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The Alpine Meadows ski resort near Lake Taho is closed today due to unprecedented snowfall, high high winds and avalanche hazards.
The nearby Squaw Valley has had the greatest seasonal snowfall on record, with 45 inches overnight at 8200 ft.
Snow has even hit lower elevations in northern CA, with
Join SGN as we descend upon the largest Gay dance music festival in the world and mingle with men and women from around the globe at White Party Palm Springs. The annual three-day spectacular will take place on April 8-11, 2011 in the California desert and is the marquee event of the circuit party season.
Your S
Over the sounds of screaming, foaming milk at Cafe Fiore last night, one-time-local and now Los Angeles based singer-songwriter, Amy Blaschke managed to transcend the unconventional venue and give me some serious goosebumps. Her delicate, down-trodden songs and voice and its emotional affect most reminded me of Karen [...]
Can you guess what movies Thom Andersen uses to illustrate the following ideas in his smart and playful video essay, Los Angeles Plays Itself? (Hint: Here’s a list)
“Through Union Station’s corridors and grand lobby have passed gangsters, drug dealers, political protesters, munchkins, even an alien in heat disguised as a railroad conductor.”
“Whenever the legitimacy of authority comes into question, Hollywood responds with disaster movies. And whenever there’s a disaster movie, there’s George Kennedy.
There's plenty of evidence that building roads doesn't do much to relieve congestion. This fairly exhaustive literature review from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute shows that building new road space in an urban area tends to encourage drivers to take advantage of faster-moving traffic by making extra trips.
Estimates vary, but it seems that somewhere between most and all of any new road capacity is quickly occupied by new "induced" traffic. (See, for example, the chart to the right from the VTPI lit review.)
Reading this body of literature, Brookings Institution researcher Anthony Downs argues that traffic congestion has become an inescapable fact of urban life . In fact, he argues, the steps we take to fight congestion -- such as building new roads -- often carry the seeds of their own destruction:
Visualize a major commuting freeway so heavily congested each morning that traffic crawls for at...
A movie legend ended this morning: Elizabeth Taylor, who battled congestive heart failure for many years, died in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 79. Though an acclaimed screen actress who successfully transitioned from child star ("National Velvet") to a varied grown-up career, every portion of her life made headlines: her many marriages, her dramatic health problems, her charity work (much of it in the field of HIV/AIDS, in which Taylor was a pioneering voice), her love for elaborate jewelry,
My first encounter with the work of Thom Andersen was a screening at the Northwest Film Forum in 2005 of “Los Angeles Plays Itself,” a three-hour documentary comprised of clips from movies set in Los Angeles. The only thing I had seen of such devoted magnitude to the importance of location in motion pictures had been “My Voyage to Italy,” Martin Scorsese’s 1999 educational trek through Italian cinema. Stimulating as that journey had proven, Andersen’s paean to the city that has more levels than Dante’s Hell was closer to home. So it was with much enthusiasm that I responded to the news that Andersen, who teaches film at CalArts, would to return to the NWFF from March 26-29 for a retrospective of his work, as well as a rare showing of “The Exiles,” Kent Mackenzie’s 1961 portrait of the Native Americans living in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles, a film that resurfaced recently as a result of Andersen’s references to it in “Los Angeles Plays Itself.”
Eadweard Muybridge,...
Point Reyes north of San Francisco reached 79 mph.
At Burns Canyon 20 miles N of Palm Springs at 6300 ft, there was a wind gust of 96 knots (110 mph) at noon Sunday 20 March 2011. In contrast, at 11 AM the wind was nearly calm at Palm Springs.
The 27-hr total ending
The large-scale weather pattern has shifted in a way that is going to give Seattle far better weather than southern California and protect us from any Japanese radiation for a while.
What configuration can provide such a boon? Large-scale troughing on the West Coast that is going to send weather disturbances to our south.
Here are two upper-level weather maps for the 500 mb level (roughly 18,000 ft).
The airflow parallels the lines and the closer they are together the stronger the
The Lincoln Lawyer
Opening March 18
Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is a Los Angeles defense attorney making his living defending drug dealers, biker gangs, and other relative lowlifes using the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car as his office to wheel and deal with prosecutors, law enfo
Battle: Los Angeles Opening March 11
First things first: director Jonathan Liebesman's (Darkness Falls, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) extra-terrestrial war epic Battle: Los Angeles is nothing more than a stripped-down, interstellar remake of Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. From the way cine
City council member Tim Burgess, whose forum on human trafficking drew more than 700 attendees, now plans to propose legislation to crack down on the practice of wage theft—hiring people and then paying them less than promised or not paying them at all, a practice similar to trafficking in that it preys on vulnerable individuals, particularly illegal immigrants.
At a council committee meeting yesterday, council members heard from an immigrant who had been the victim of wage theft, along with advocates
First you lose your job, then you lose your health insurance. If you take a lower wage job, chances are you won't get health coverage with it. As a result, there are now more than 1 million people in Washington without health insurance.
