The Stickiest Place in Seattle

Enviro • Olympia

Seattle Senator Joins Conservative Democrats in Threat to Gut Clean Fuels Bill

by Rich Smith • Tuesday at 10:55 am

The five people working to kill the clean fuels bill.
My photo editing may be sloppy, but these five people are trying to kill the clean fuels bill, so let's just try to focus on priorities here. WA LEG

Over the weekend, five Democratic Senators and five unions who almost always oppose major climate legislation signed a hostage letter addressed to Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, demanding he swallow the poison pills the Senate slipped into the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) bill or else lose their support. Fitzgibbon sponsored the proposal at the request of the Governor's office, so he's the one who leads negotiations on the transformative bill, which passed the Senate late last week for the first time ever.

The signatories on the letter included four conservative Democrats responsible for watering down a lot of bills this year: Mark Mullet (our very own Joe Manchin), Annette Cleveland, Kevin Van de Wege, and Steve Conway. Sen. Steve Hobbs would normally make that list, but he joined Republicans in voting against the bill in the first place.

The somewhat surprising name on the letter was Sen. Bob Hasegawa. He represents South Seattle's 11th Legislative District, an area with much lower life expectancies than neighborhoods north of the cut. Environmentalists blame some of those health problems on the very air pollution the LCFS would scrub out over time, so why the hell would he oppose a bill that would directly benefit the health of people in his district?

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Housekeeping

Take The Stranger's 2021 Reader Survey!

by The Stranger • Tuesday at 9:15 am

ReaderSurvey.jpg
Anthony Keo

Hey, Sloggers!

When was the last time we checked in with each other? It's been too long. Let's fix that.

It turns out it's really easy to lose track of time when you're busy toggling between reporting on climate justice, blogging about the future of capitalism, and figuring out which fucking movie to watch this weekend. We realize that creating a moment to touch base and build *~*synergy*~* is overdue, so let's doooo it.

We want to ask you a few essential questions, like:

  • How do you feel about comments on Slog posts?
  • Would you rather read a tight 500-word review or a 10,000-word opus?
  • Do you come to Slog just for the sex talk?

    Those are some of the issues that come up in this year's reader survey—a survey we've made very easy for you to fill out. There are only ten straightforward questions, and you can browse them all right here, right beneath this paragraph. We're also offering free tickets to SPLIFF 2021 and HUMP's Greatest Hits as thanks for sending us your thoughts. (Are your thoughts too big for one survey? Then send us a letter at editor@thestranger.com.)

    You've got until Monday, April 26 to take this survey. Let's get it started!

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    • Sponsored

    Are you a PCC Member? This Progressive Voter Guide is just for you.

    After the CEO opposed hazard pay, these PCC frontline workers decided to run for election to the co-op’s board. Now it’s up to PCC members to decide.

    Slog AM/PM

    Slog AM: Nationwide Protests Demand Justice for Daunte Wright, U.S. Pauses Johnson & Johnson Vaccine, and Q May Be a Former Drama Kid from Mukilteo

    by Rich Smith • Tuesday at 8:34 am

    Seattle protesters held a candlelight vigil for Daunte Wright, who was killed by a police union president and 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department.
    Seattle protesters held a candlelight vigil for Daunte Wright, who was killed by a police union president and 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center Police Department. Some of those protesters later smashed a downtown Starbucks window and tagged some buildings. David Ryder / GETTY

    Dow Constantine told the sheriff to "consider retiring immediately": The county executive told a constituent "'I have spoken with Sheriff Johanknecht about the challenges that she and the Sheriff’s Office face. In light of these challenges, and the shift of authority and responsibility from the Sheriff to the Executive office in less than nine months, I urged her to consider retiring immediately and allowing the people of King County and the law enforcement community to instead focus on the important transition ahead," according to the Seattle Times. After the Sheriff's Office last month announced a $5 million settlement in the killing of Tommy Le, Johanknecht told staff the settlement was "not a reflection of how I view the actions" of the deputy who shot Le.

    Protests break out across the country after a police officer kills Daunte Wright: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz issued a 7 p.m. curfew across four counties to make protesting anywhere near the Twin Cities after dusk a violation of the law. After a vigil earlier in the evening, riot cops moved in to enforce the curfew, first issuing orders to disperse and then firing off "multiple rounds of tear gas, along with rubber bullets and flash grenades," according to the Star Tribune. Cops ended up arresting 40 people at the Brooklyn Center and 13 at a protest in Minneapolis.

