with friendly fire. Like many, I voted for a monorail every time it hit the ballot. I still support it, but I cringe nearly every time those connected with the SMP open their mouths these days. What is wrong with them that they are sabotaging their own project? Did the OnTrack people manage to infiltrate the board or something? I don’t really have any particular insightful analysis or anything. I’m just really annoyed that we can’t get a damned monorail built, and that things have gotten so screwed up. (At least the light rail, lame as it is, is going to open in four years.)

More quick rambling:

1. I like Seafair. So bite me, all you Johnny-come-latelies who think Seattle is too cool for neighborhood parades and drunken hydroplane watching.
2. On the other hand, the Blue Angels fly a little too low over Beacon Hill for comfort.
3. What happened to the popsicle trucks? There used to be popsicle trucks all over the place during the summer. I haven’t seen or heard one all year. I miss the tiny “Joe” carts that used to be everywhere.
4. Why do the Mariners only give the good giveaways to kids 14 and under? Tonight they are giving “Ti-GARs” — tigers with Edgar Martinez’s face. They are slightly disturbing, yet I must have one. But, noooooooo. Kids only! And the only kids I know would insist on keeping the Ti-GAR for themselves, so I can’t just bring a kid to the game. SO. IRRITATING.

Okay, enough rambling. There has been relatively recent news on the towing front, and I’m writing up a post about that which will follow later today.