The Name Game
Amazon, a feminist bookstore in Minneapolis, filed a federal lawsuit against Seattle's Amazon.com earlier this year, claiming that the e-commerce company hijacked the Amazon name. The 30-year-old bookstore has been bombarded with misdirected phone calls, e-mails, and packages, and they worry that the popular online retailer is obliterating their identity. They've asked the judge to stop Amazon.com from using the name in the Twin Cities. However, the feminist bookstore never officially registered the moniker as a trademark (trademarks, perhaps, are a tool of the capitalist patriarchy?), and they claim to own the name through common law rights. -- JOSH FEIT
The Shell Game
On Monday October 4, in a 7-1 vote with Licata as sole dissenter, the Seattle City Council approved Peter Steinbrueck's proposal to temporarily scrap 63 low-income family units at Holly Park, a public housing project in Rainier Valley currently being redeveloped into a mixed-income development ("SHA Sham," September 2). In addition, the change would zap a number of low-income family units that were supposed to be built off-site: 80 units according to the critics, 18 units according to the city. A loss either way.
John Fox, longtime low-income housing advocate and director of the Seattle Displacement Coalition, says Steinbrueck's proposal reneges on an agreement signed two years ago between the city and the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) to ensure one-for-one-replacement on low-income housing. Steinbrueck, however, says the housing needs will be made up in the next phase of development at Holly Park. He's deferring development, he says, to capitalize on $6 million in federal money that became available to build low-income, elderly-only housing. Fox, who worries that the amendment foreshadows future broken promises to poor families, got 50 folks to sign a protest letter, including Rep. Ed Murray and city council candidate Judy Nicastro (the only council candidate to sign). "These family units are the kinds of units we worked so hard to make sure [were] replaced," Fox says. "SHA has an obligation to replace the family units they removed -- with family units." -- JOSH FEIT
Less Filling, Tastes Great
City Councilman wannabe Curt Firestone takes umbrage at a recent article in the Seattle P-I, criticizing his endorsement of the monorail plan over the light rail plan. In belittling Firestone as a desperate political opportunist, the P-I never directly compared the two plans. If they had, Firestone says, they'd see that the monorail covers twice as much ground and still costs less. -- PHIL CAMPBELL