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    News • Slog AM/PM

    Slog PM: Justice for Daunte Wright, Inslee Sends Some Counties Back to Phase 2, Seattle Named Its Sewage Drill After "Mudhoney"

    by Nathalie Graham • Monday at 5:30 pm

    People prepare to march through the streets of Manhattan to protest the recent killing of Daunte Wright by police in Minnesota.
    People preparing to march through the streets of Manhattan to protest the recent killing of Daunte Wright by police in Minnesota. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    One person killed at Knoxville, Tennessee high school shooting: Details are still evolving, but local police reported someone shot multiple people at Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tennessee. One male is dead, and police took a suspect in custody. The report stated a local police officer was among those shot but said that his wounds were not life-threatening.

    Womp, womp, back to Phase 2 for some Washington counties: Gov. Jay Inslee is sending Cowlitz, Pierce, and Whitman counties back to Phase 2 of reopening because COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations are rising in those areas. Indoor spaces in those places will go from Phase 3's 50% indoor capacity back to Phase 2's 25% indoor capacity. Concerts and graduations will still be okay in Phase 2. Scroll down to the final graphic in this PDF for more clarity on what's allowed in Phase 2. ICYMI: The pandemic still isn't over!

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    Film/TV • Hump

    Coming Soon: The Sexy Fun of HUMP's Greatest Hits, Volume 3!

    by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey • Monday at 5:00 pm

    Screen_Shot_2021-04-12_at_9.51.19_AM.png

    As you know, HUMP! is America's sweetest li'l dirty movie festival, featuring five-minute amateur porn flicks submitted by horny enthusiasts from all over the Pacific Northwest (and the world)! And after 15 years of HUMP!, you better believe we have a huge backlog of great, sexy short films... and wouldn't you like to revisit some? YES, YOU WOULD!

    For five big weekends starting Friday, April 30, through Saturday, May 29, we'll be streaming a brand new volume of our festival, called "HUMP! Greatest Hits, Volume 3." This volume contains even more audience favorites—some you may remember, some you've never seen before—that are hot 'n' sexy, creative 'n' kinky, and heartfelt 'n' hilarious. And even better? In select screenings, you'll be able to watch LIVE with other hotsy-totsy HUMP! fans—and even some of the festival's directors and performers! As always, HUMP! features a cornucopia of body types, shapes, ages, colors, sexualities, genders, kinks, and fetishes—all united by a shared spirit of sex-positivity. It's a celebration of creative sexual expression, and a terrific (and hot!) way to be reminded that our humanity lies in our differences.

    SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Put some excitement into your weekends by streaming "HUMP! Greatest Hits, Volume 3" in the comfort of your own home (or bedroom) starting April 30. GET YOUR TICKETS NOW AND HERE!

    Want a sexy taste of what you'll see? Watch the trailer for "HUMP! Greatest Hits, Volume 3"!

    Transportation

    Elon Musk’s 'Loop' Is Nothing More Than a Slow, Dumb Subway

    by Charles Mudede • Monday at 4:00 pm

    Sorry, train. You can go on. Im waiting for my Loop car.
    "Sorry, train. You can go on. I'm waiting for my Loop car." Charles Mudede

    Can I begin with a headline? I really want the Slog's editor, Chase Burns, who loves chaotically long headlines, to see how far a headline can be pushed.

    This one is from a UK rag called the Daily Mail, and it concerns the recent unveiling in Las Vegas of Elon Musk's future of transportation. The headline, Burns: "What a bore! Elon Musk's 'futuristic' $55M Las Vegas public transit Loop is panned as a 'crappy Disney ride' and 'just humans driving through a tunnel at 35mph' as it's finally unveiled - and there's NO sign of the 155mph driverless Teslas." There you go.

    Now, the video of the Loop looked as plausible as a Hype Williams music video from the 1990s. It was car after car moving through a tunnel with lots of flashy lights. But, as the Daily Mail pointed out, there was nothing in the Loop (lights, tunnel, single car) that seemed genuinely "futuristic." If the car is driverless and moving at almost the speed of a race car, then, the thinking goes, we got something that's better than the car on the road today. But the Loop used an ordinary Tesla and moved at a speed that can be obtained and sustained with some good lungs and a bicycle. But this was not even the real failure of the Loop.

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    Film/TV • SIFF

    SIFF 2021 Review: Slalom's Complicated Portrait of Abuse Set Against the Alps

    by Jasmyne Keimig • Monday at 3:15 pm

    TK
    Noée Abita gives a fantastic performance as Lyz. COURTESY OF CHARLIE BUS PRODUCTION AND SIFF

    French director Charlène Favier's debut feature film follows Lyz (a fantastic Noée Abita), a 15-year-old girl who gets accepted into an elite skiing program in the French Alps despite her relative lack of experience. There she comes under the tutelage of Fred (Jérémie Renier), an extremely demanding program director who pushes his students physically and emotionally to the limit.

