Bio
My favorite hobby is playing Defensive Omnivore Bingo on Slog comment threads.
TMI
- Dicks or Vaginas
- Dan Savage started the Iraq war. Why?: White male privilege
- Wildrose or Staying Home (Lesbians only)
- What's your favorite Charles Mudede post?: That one with the picture of a building with incomprehensible Marxist allusions
- Pot or Coke
Jun 7
raku commented on What's Wrong With Capitol Hill.
raku commented on What's Wrong With Capitol Hill.
#14: If your defense of the report is that you didn't write the recommendations (even though it's signed with your name), you obviously know it is very problematic.
You wrote very political statements bordering on hate speech about "street people", and your only recommendations were to pass laws so that it's easier for police to fine or jail them, and to adopt a "no tolerance policy". Are you really surprised Dominic (or anyone with a social conscience) would react with vitriol?
Along with your top recommendation about *wink* street people, your second major recommendation is for MORE parking subsidized by the city (not a word about more transit, bicycle infrastructure, pedestrian infrastructure, accessibility for the disabled, etc).
That's clearly not just a report of the facts - it's a political tool to pressure the government into changing laws to turn Capitol Hill into something completely out of step with the people who live in the neighborhood. Your entire report envisions turning Broadway into University Village - it's extremely tone-deaf at best and racist/classist at worst.
Confidential to Dominic: Please tell your fellow Stranger writers to stop writing free ad after free ad on Slog/The Stranger for every shitty business that #10 opens, pretending his new pizza shacks or bars are "news". You're financially supporting a Conlin fundraiser who has pushed the regressive recommendations in this report for years. I would not be surprised at all if he had a hand in writing the worst of these recommendations.
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You wrote very political statements bordering on hate speech about "street people", and your only recommendations were to pass laws so that it's easier for police to fine or jail them, and to adopt a "no tolerance policy". Are you really surprised Dominic (or anyone with a social conscience) would react with vitriol?
Along with your top recommendation about *wink* street people, your second major recommendation is for MORE parking subsidized by the city (not a word about more transit, bicycle infrastructure, pedestrian infrastructure, accessibility for the disabled, etc).
That's clearly not just a report of the facts - it's a political tool to pressure the government into changing laws to turn Capitol Hill into something completely out of step with the people who live in the neighborhood. Your entire report envisions turning Broadway into University Village - it's extremely tone-deaf at best and racist/classist at worst.
Confidential to Dominic: Please tell your fellow Stranger writers to stop writing free ad after free ad on Slog/The Stranger for every shitty business that #10 opens, pretending his new pizza shacks or bars are "news". You're financially supporting a Conlin fundraiser who has pushed the regressive recommendations in this report for years. I would not be surprised at all if he had a hand in writing the worst of these recommendations.
Jun 6
raku commented on Why I Ride Fearfully Even With a Helmet.
raku commented on Why I Ride Fearfully Even With a Helmet.
12: See below. If you don't like that link, there are a billion studies and articles about why helmet laws make bikers less safe. No coincidence the safest places to bike don't have helmet laws (among other reasons).
http://www.utne.com/Politics/Helmet-Laws…
http://www.utne.com/Politics/Helmet-Laws…
Jun 6
raku commented on Why I Ride Fearfully Even With a Helmet.
raku commented on Why I Ride Fearfully Even With a Helmet.
It's clear that helmets make individuals a little safer while biking, walking, or driving a car. It's also clear that eliminating helmet laws make bikers overall safer.
Why not make policy around what is clearly true, like even most US cities have done? Eliminate all mandatory helmet laws except, maybe, for children. And if you're going to call bikers stupid for not wearing a helmet, make sure to call old grannies walking downtown and bros driving their Toyotas stupid if they don't wear helmets, too.
Why not make policy around what is clearly true, like even most US cities have done? Eliminate all mandatory helmet laws except, maybe, for children. And if you're going to call bikers stupid for not wearing a helmet, make sure to call old grannies walking downtown and bros driving their Toyotas stupid if they don't wear helmets, too.
Jun 6
raku commented on Gold Star Comment of the Day!.
raku commented on Gold Star Comment of the Day!.
Thank you for these posts! It's made me read The Stranger more.
Jun 5
raku commented on The Morning News: Someone Heckles Michelle Obama, Dzhokhar Gets to Call Home, and John McCain Is a Genius (Not Really, Though).
raku commented on The Morning News: Someone Heckles Michelle Obama, Dzhokhar Gets to Call Home, and John McCain Is a Genius (Not Really, Though).
