Rasmussen Blows a Kiss

New Seattle City Council Member Tom Rasmussen, the city council's only gay member, blew a chance to plant the first gay kiss in the new council chambers. During the Monday, January 5, inauguration, Rasmussen and his partner, Onvia.com founder Clayton Lewis, shared a chaste hug in front of a couple hundred onlookers after Lewis administered Rasmussen's oath of office.

Rasmussen's colleague, Jim Compton, wasn't so discreet; he and his new wife, Seattle City Light Advisory Board member Carol Arnold, shared a smooch over the podium after Arnold swore Compton in. ERICA C. BARNETT


Parrish Blows It

Last week, Seattle Weekly columnist Geov Parrish wrote that Paul Allen's development designs in South Lake Union was one of the most underreported stories of the year. Given Parrish's penchant for knee-jerk lefty analysis, it's not surprising (yawn) that he assumed the media didn't monitor Paul Allen's real-estate machinations. Had Parrish done some reporting, however, he would have discovered that Allen's plans for South Lake Union and Allen's sway over city policy have been covered at length.

In fact, the four local papers published nearly 150 stories on the topic last year. The Seattle Times ran 57 stories, including a two-day front-page series. The Stranger ran 38 stories, including a feature story called "Trolley Folly." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran 35 stories. Perhaps Parrish's criticism is directed at his own paper: The Weekly published just 16 stories on South Lake Union, and most were rehashes of pieces that had appeared in other papers. JOSH FEIT


Connelly Irks O'Reilly

Right-wing TV guy Bill O'Reilly, of Fox's The O'Reilly Factor, stumbled into the Oh Really? factor this week. In O'Reilly's January 6 online column about people who "can't stand the fact the country is based on Judeo-Christian tradition" and "think capitalism is oppressive," he focused on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly. According to O'Reilly, the P-I is "one of the most liberal papers in the country" and Connelly is a "liberal columnist." O'Reilly fumes that "[the P-I] even endorsed Jim McDermott." I guess O'Reilly didn't know that McDermott's only recent challenger was a far-left Green named Joe Szwaja nor that Connelly recently awarded McDermott Bonehead of the Year, writing, "One more big plus for our region would be a regime change in the 7th District." Says Connelly: "If I'm so liberal why did the Wall Street Journal recently suggest I run against McDermott in the primary?" Connelly will take his case to O'Reilly when he appears on O'Reilly's show on January 8. NANCY DREW