    Left alone by her mother, Lyz quickly becomes an isolated target for the predatory Fred. The film keenly tracks all the tiny violations that lead up to an initial sexual transgression: how Fred commands Lyz to undress in his office, measuring her body fat; the way he patronizingly talks to her about her period; how he warms up her legs and rubs snow on her neck before her race begins. It sets the young girl up for a giant violation by her coach, one that quickly spirals once she moves in with him and his girlfriend.

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    EverOut

    The Best Things to Do from Home in Seattle This Week: April 12-18, 2021

    by EverOut Staff • Monday at 1:45 pm

    The third annual SPLIFF returns this Friday with weed-induced short films made by and for stoners just like you!
    The third annual SPLIFF returns this Friday with weed-induced short films made by and for stoners just like you! SPLIFF

    It's another hot week for virtual film festivals: The Stranger's own SPLIFF, the Seattle Black Film Festival, and Cadence are hitting local streaming rooms while the Seattle International Film Festival and the Seattle Bicycle Film Festival continue their runs. See below for those and other at-home entertainment options (like readings with Patricia Engel and the new Washington State Poet Laureate) to check out while you refresh the vaccine locator, and explore our guide to COVID-safe in-person things to do in Seattle for more options. 

    MONDAY

    COMMUNITY
    Wild Washington Live!
    Take a virtual field trip to Orcas Island's Moran State Park with the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to learn about our region's temperate rainforest and coastal ecosystems with two AmeriCorps members.

    Read on EverOut »
    Film/TV • Homo • History

    The Straightening of Chandler Bing

    by Matt Baume • Monday at 1:05 pm

    We all know this gay couple.
    We all know this gay couple. Friends

    This weekend Friends finished filming a reunion episode, slated to appear on HBO Max at some point, which has me thinking about just how close the show came to featuring what could have been the most prominent gay sitcom character in history.

    Showrunners came this close to making the Chandler character gay, only pulling back after they cast Matthew Perry.

    But despite having straightened Chandler out, creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane gave the cast and crew explicit instructions to retain the gay vibe: “write it gay,” they told everyone, “and play it straight.”

    I wonder, looking back now, if they had allowed Chandler to be gay — or bi, or any other flavor of queer — would that have been better? Or would it have been a huge mess?

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    Savage Love

    Savage Love: Concessions

    by Dan Savage • Monday at 12:20 pm

    040721_Savage_Concessions.jpg
    Joe Newton
    I’m a 29-year-old straight male. I’ve been with my 25-year-old partner for six years. I love her and think that we are perfect for each other. We have all the things that make existing with someone wonderful. But about two years into our relationship I had a two-week-long affair while I was out of the country. I fucked up. I came clean to my partner and we’ve done our best to work through this over the last four years, but it has obviously caused some trust issues between us. I’ve never cheated it again and I try every day to work through these issues I caused in our relationship.

    There’s also been two recent instances of me breaking her trust. On a particularly stressful day I was caught sneaking a cigarette—the sneaking part is the issue—and on another occasion I did drugs in our communal back garden with a friend after she had gone to bed. I owned up to both straight away. I view both of these as being a symptom of the lockdown/pandemic prompting me to break with my “normal” behavior. But partner is no longer comfortable allowing me to have the freedom to go out with my friends and partake in drugs without her express permission, which she already said she’s unlikely to grant me. The other element to this is, we want kids in three years. We’ve agreed that I will fully abstain from all drugs after we become parents.

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    News • Election 2021 • City Council Election Updates

    Sara Nelson’s Sobriety Changed the Way She Thinks About the Homelessness, But It Hasn’t Changed Her Policy Prescriptions

    by Nathalie Graham • Monday at 10:20 am

    Nelson is all about economic recovery and bringing accountability back to city hall.
    Nelson is all about bringing accountability back to city hall. COURTESY OF THE NELSON CAMPAIGN

    Fremont Brewing co-owner Sara Nelson considers herself a "progressive small business owner," and she thinks Seattle is missing that small-business voice on its city council. If elected, her main priority will be Seattle's economic recovery.

    That's the basic pitch driving her run for Seattle City Council Position 9, the citywide position vacated by Council President Lorena Gonzalez, who is running for Mayor.

    Nelson, who has a background as a city council aide, is vying for the seat along with master's student Claire Grant, Gonzalez's chief of staff Brianna Thomas, and activist and lawyer Nikkita Oliver.

    This isn't the first time the brewery owner has tried for a seat on the dais, and it's not the first time she's pitched herself as the business candidate. In 2017, she finished third in the primary for the other citywide seat, Position 8. This time, though, Nelson is newly sober.