Debate all you want about the long-term policy answers. In the meantime, the morally and fiscally responsible choice for our state is clear: save lives and money by keeping people insured.
With health insurance, people get preventative care and can treat conditions like diabetes, heart disease and cancer before they spiral out of control. Without it, people suffer unnecessarily, and we all pay higher premiums and more in taxes because we force people without insurance into expensive emergency room visits at the last minute.
Washington's Basic Health Plan (BHP) used to address this problem by sharing the cost of health coverage with participants on a sliding scale based on age, family size and income. If your job didn't pay much and didn't offer health coverage (the two often go hand-...
First up, the FIRST FRC Seattle Regional which is a high school robotics competition. It's March 18th and 10th (Friday and Saturday) at Qwest Field Event Center, from 9-4 pm (with a lunch break for the participants from noon to 1 p.m.) It's free to the public.
From the website:
Event is for all ages. Self guided Robot Pit tours are available, but closed toed shoes will be required (no sandals
It turns out that the leading national research center for tsunamis is here in Seattle (National Center for Tsunami Research). At the Center they have developed numerical simulation models for tsunami events.
Here is a simulation of the unfolding of this event (click on it to enlarge):
You see how complicated the structure is? Multiple waves, reverberating off obstacles
Battle: Los Angeles Opening March 11
First things first: director Jonathan Liebesman's (Darkness Falls, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) extra-terrestrial war epic Battle: Los Angeles is nothing more than a stripped-down, interstellar remake of Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. From the way ci
Posted by news intern Megan Burbank
Recently, three people were violently mugged in downtown Seattle on one day, which raises the question—is this the crime zeitgeist of our city? Is one group of connected individuals responsible for all three of the attacks? Or has there just been a spike in robberies downtown?
According to police reports, it all began Wednesday, February 23 at 12:04 a.m. when a man waiting for a bus at Second Avenue and Bell Street made the fatal mistake of reaching for matches
Join visiting filmmaker Thom Andersen on Sunday, March 27 from 12-3pm for a screening and discussion of The Exiles (1961), Kent Mackenzie’s portrait of a Native American community living in downtown Los Angeles.
Says Andersen of the film, “The Exiles is still an inspiration to me because of its patience, its modesty, and its generosity. It tries to be as radical as reality, and thus it reveals more than what its makers could know or say.”
During his visit to the Film Forum, Thom Andersen will also
Here is the 24-h snowfall map for the period ending 4PM Monday.
Wow. The mountains get 2-3 feet of snow and the Puget Sound and SW WA lowlands get several inches. There would be precipitation
Ever wonder what former US senate candidate Dino Rossi has been up to since November? Just the same old stuff, apparently. He’s headlining another foreclosure seminar in Bellevue on March 8th, just like he was nailed for doing last summer. The Homeowner Conference is billing the “By Invitation Only” event as part of a “real estate & financial series” featuring “economic experts” like Dino Rossi and John Curly.
The invite says attendees will learn “The 7 critical mistakes you do not want to make when
Posted by news intern Megan Burbank
Remember the cafe that purportedly banned TSA agents from its premises?
Well, the Transportation Security Administration says it's not real. When reached today by phone, SeaTac TSA spokeswoman Tracy McConkey said, "We don’t have any confirmation that this story has any validity at all. It’s not in Sea-Tac airport or in the surrounding area. We don’t believe that it exists."
Obviously, this is one more strike against the TSA-banning cafe of mystery being a real thing,
Yesterday, when I was posting about the café by SeaTac that supposedly bans TSA agents, I contacted Elliott.org, which broke the story, to ask for information about the name of the café. I got a response from Christopher Elliott that read:
Thanks for your interest in the story. She will not reveal the name of the cafe, but you might ask.
He included the e-mail address of KC McLawson, his contact person on the story. I sent an e-mail to McLawson last night and another e-mail just now asking for information
Posted by news intern Megan Burbank
A lot of people hate Valentine's Day for a lot of different reasons—like their significant other is a dog. But no one is more justified in resenting V-Day than someone who spends February 14 on the receiving end of robbery notes instead of cards filled with warm fuzzies. Which is exactly what happened last Monday to an unlucky Wells Fargo bank teller in Rainier Valley.
According to the police report, it all started innocuously enough, when a man entered the bank
Mark your calendars, P-and-P Seattle readers: Turner Classic Movies is presenting a special free screening of Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" at SIFF Cinema on Thursday, March 3 at 7:30 p.m. TCM host Robert Osborne and "North by Northwest" star Eva Marie Saint (an Oscar winner for "On the Waterfront") will be present for a Q & A. This event is, I'm told, part of the buildup for TCM's Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, and should be a lot of fun. You can download your free pass here; plan on arriving
(By the way, you have exactly one day left -- today -- to catch the Hepburn movies at Cinerama. I went yesterday, and "Roman Holiday" was glorious and looked beautiful -- for me and the five other people in the theater.)