I didn't realize Eli posted about this way early this morning. I commented on that thread also, because I need to follow #18's rule or else they take away my lifetime membership card.
Jun 5
raku commented on Vegetarians Live Longer.
raku commented on Vegetarians Live Longer.
#2/#6: The science reporting on this is terrible. The study controlled for every confound you can think of - weight, age, exercise, smoking, drinking, etc. Every good medical article lists any possible limitations and the only two they could think of were unknown confounds (what if meat eaters all secretly snorted lead paint?) and that the effect doesn't measure an entire lifetime, which is of course ridiculous unless you want to wait 100 years. The same limitations apply to all prospective smoking-health studies. If those are your standards, you must think smoking is still healthy. If you think you debunked the study from 2 minutes of reading a Huffington Post article, when peer reviewers and JAMA take it seriously, you may want to try checking your ego.
This study is important because it answers every question brought upon by the mountains of studies that already show meat eating is deadly. Doctors at JAMA are already talking about best practices to start recommending every patient stop eating meat, just like every doctor says to quit smoking.
This study is important because it answers every question brought upon by the mountains of studies that already show meat eating is deadly. Doctors at JAMA are already talking about best practices to start recommending every patient stop eating meat, just like every doctor says to quit smoking.
Jun 5
raku commented on The Morning News: Someone Heckles Michelle Obama, Dzhokhar Gets to Call Home, and John McCain Is a Genius (Not Really, Though).
raku commented on The Morning News: Someone Heckles Michelle Obama, Dzhokhar Gets to Call Home, and John McCain Is a Genius (Not Really, Though).
More big news: There was a major study published in JAMA yesterday (probably the most respected medical journal organization in the world) that again confirms that eating meat, like smoking, cuts years off your life on average. This is big news because it's another major study that confirms what is already supported, and it's a followup to an earlier major 7th Day Adventist study that supported this finding but left a few loose ends that this ties up.
There's already a lot of talk in the medical community about whether doctors should recommend all patients adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet, just like doctors recommend everyone quit smoking. I personally think we also need a surgeon general's warning on meat, like on cigarettes.
I'm not going to get into a comment war today, but before anyone tries to debunk the study based on 2 minutes of reading a summary, the medical community and JAMA already peer reviewed this, and they controlled for every known variable (exercise, smoking, drinking, age, weight, etc) - probably too much, since there is possibly (likely) a causal effect between veg* diets and healthier lifestyle. There are also dozens of other studies (big and small) that support this.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinolog…
More...
There's already a lot of talk in the medical community about whether doctors should recommend all patients adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet, just like doctors recommend everyone quit smoking. I personally think we also need a surgeon general's warning on meat, like on cigarettes.
I'm not going to get into a comment war today, but before anyone tries to debunk the study based on 2 minutes of reading a summary, the medical community and JAMA already peer reviewed this, and they controlled for every known variable (exercise, smoking, drinking, age, weight, etc) - probably too much, since there is possibly (likely) a causal effect between veg* diets and healthier lifestyle. There are also dozens of other studies (big and small) that support this.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinolog…
Jun 4
raku commented on Lindy West Reads Aloud Some of the Revolting Rape Threats She's Received.
raku commented on Lindy West Reads Aloud Some of the Revolting Rape Threats She's Received.
:D
Jun 4
raku commented on Lindy West Reads Aloud Some of the Revolting Rape Threats She's Received.
raku commented on Lindy West Reads Aloud Some of the Revolting Rape Threats She's Received.
Lindy West is my favorite person on the Internet. If she was vegan and a little less white she'd be a perfect human being.
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I read your report - can you elaborate what you think I'm misrepresenting? I realize now I missed one sentence about more "bike racks". If you go to pages 28-29, your only public policy recommendations are about strengthening laws against "crazy street people", and about increasing subsidized parking.
Can you imagine if you replaced your 17 mentions about "street people" with another marginalized group? Mentally ill people, disabled people, black people, Jewish people, women, queer people? Most of us in Seattle see homeless people as a marginalized group like these other groups, which is why we spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help homeless people, instead of fining or jailing them. You clearly don't see them that way, which is why I gave you the benefit of the doubt in that you might just be "extremely tone-deaf" instead of flat-out racist and classist.
If this was truly just prepared by Kidder Matthews and released without your input, you should demand your money back and warn other people about doing business with them.