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    Film/TV • SIFF

    SIFF 2021 Review: THERE IS NOT A SINGLE CHILL MOMENT IN THIS ENTIRE MOVIE!!!

    by Chase Burns • Monday at 9:15 am

    SCREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    SCREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! COURTESY OF SIFF

    It’s like ordering a quad espresso and injecting it straight into your heart.

    Taiwanese director I-Fan Wang's first feature film, Get the Hell Out, is based around a group of politicians, legislators, and plebeians who get trapped in a parliament overcome by zombies with "idiot rabies." It's bloody, high-pitched, feverishly paced, and certainly not for everyone.

    Some of those not-for people could include:

  • People turned off by excessively squirty blood,
  • Horror bros who want their scary movies to play by a genre rulebook,
  • Puritans who think we should really fuss over the ins and outs of a plot.

    There's a plot just beneath Get the Hell Out's surface, definitely, but it's best to give yourself over to its general, moment-by-moment recklessness. It's not faithful to anything except A! PACE! THAT! WILL! NOT! QUIT! I don't smoke, but I needed a cigarette after watching this 96-minute fist-pump.

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    • Slog AM/PM

    Slog AM: Cops Kill Another Man in Minnesota, Gunman Injures Four in the Central District, and the "White Lives Matter" Rally That Wasn't

    by Matt Baume • Monday at 8:31 am

    Ready to march again like last year?
    Ready to march again like last year? ChrisBoswell / Getty Images

    A cop killed a black motorist a few miles from the Derek Chauvin trial. Police in Brooklyn Center, just a few miles from Minneapolis, pulled over 20-year-old Daunte Wright Sunday afternoon, and then shot him. He died within minutes, and a huge angry crowd gathered to protest yet another killing. Police fired tear gas at protestors, and the National Guard appeared to keep protestors at bay. Cops say Wright tried to re-enter the vehicle before they killed him, as if that were a justification. Also this weekend, video circulated around social media of a December traffic stop in which cops threaten a Black and Latino Army officer. So did we learn anything from last summer or no?

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    Slog AM/PM

    Slog PM: New Light Rail Stations Open in Oct, Inslee Relaxes Reopening Metrics, and RIP DMX

    by Rich Smith • Friday at 5:45 pm

    ......................................................god damn it
    ......................................................god damn it

    A day after vowing not to change the reopening metrics, Governor Inslee changes the reopening metrics: Now counties need to fail to meet both state-approved hospitalization rate and case rate thresholds to automatically fall back a phase in Inslee's reopening plan, the Governor announced in an email Friday afternoon. The news comes after "more than a dozen" counties appeared at risk of failing to contain the virus to an acceptable degree ahead of the statewide check-in scheduled for Monday, and only a day after Inslee said during a press conference that changes to the metrics were not "a discretionary call by the governor."

    Counties that are failing to meet both metrics include: "Adams, Asotin, Cowlitz, Douglas, Pend Oreille, Pierce*, Yakima," according to a tally from MyNorthwest. That asterisk next to Pierce County acknowledges a small difference between state and county data on case rates. King County currently meets both metrics, so we'll probably remain in Phase 3, but the trends are not looking great.

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    News • Film/TV • SIFF

    Vivian Hua Is a Winner, Baby!

    by Jasmyne Keimig • Friday at 5:15 pm

    More unboxing videos from Vivian Hua, please.
    More unboxing videos from Vivian Hua, please. Screenshot from NWFF's Instagram
    At yesterday's SIFF opening night celebration, executive director Vivian Hua (華婷婷) and Northwest Film Forum received the 2021 Mayor’s Film Award for Outstanding Achievement in Film. Hua—a filmmaker, writer, and organizer in her own right—has been the executive director of NWFF since 2018. During her tenure, Hua and her crew expertly guided the theater on Capitol Hill through an ongoing pandemic that has fundamentally changed the film industry.

    “As executive director of Northwest Film Forum, Vivian brings to her role a passion for preserving cultural space, centering work in equity and inclusivity, and finding ways to disrupt oppressive structures," said Durkan in a press release announcing the news.

    Over phone, Hua told me she was happy to receive the award, especially as NWFF's first executive director of color. She emphasized the importance of hiring, mentoring, and uplifting people of color in all facets of the film industry. "I want and need to see change structurally," she told me. "Not just in terms of low wage positions, but actual positions of power."

    In a fun "unboxing" video, Hua accepted the Dale Chihuly-designed award in front of the box stuffed with packing peanuts it came in. "As we're moving forward with really exciting things in Seattle's film industry... I hope we'll never forget who's always at the table. Who is telling the stories, who is greenlighting projects and why," she said.

    Watch the rest of Hua's acceptance speech down below:

    Next