The countdown continues with another polarizing film: Christopher Nolan's "Inception," one of the biggest moneymakers of 2010 (and certainly the biggest film based on a non-sequel original screenplay -- a rarity in Hollywood these days). An intricate, dazzling tale of dream invasion,
According to TIME, This American Life has discovered Coke's secret formula. Here it is:
The recipe:
Fluid extract of Coca: 3 drams USP
Citric acid: 3 oz
Caffeine: 1 oz
Sugar: 30 (unclear quantity)
Water: 2.5 gal
Lime juice: 2 pints, 1 quart
Vanilla: 1 oz
Caramel: 1.5 oz or more for colorThe secret 7X flavor (use 2 oz of flavor to 5 gals syrup):
Alcohol: 8 oz
Orange oil: 20 drops
Lemon oil: 30 drops
Nutmeg oil: 10 drops
Coriander: 5 drops
Neroli: 10 drops
Cinnamon: 10 drops
This seems too...natural...to me. I just
Posted by news intern Megan Burbank
Most crimes are boring to read about (anonymous burglaries), and many of them are sad, because there is nothing funny about desperate people doing desperate things in order to survive. Whether they're beating someone up for a five-dollar bill (.pdf), or getting into an altercation at a homeless shelter (.pdf), it seems clear that most criminals—the non-sociopaths, anyway—are people who feel like they don't have any other options. And maybe they're right.
But then
Palm Springs Police have won a court victory in their defense of a Gay sex sting that resulted in 19 arrests in 2009.
A Superior Court judge refused to dismiss the charges last week, saying that he did not believe the police discriminated against Gays in the controversial sting.
'These 19 men were
Singer-songwriter Peter Himmelman received his first round of applause on the day he was born.
His mother had chosen to have a natural childbirth without anesthesia, and when her son emerged from the womb, a group of medical students watching the delivery applauded his arrival.
“It’s weird,” Himmelman said in a phone call from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. “You could say I was born to be on stage.”
Joe McDonnal was the Merlin of memories -- a cook, a caterer, a restaurateur, a creative artist with an eye for design and a man who made magic wherever he went.
Parties? He threw a few. Like the time he catered a leap-year birthday bash at his Market Place Caterers, purposely flooding the long entry, then placing steppingstones in foot-high water, inviting guests -- men in tuxes, women in heels -- to "leap" their way in.
At the Seattle Asian Art Museum, he created a grand illusion by lining the walls
Posted by news intern Megan Burbank
Just before midnight on February 1, a carload of friends, including one recently stabbed friend, was barreling toward Swedish hospital in Ballard. Though kind enough to drive their ailing comrade to the hospital, they were not very helpful witnesses when police arrived—"all initially stated that they had not seen anything," says a Seattle police report. With injuries considered serious and officers in tow, the group made way for Harborview, where the officer grilled
COMMENTARY
(To read more of Tomi's writing, go to her bog: Disenchanted Princess, Peace through truth)
US has lost all credibility, as well as the opportunity to be relevant, in the region.
Popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan have been the main topic of news media of late, and while the democratic yearnings of the populace should, in theory, be supported by the U.S., a change in the status quo is the last thing our government wants.
Since the days of Eisenhower, our government has striven to make democracy our #1 export, in the perhaps mistaken belief that any democratic country would be our ally. Israel was the first country in the Middle East to get the American stamp of approval and, since its inception, this tiny state the size of New Jersey has received a total of $140 billion of aid (source), $53 billion of which was military aid (source). This is a symbol of America’s “special relationship” with Israel.
But what about our special relationships with the dictatorships of Tunisia, Libya, and...
by Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN Contributing Writer
The King's Speech was the big winner when the 83rd Annual Academy Award nominations were announced. The chronicle of King George VI of England's battle with his chronic stutter was the leader with 12 nominations, in
Big business is banking record profits now, but for the rest of us this recession isn't going away anytime soon.
In Snohomish County, one out of 10 workers is unemployed, and that ratio hasn't changed for the past 12 months. So we should be thinking about how to create jobs, and that doesn't mean more handouts to the corporate sector. Washington has nearly $4 billion in corporate tax breaks on the books already — but so far they aren't creating jobs, at least not here.
How do you create jobs? Ironically, by bolstering unemployment insurance. That's right. Every penny of unemployment insurance gets spent on food, rent, clothing and the other necessities of life. The Department of Labor estimates that every $1 in unemployment insurance puts $2.15 of purchasing power on the street. That money isn't used to speculate in stock markets around the world, and it isn't spent in China on new factories that replace U.S. manufacturing. Instead it is spent right here in Washington. Now that's a job creator.
In Snohomish County,...
